The 'look inside' feature on Amazon is now live for my new Jefferson Tayte genealogical mystery, The Lost Empress, which will be released in all formats worldwide on 21 October - unless you live in Australia, in which case you can get it a day early on the 20th. I'm getting more and more excited about it every day.
Below is an excerpt, which is from the preface to the book. This is the first time I've used a preface in my work, and I've done so now because when I came across the material during my research I felt it set the backdrop for the book very well.
The full sample, which includes the prologue and part of chapter one (where we catch up with Jefferson Tayte again) is viewable via this link. Alternatively, you can access it via the 'look inside' feature on the Amazon store wherever you are.
This would be his
first murder, and he hoped it would be his last. His mouth felt dry despite
having just been sick. He could still feel the gastric acid burning his
throat—still smell the sweet bile that now stained his clothes. He wanted
nothing more than to withdraw back into the shadows where he’d been waiting for
the right moment, psyching himself up. But he knew he had to do it. There was
no turning back now. He put on a pair of thin gloves and pulled a grey ski mask
over his head as he continued across the moonlit yard, checking to his left and
to his right as he went. It was quiet—no one else around. The owner of the
workshop-cum-warehouse he was heading for didn’t even have a guard dog, which
would have complicated things because he liked dogs.
There was a light on
inside, just a single lamp by his reckoning. That was where his victim would
be, working late for the last time. He reached the door and pulled a sleek
carving knife from inside his jacket, which he’d bought from the local
supermarket that afternoon. He’d thought long and hard about how he would do
it, concluding that a knife would be quick and quiet and easy to obtain, even
if it did mean getting closer to his victim than he wanted to.
He went around to the
side of the building, heading away from the light, and began to prise the tip
of his knife beneath each window frame as he passed, waiting for one to pop
open. It was an old building, as old as the antiques the man inside liked to
restore for all he knew. The windows were covered in a film of dirt, their old
metal frames chipped and rusty. The fourth window he came to lifted easily and
he stopped beneath it. It was time. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves as
he eased it open. Then he pulled himself up and slipped inside.
He could just make
out the shapes of crates and boxes in the dim moonlight, and he cursed himself
for not thinking to bring a torch. You’re
such an amateur, he thought as he fought the dry cough that was rising in
his throat from all the dust he’d kicked up. He stepped further in, feeling his
way around the crates, looking for the door. Then he heard music, classical
music that was faint and tinny, as though coming from a small radio. The sound
guided him, and as his eyes adjusted he began to make out the glow beneath the
door from the room beyond.
The heady smell of
polish and linseed oil hit him as he teased the door open. The man he had gone
there to kill had his back to him. He was bent over an old pedestal desk twenty
feet away, rubbing the surface with a cloth in smooth, even strokes that seemed
to keep time with the string section that was playing on the radio. He thought
that was good. It would help to mask his approach as he crept up behind him,
but after taking two steps, his nerves got the better of him and he ran to the
desk, knife in hand. He grabbed the man by the collar of his overalls and
pushed him back onto the desk, quickly showing him the knife so there was no
mistaking his intention.
Please follow the link above to read the full sample.
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