Dark Crime Thriller set in a fictional town in Northern England. Gritty realism laced with a surreal atmosphere. Caution : some of the material very 'adult'. A Sports and Leisure Center worker observes a murder through an illegal peephole into the Ladies changing room. The conclusion to this psychological drama is highly unusual.
Genre: FICTION / CrimeSteady sales over 3 years. Made top 3000 at peak.
He was pleading with her to stay but he knew she wanted to go. It was six months since the car crash and for a while it had looked like she might recover but deep down Jock knew that the currents of life were going to flow against him just as they had done in childhood when he had been abandoned to the All Saints Orphanage.
Janet’s funeral had been a drawn out affair and Johnston had broken down. She had chosen an Irish Ballad as well as Psalm 23 but the service had been conducted by the Spiritualist church. It was Janet who had explained Jock's life to him through the Tarot cards—why he had been orphaned and what the lessons of his suffering were. It was Janet who had given him the courage to go on. She was a second generation gypsy from Ireland whose family had settled in Lancashire. Jock himself had been a traveller moving from care home to fosterer’s and settling in with the family of a police constable in Whattle. Through the Tarot deck she helped him find his real father in Scotland and Jim had one brief reunion in Arbroath with Alec. After that meeting he resolved to place the past in a teak box and bury it deep in the unforgiving earth. Jock glanced over and he could see Parker snoozing in the Volvo outside the cemetery gates. He read the epitaph ‘Janet Johnston Resting from her travels and at peace with her God’. In his mind’s eye he closed the teak box and this time dropped it into the ocean. Back at the car Parkie was coming round and the radio light was flashing.
‘Come in Alpha Tango’, ‘Come in Alpha Tango’ the radio blared.
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Italian
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Already translated.
Translated by Emily Grasselli
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by John Facin
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Author review: Excellent work. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Pedro Pablo Perez Aguero
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