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Release date: December 28, 2017

Publisher: Avon Books

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

Irish runaway. Insomniac. Functioning alcoholic.

Life is about to get complicated for DC Donal Lynch.

When a young woman is kidnapped, Donal is brought in to deliver the ransom money. But the tightly-planned drop off goes wrong, Julie Draper is discovered dead, and Donal finds his job on the line – a scapegoat for the officers in charge.

But when Donal is delivered a cryptic message in the night, he learns that Julie was killed long before the botched rescue mission. As he digs further into the murder in a bid to clear his own name, dark revelations make one thing certain: the police are chasing the wrong man, and the killer has far more blood on his hands than they could even imagine.

I’m so pleased to be one of the stops on the blog tour for Games With the Dead today! I have an extract from the book to share.

Extract:

Extract Seven: Chapter 7, pp.49-50

‘There were two obvious fracture injuries to the back of her skull, both about a week-old and caused by a blunt instrument. I’ll be suggesting these were inflicted nine days ago when she was first abducted.

‘I found chain-like marks around her right ankle; she had been forced to wear some sort of restraint or leg iron. The redness of the injury shows it was caused before death. I found no chafing marks around her wrists though, which seems odd as this is universally the preferred method of restraint.

‘I found another ligature mark running along the back of her neck. Her tongue was protruding through clenched teeth which you normally find in people who’ve hanged themselves. She must have been throttled very violently at the end.

‘Her fingernails were undamaged and there were no marks on her forearms, the sort of defensive injuries that you’d expect if a victim had fought for her life. In other words, when the time came, she must have been restrained and strangled from behind, quickly and cleanly, which will provide some small comfort to her family.

We both need a drink after that. But Edwina’s not finished.

‘Now here’s an odd thing. The changes to Julie’s flesh show she’s been dead for about two days. That makes it impossible for me to determine if she’d been raped or sexually assaulted. But the insects in her body suggest she’s been exposed to air for a lot less time, I’d say between twelve and twenty-four hours.

‘There was also something really striking and bizarre about her appearance.’

She squints at her drink, as if still trying to make sense of it herself.

‘She was completely bald.’

Oohh I’m definitely intrigued!!