Try before you buy

Read an extract from my new novel Cover Story

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that clip of Alan Partridge visiting Norwich Market. “For me though,” he says as he hoovers up freebies, “the real pleasure is walking around the food stalls. Free samples are designed to guilt-trip you into a purchase. But hold your nerve and you can eat the equivalent of a three course meal. Absolutely free. And there’s FA they can do to stop you.”

Well, allow me to offer you a free sample of my own. I do hope it guilt-trips you into buying the book. But there’s FA I can do if you don’t.

CONTENT WARNING: The following extract contains offensive language.

Chapter One

For one brief moment in his life, Col Newton knows exactly what it feels like to have £750 in cash crammed into the back pocket of his jeans.

He has to be honest, it doesn’t feel as good as he hoped it might. As good as he needs it to.

But it will buy him some time. He has no way of knowing how much. It won’t be enough, that’s for sure.

He can feel them closing in on him. Maybe that’s just his usual paranoia. But if he’s learnt one thing over the last few weeks, it’s to trust his paranoia.

He looks back at the bookshop window and sighs as he catches sight of himself reflected in the glass.

God he looks old. Even older than his 49 years, he would say. His ears seem larger than he remembered them. Old man ears. And he’s let his hair grow too long again.

The first rule of Balding Man Club: Keep what hair you have close to your scalp. He knows that.

Col shifts his focus through the glass onto the artful display inside. He shakes his head in despair.

How could he have missed it?

There was a time when this dealer in modern hardback first editions, tucked away in a historic parade, was his favourite shop in London. But now... he doesn’t have words. They have devoted their entire window to a celebration of one book. The book in question is the same heavyweight hardback Col is carrying in his right hand.

The thing is, Col is a writer himself, and he is not the author of the book being fêted. Which means this is about the most depressing sight he can be confronted with. And there are other factors that take his emotions into an even darker place than depression.

Col tears his masochistic gaze away from the display. He knows he has to keep moving. But where to?

He casts a wary glance in both directions along the alley. A wanker on an e-scooter is silently dollying towards him from the Charing Cross Road end. The guy is wearing dark glasses and looks as though he is dressed for a film part. Suddenly he lifts one hand and holds it out in front of him.

There is something dark and sleek and premeditated in his hand.

There is no time for thought. Only action. Col’s arm becomes possessed by movement. His right hand flies away from him. In a fluid extension of that motion, the fat hardback book he is holding shoots through the air. Instinctively, Col has thrown it backhand which somehow enables it to maintain its breeze-block shape.

Col hears a firecracker explode in the wanker’s hand at the same moment as the book hits it. The sleek, dark object arcs away from the wanker, clattering to the ground a few metres away. The wanker falls off the e-scooter with an ungainly flapping of limbs, bringing to mind an ostrich attempting to fly.

Torn between means of escape and weapon of death, the wanker picks up the e-scooter and heads off towards St Martin’s Lane, leaving behind the gun.

Yes, the sleek, dark object is a gun, Col is forced to acknowledge with a thumping heart.

Col is aware of a ringing in his right ear like a fire alarm going off inside his head. The ringing is mixed up with a sharp, stinging pain, as if someone has whipped the side of his head with a riding crop.

He reaches a hand up carelessly. Its touch amplifies the scream of pain. The side of his head feels wet and mushy and incomplete. Where he expects there to be ear, there is only air.

A moment later, everything goes black.

To read on, get the book here.

In other news, you can catch me on the Aspects of Crime podcast, being interviewed by Tim Stretton. Tim and I go back a long way, as we were both first published by Macmillan New Writing back in the day. Tim’s the author of a highly entertaining series of heist novels set in Barcelona, though he writes more than just crime - I love his steampunk books. Check him out.

The handsome beast above is Tim’s cat Magnus, who put in an appearance when we were chatting but unfortunately this is an audio-only show, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The interview is available wherever you get your podcasts, eg on Spotify, Apple and Podfollow.

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