Tag: Excerpt

Blog Tour: In The Dark by Andreas Pflüger

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In the Dark blog tour banner

I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for In The Dark by Andreas Pflüger. Published on 2nd November, In The Dark’s protagonist, Jenny Aaron, has been described as a character to stand beside Silence of the Lambs’ Clarice Starling and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander.

I have a wonderful extract below that will introduce you to Jenny.

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In The DarkAbout the Book

Jenny Aaron was a government assassin, part of an elite unit tracking Germany’s most dangerous criminals.

She was one of the best, until a disastrous mission ended with her abandoning a wounded colleague and then going blind from her injuries.

Now, five years later, she has learnt to navigate a darkened world, but is haunted by betraying her colleague. When she is called back to the force to trace a ruthless serial killer, she seizes the opportunity to solve the case and restore her honour.

 

Format: Hardback (368 pp.)     Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2nd November 2017     Genre: Thriller, Crime

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Kobo
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find In The Dark on Goodreads

 

Extract from In The Dark by Andreas Pflüger

The stewardess asks again: ‘With milk?’

‘Black.’ Aaron reaches out her hand and feels the cup being placed in it. She hears the pilot’s voice: ‘In thirty minutes we will land in Berlin. It has already been snowing all morning. Please keep your safety belts fastened, we are expecting some turbulence.’

Aaron forces herself to drink the coffee.

Since she has been working for the BKA, the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, in Wiesbaden, there have been several opportunities to travel to Berlin for work. The office has a branch in the district of Treptow, where the security group, the anti-terror centre and the ‘special unit’ department are based. But Aaron has always been able to avoid it.

She grew up in the Rhineland, but in her early twenties she made Berlin her home, which it still is in some way even today, even though she hasn’t been there for five years. She feels that quite clearly, with every kilometre closer to the city. Impatience floods through her, the joyful anticipation of arrival, a tingle. It irritates her, because on this return journey, the twenty-four hours that she will stay, fear is her luggage.

Five years. Aaron didn’t even close down her flat in Schöneberg; her father did that for her.

In Berlin she left behind only a few people that she misses. The life she led hardly allowed her to have friendships. Pavlik and his wife Sandra were, in fact, the only ones. When she moved to the nameless Department at the age of twenty-five, he immediately took her under his wing.

The only woman among forty men.

It was from Pavlik that she learned that everyone, however long they had been there, had nights when the shivering came.

That came as a great relief to Aaron: being hugged, and also being allowed to console others.

Nonetheless, in the years that have passed since Barcelona she and Pavlik haven’t spoken. They talked on the phone occasionally for the first few months. But they were both helpless. Pavlik tried to act as if nothing serious had happened in Spain, and took refuge in coolness because it was the only way he could deal with it. And Aaron could find no words to express what it means for her, she still can’t even today. Eventually they only heard each other breathing. And then the calls stopped.

Will I still recognize his voice?

‘We are now coming in to land at Berlin-Schönefeld. Please fold away your tables and put your seats in the upright position.’

‘Oh great!’

When Aaron’s neighbour furiously throws her coffee cup at her, she realizes that she has left it half full on the table, and must have spilled it over the man’s trousers.

‘Are you blind?’ he snarls.

‘Yes.’

Pflüger_Andreas(c)Stefan KlüterAbout the Author

Andreas Pflüger is a German screenwriter and author. He has written a number of episodes of the hugely popular German police procedural Tatort. In the Dark is published in eight languages.

Connect with Andreas

Website ǀ Facebook ǀ Goodreads

 

Spotlight: Treason by James Jackson

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Treason Blog Tour Banner

‘Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November. Gunpowder, Treason and Plot!

If you’re excitedly anticipating Bonfire Night or you’ve been enjoying the series Gunpowder on BBC TV then I have the perfect book for you: Treason by James Jackson.

You can find an extract from this dramatic historical thriller below.

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TreasonAbout the Book

Behind the famous rhyme lies a murderous conspiracy that goes far beyond Guy Fawkes and his ill-fated Gunpowder Plot . . .

In a desperate race against time, spy Christian Hardy must uncover a web of deceit that runs from the cock-fighting pits of Shoe Lane, to the tunnels beneath a bear-baiting arena in Southwark, and from the bad lands of Clerkenwell to a brutal firefight in The Globe theatre.

But of the forces ranged against Hardy, all pale beside the renegade Spanish agent codenamed Realm.

 

Format: Paperback (336 pp.)        Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre
Published: 19th October 2017       Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Treason on Goodreads

Extract: Treason by James Jackson

A longboat was making the Thames crossing, edging through the early morning mist from the south bank to the foot of the stairs at Westminster. Those on board had chosen this hour for good reason. They carried with them a consignment of gunpowder, twenty barrels brought from the Lambeth home of Robin Catesby and destined to be stowed beneath the House of Lords. The next stage of the plan was underway.

Waiting at the steps, his lantern held aloft, Guido Fawkes guided his comrades in. There was no need for talk. They transferred the load quickly, the large handcart filling and Jack Wright remaining ashore as the quartermaster Keyes cast off and returned into the gloom. Should there be an ambush it would happen here and now. The swordsman peered into the shadows blanketing the silent halls and empty buildings. It was as though he had landed on some foreign shore, was come to do battle with a distant foe. Like the natives of the Americas who tried to stem the Spanish, the incumbent regime stood no chance against invasion. Each man took up position on the poles and began to move the cart towards the passage.

‘Our ordnance at last is come.’ There was almost wonder in the voice of Thomas Percy. ‘Now are we ready for our moment.’

They stood in a corner of the ground-floor undercroft set beneath the raised hall of the House of Lords, a discreet place of storage almost forgotten and generally ignored by the denizens of Westminster. Percy was glad for its existence. It meant mining could be abandoned and its dangers replaced by the rental of space from a coal-merchant directly below the target. As a gentleman and official bodyguard to King James, he had reason and right to be there; as a married man with lodgings now available a few paces instant, he had excuse to seek a convenient overflow for his possessions. Twenty hidden barrels of explosive were now added to his inventory.

He turned to Wright. ‘When shall Keyes bring the rest?’

‘There is no need for haste.’

‘Yet there is necessity we prepare and create a blast to devour all. The King brings to London his youngest maggot Charles and it seems we have no street army.’

The swordsman was as taciturn as the mercenary beside him. ‘We have sufficient force to hunt them.’

‘To erase Charles and his elder brother Henry? To prevent their flight or survival of any loyal member of the court?’

‘A regime beheaded cannot resist. When explosion is done, confusion will be our friend.’

james-jackson1About the Author

James Jackson is the author of numerous historical and contemporary thrillers, including Sunday Times bestsellers Blood Rock and Pilgrim. He is a former political risk consultant and a postgraduate in military studies, and acts as an advisor for film-maker Guy Ritchie and thriller writer Frederick Forsyth. He is also a qualified barrister and member of the Inner Temple. He lives in London.

Connect with James

Website ǀ Goodreads