For Cormag MacLeod, police inspector and veteran, the dead are real. They haunt the shadows, and not even liberal amounts of whiskey can exorcise them. But in Sydney Cove in 1875, there is enough filth and crime to keep him busy, and his unorthodox methods are effective in a town where the law is a thin murky line.
That’s why being sent to a small town in the middle of nowhere to investigate a murder feels like punishment. And to make matters worse, being nursemaid to a constable barely old enough to shave is the last straw.
Bur in the Allyn River Valley he will discover that the gruesome murders taking place are the work of something sinister. As the townsfolk begin to panic, and the local lawmakers seek to blame, old prejudices will surface and threaten to destroy the delicate fabric of the small hamlet.
And Macleod will realize that he can never truly put his past behind him, no matter how far he runs.
Genre: FICTION / Crime
Freelance publisher on Amazon - sales to date 350 copies
Blood is slippery. Released from the body it relishes its first moment of escape, spreading, pooling, ebbing. Then is slows, coagulation factors bridling its onward race, until it becomes sticky, clots, clumps. But in that first minute, before it is hampered from within, it is free to do as it pleases, released from the vessel bonds of the victim, pouring forth unheeding, unknowing.
And he was used to blood. His own blood spattered over his uniform at Balaklava and Lucknow, the blood of his enemies staining his hands, the blood of his fallen comrades on his boots. Spilling blood was part of his existence, part of him. But that was another lifetime and in war, one could excuse each other, blood was part of the battle, part of the struggle.
The blood of this girl was different. As she lay on the dimly lit street, her throat cut to the windpipe, he felt the rage intensifying. Eyes half open, mouth slack in mute protest, blood spattering her dress, shoes, hands, spilling out onto the cobblestones and pooling as the rivulets of red coalesced.
Macleod looked along the line of Campbell’s stores. The doors shut tight, closed against the thieves of the night. Peering into the darkness towards Waterman’s steps, he could discern no movement. The smell of rotting fish wafted toward him on the salt breeze. Masts groaned and creaked as the ships in the harbor rocked gently on the swell. In the distance, music dipped and rose from taverns on George Street and the Sailor’s home on the harbor foreshore. Turning south towards the Mariner’s church, straining to see in the darkness, the gaslight struggling to disperse the shadows. There was no movement there either. no chance of any witnesses.
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Italian
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Gerardo Elviro
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Adriana Leal Belmonte
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Author review: Excellent translation |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Cristina López
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