"Dark, twisted and seductive--it's hard not to be drawn in by THE CONTESTANT."
--Simon Wood, author of PAYING THE PIPER
Raymond is a serial killer - brilliant and resourceful. Once a respected behavioural analyst and profiler, a hit-and-run accident five years ago left him confined to a wheelchair, and now he scratches out a living with online contests using fake or stolen identities.
A $10million online treasure hunt could be his salvation.
But the moment he registers for the competition, the first email arrives - someone out there knows him, knows who he is, and where the bodies are buried.
Now, in Raymond's sick and twisted mind, there's only one way to find his blackmailer and put an end to the threats: play the game, follow the treasure hunt clues ...
... and find the one person who can stop him.
(Warning: Contains graphic violence)
The Contestant was recently advertised throughout the UK, the USA and Canada, and resulted in over 56,000 downloads. It's the first book of a trilogy (the second two of which are yet to be completed) and has a particular readership which is thriller readers who don't mind some violence in their stories.
Those who love this book are looking for more.
Chapter One
Raymond
Three emails arrived all at once. Raymond watched as they popped up, one, two three—all from a guy using the online name DeadPainter, and addressed to members of the online competition club Raymond had joined two years ago and never managed to extricate himself from.
The message read: “IF ANY OF YOU ASSHOLES COMES ANYWHERE NEAR ME, I’M GOING STRAIGHT TO THE FUCKING POLICE.”
No salutation. No signature.
Raymond didn’t need one. The username was enough.
Two weeks prior, he’d had an altercation with DeadPainter over a laptop bundle, of all things. The guy had accused Raymond of stealing his winning entry in the “Laptops for Everyone” competition. In his day-to-day business of acquiring goods and selling them online, Raymond could have been accused of being many things: a psychopathic genius, an insatiable perfectionist, an authority on psychological profiling, a murdering despot, perhaps. All of which may have been quite accurate, but he was no thief.
The result of DeadPainter’s accusation had been a flurry of communications back and forth with the contest organizers, after which officials had declared DeadPainter the rightful winner. Consequently, Raymond had been blacklisted from Eastern Jade’s competition site—the prime source of his income.
Raymond was not one to forget.
“You go spreading slanderous remarks about other people, you deserve whatever you get,” he told the computer.
He swept the cursor down the page, highlighting the messages and deleting them. Then he hit the “Empty Trash” icon. But just as the message came up asking if he was sure he wanted all these messages deleted permanently, he paused.
He had an idea.
