Blogtour - Extract from The Winter Warriors by Olivier Norek

The Winter Warriors
Oliview Norek (trans by Nick Caistor)
Open Borders Press, 11 September 2025
Available as: HB, 448pp, audio, e   
ISBN(HB): 978-1916788763

I'm delighted today to be hosting an extract from Olivier Norek's new historical novel, The Winter Warriors. 

The story...

November, 1939. A conscription officer arrives in the peaceful farming village of Rautjärvi. The Soviet Union has invaded, and for the first time in its history as an independent country, Finland is at war.

Setting off into the depths of winter to face the Red Army, the small group of childhood friends recruited from Rautjärvi have no idea whether any of them will ever return home. But their unit has a secret weapon: the young sniper Simo Häyhä, whose lethal skill in the snow-bound forests of the front line will earn him the nickname “The White Death”.

Drawing on the real-life figures and battles of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War, this is a gripping, page-turning historical thriller from one of Europe’s most acclaimed storytellers.

Olivier Norek

The author...

After 18 years in the French police force, Olivier Norek turned to crime writing - Between Two Worlds was the Times and Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Year 2024. The Winter Warriors is his first historical thriller. While researching for this novel, Norek spent three months (the duration of the war itself) in Finland, experiencing the -35°C conditions in which the war was fought and in which more than 130,000 Russian soldiers died before the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty in March 1940.

The extract...

First Prologue

Light streams over his closed eyes, over his prostrate body and its stilled heart. 

All around him, the last day of war has littered the ground with bodies in their thousands, staining the snow red. Amongst the other corpses, he is no-one. No more precious, no more impor- tant. Elsewhere, he could be a father, a brother, a friend, a husband. Elsewhere, he is everything. 

In death, only their uniforms set them apart. They were ene- mies, now they lie side by side. Here, hands touch; elsewhere, lifeless faces confront each other. They have spent the whole winter killing one another. 

The dead from earlier weeks are half-hidden in the earth. Only vestiges remain: still visible helmets, occasionally parts of their backs. Their arms are like aerial roots, as if growing out of the ground itself, ready to rise, get to their feet, and haunt all those who decided on this war. 

Their blood saturates the ground, their flesh nourishes the trees, mingles with the sap. They will be in every new leaf, every new bud. There were more than a million of them, and when, tomorrow and beyond tomorrow, the wind blows through the branches of the forests of Finland, it will also carry their voices.

There had been happy days, a cherished peace.

There had been a before, in the days leading up to the Hell. 

Second Prologue 

For many years Finland belonged to someone else.

For centuries, it formed part of the kingdom of Sweden. For a further century, it came under Russia’s sovereignty. It was not until 1917 that it gained independence. 

In 1939, therefore, Finland was 22 years old. Twenty-two years are hardly sufficient to make a man, let alone a country. 

In a storm of lead and fire, Stalin’s Red Army, the largest in the world, swept through this neutral, poorly armed nation, launching a bloody conflict known by history as the Winter War. 

The hellish events that are the subject of this novel took place in that year of 1939 at Kollaa in Finland. But also on its isthmus, in Karelia. On the ice fields at Petsamo. From the shores of its gulf to the distant reaches of Lapland. 

Imagine a tiny country. Imagine a huge one. Now imagine them clashing. 

Twenty million shells. The Earth almost cracked in two when Russia pounded its crust in the same place day after day for more than a hundred days. 

Tank columns against old-fashioned rifles. A million Red Army soldiers against workers and peasants. But past conflicts tell us it takes five soldiers to face a single man fighting for his land, his home country and his own people, hands clutching his carbine, a sentinel behind the door of his barricaded farm. 

And a single man can change the course of history. 

At the heart of the harshest of its winters,

at the heart of the bloodiest war in its history,

Finland saw the birth of a legend.

The legend of Simo Häyhä, the White Death.

And yet there had once been happy days, a cherished peace. There had been a before, in the days leading up to the Hell. 

For more information about The Winter Warriors, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy The Winter Warriors from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith or Waterstones.

#Review - Ordinary Monsters by J M Miro - #extract

Ordinary Monsters
J M Miro
Bloomsbury, 7 June 2022
Available as: HB, 672pp, e
Source: Extract via NetGalley
ISBN(HB): 9781526650054

I'm grateful to Bloomsbury for providing an advance extract of Ordinary Monsters by J M Miro. The review below is based on that extract and may not reflect the full contents.

Publisher's blurb: 1882. North of Edinburgh, on the edge of an isolated loch, lies an institution of crumbling stone, where a strange doctor collects orphans with unusual abilities. In London, two children with such powers are hunted by a figure of darkness – a man made of smoke.

Charlie Ovid discovers a gift for healing himself through a brutal upbringing in Mississippi, while Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight, glows with a strange bluish light. When two grizzled detectives are recruited to escort them north to safety, they are confronted by a sinister, dangerous force that threatens to upend the world as they know it.

What follows is a journey from the gaslit streets of London to the lochs of Scotland, where other gifted children – the Talents – have been gathered at Cairndale Institute, and the realms of the dead and the living collide. As secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities and the nature of the force that is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts.

The first in a captivating new historical fantasy series, Ordinary Monsters introduces the Talents with a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world, and the gifted, broken children who must save it.

What I thought: the opening of Ordinary Monsters reads almost as the origin story for a superhero tale.  Marlowe is discovered in a railway van by a young woman fleeing from her abusive master. Charlie, a Black man in the US South, is a victim of racism, framed for murder and locked in a warehouse where he is daily beaten - and miraculously recovers. The two have come to the attention of a mysterious organisation which wants them.

For good or ill? I honestly don't know. There's a hint, perhaps, in the mismatched pair of detectives sent to retrieve them: Alice, a woman out of place, and the enigmatic Coulton. Both seem marginal figures like Charlie and Marlowe themselves, so perhaps they're on the right side. But what became sin the future, I don't know.

What I do know is that the opening of the story is atmospheric, intriguing and very readable. Miro depicts two very different settings - the dire poverty of London's East End, in an age when the poor might resort to picking up coal in the street or raking through the filthy river mud for lost trinkets. When an avenging "gentleman" can more or less have his way regardless of police or the legal system. It's the dark side of Sherlock Holmes, the disease-ridden, starving and tainted end of town. And then there's Natchez, Mississippi, where an overseer can wield a whip 'just like it was still 1860, just like no war had ever happened and nothing had been abolished and freedom wasn't yet the lie it was proven to be.' 

Perhaps, actually, there isn't a great difference. But the story switches fluidly from one locale to another with the special atmosphere of each delineated and within them, as well as the, well, the different weirdness of the two special people who will be important to the later story. Miro is good with character, taking in Alice and Cotton as well, and a number of almost Dickensian personages in London, especially the tattooed wrestler Brynt and her mountebank evangelist friend, Reverend Walker, who take in Marlowe and his saviour Eliza for a time.

All in all, what I've read of this book promises a cracking good read which goes to the weird size of Victoria's time without getting all steampunky.

For more information about Ordinary Monsters, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour #Extract #Giveaway - The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman

The Deck of Omens
Christine Lynn Herman
Titan Books, 21 April
Available as: PB, 416pp, e
ISBN: 9781789090277

Today I'm joining the blogtour for The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman with an exclusive extract, and a giveaway.

 I have a spare copy of the book and to be in with a chance to win, just share this post and tag me in on Twitter @bluebookballoon and @ me with the answer to the following question:

What is Harper afraid she can't stop?

(No, you don't have to follow me - but you can if you want).

I will randomly pick one person who send the correct answer at noon on Friday 1 May and will announce the winner here 

Now all that's done... the extract!

*****

From The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman

“It’s all right,” she said. “You want to see what I can do? You want proof?”

Harper’s hand brushed the edge of the neglected fern sitting beside the table. She took a deep breath and pushed. She had not gone to the Hawthorne house the night she got her powers back with the conscious thought of destroying their tree. But when she saw the hawthorn’s great branches spreading behind the roof, waving in the wind, she had felt the cumulative rage about everything that had been done to her—her father’s hands closing around her neck, the Church of the Four Deities in their dark brown robes, Justin staring at her, a sword pressed against his neck, and, of course, the night that had just come back to her. The night Augusta Hawthorne had taken her powers away before she’d ever gotten the chance to use them.

Violet was obviously the reason her memories were back. Violet had gotten them back herself, after all, and so had Violet’s mother; clearly she was the one who had figured out the secret to restoring herself, clearly she was the one who had left Harper that note.

There was so much to sort through. So much to feel. Harper understood now why Justin Hawthorne had behaved strangely toward her these past few weeks— because his mother wasn’t the reason she’d lost everything.

He was.

He’d betrayed her the night of her ritual. Sold her out to his mother before she could have the chance to use her newfound powers.

Pushed her into the lake, which had led to the accident that had cost her a hand—and led her straight into the Gray.

Harper had lost sight of herself in that moment, dizzy with longing for everything Justin and his family had taken from her. She’d reached forward, her palm pressing tightly against the trunk, and pushed her anger into it. And when she pulled back and realized that the hawthorn had gone deathly still, she hadn’t wanted to reverse it.

This time, the change was smaller, almost gentle. The leaves froze in place, their color fading to red-brown and spiralling down into the dirt, until there was no plant remaining, only stone. But then Harper felt something else: a push to keep going. The stone spread down the side of the fern pot, encroaching toward the floor, and Harper’s throat went dry with panic as she realized that she didn’t know if she could stop.

Violet’s hand landed on her shoulder, wrenching her focus away. Harper exhaled with sharp relief as she realized that the spread of stone had stopped. When she looked up, Mitzi and Seth were both gaping at her.

Her brother spoke first. “Shit.”

Mitzi knelt on the floor, examining the plant. When she caught Harper’s gaze, her eyes were as round and wide as two full moons. “You have powers?”

Harper’s laugh was slightly bitter, slightly manic. “Yeah.” “And you used them . . .”

“On the family that deserved some retribution,” she said. “So, yeah, I left, because I didn’t want Augusta Hawthorne to punish any of you for me. Because you deserve to make your own choices instead of being forced to go along with mine.”

“Choices?” Mitzi returned to the couch, tugged on her earring—a nervous tic.

Harper sighed. This was the part of the conversation she’d been dreading the most.

“Augusta Hawthorne took my memories of my powers away,” she said. “Do you still want to patrol for her, knowing that?”

Mitzi hesitated. “Patrolling is what keeps the town safe.”

“Does taking my powers away seem safe to you? Maybe if I’d had access to them, fewer people would have died.” “Or maybe you would’ve turned more than the hawthorn tree to stone.” Seth’s voice was the most somber Harper had ever heard it.

Her stomach churned with nausea. She’d known it would go this way—but she’d still hoped otherwise.

“Well,” she said. “I’m here if you change your minds.” 

*****

Don't miss the rest of the tour - see the poster below for more details and visit the Titan Books website to find out more about the book here.

Excerpt and Review - The Folded Land by Tim Lebbon

Cover by Julia Lloyd

The Folded Land (Relics 2)
Tim Lebbon
Titan Books, 20 March 2018
PB, 334pp

I'm grateful to Lydia at Titan for an advance copy of The Folded Land and for inviting me to take part in the tour.

I have an exclusive excerpt from The Folded Land. I've reviewed the book below, but first, just take a look at this!

The excerpt

“You okay, honey?” her dad asked.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m good. Kind of tired.”

“Still hungry?”

She nodded. It felt strange. Like coming home to a place so safe and familiar, and returning somewhere after a long time away. The familiarity held a deep nostalgia that someone her age should hardly recognize. “You’ve got an old head on your shoulders,” her mom used to say, and Sammi sometimes imagined herself with gray hair and strange, knowing eyes.

“I’m just going out on the dock for a little bit,” she said. “It’s a nice day, and some sun will make me feel better.”

“You’re sure?” That look of uncertainty. He asked her questions like that a lot nowadays. You’re sure? Do you really think so? Are you certain you want to do that? It had something to do with grief and the uncertainties he felt about her mother dying. In some ways he was being overprotective, making sure that every action Sammi took was a safe one. It was as if he couldn’t bear to have her to grieve on her own. They often spent time together, walking or sitting on the sofa and talking about Mom, looking through photos or old videos, crying and laughing and struggling to move on in their own individual ways.

But sometimes it became cloying.

Sometimes, Sammi just wanted to be on her own.

“I’m sure,” she said, smiling. “It’s one of those moments.” They both had moments that they talked about. Unremarkable memories of her mother, his wife, sitting somewhere and telling a joke, planting a rose bush, pointing at a flock of birds sheeting back and forth across the estuary. They might be years old, random recollections of lost times that meant so much. Every one of them was special.

“Right,” he said, smiling, nodding. “They’re important. Every moment is important.” He paused, and then added, “I’ll put the food in the oven to keep it warm.”

“I won’t be that long, Dad,” she said. “Ten minutes.”

“Okay. Still want to go kayaking this afternoon?”

“Absolutely! I’ll race you.”

“You’ll lose.” He always said that, and until lately he’d been right. Last summer, though, Sammi started beating him in their races. She remembered her mother laughing as they’d both splashed and sweated their way past the spot where she sat in a boat, Sammi edging ahead by half a length and lifting her paddle skyward in triumph. She’d been so pleased that she hadn’t stopped mentioning it for the rest of the day. That long-ago, hot and perfect day.

While her father carried their early take-out to the house, Sammi crossed the lawn toward the dock. Though the sky was a searing blue and the midday sun beat down, the lawn was still damp from the previous day’s surprise downpour. Water soaked through her shoes and into her socks. It was a nice feeling, cool and calming. She stepped onto the dock and kicked off her shoes, pulled off the socks, and enjoyed the feeling of warm wood on the soles of her feet.

She walked to the end of the dock and felt as if she should continue onward. As if there was somewhere else to go. As if there was more to see. This was her favorite place in the whole wide world, but something inside seemed to be urging her elsewhere. Across the wide inlet she could see a dozen houses sitting close to the water, boats docked beside some, flags flying from poles, a few people just visible in gardens, heat haze making ghosts out of them. Several boats chugged up and down the river. A group of kayakers paddled past. She felt an unaccountable need to keep walking, because this wasn’t where she needed to be.

Sammi’s heart hammered in her chest, and as she turned to go back to the house a splinter slid into her skin just beneath her big toe.

Ow!

Silly sausage! a voice said just over her shoulder, and she spun around. Her mother’s pet name for her, spoken in a voice so like her mother’s and yet with a weird lilt, like the distorted echo of someone impersonating her almost perfectly.

“Mom?” Sammi asked.

A shadow passed across the sun and she looked up. Clouds were forming, wispy, darkening. Her skin prickled all across her body. The hairs on her arm stood on end. She looked back toward the house. Her father stood outside the open patio door, smiling and waving her over so that they could share lunch. He and the house were a million miles away.

A sharp, loud crack split the world.

The review

The Folded Land is the sequel to Lebbon's 2018 horror fantasy Relics, (my review here) in which Angela discovered that her boyfriend Vince was involved in a gruesome trade in "relics" - body parts of the Kin: monsters or mythical creatures from the ancient past, long before humanity ruled, whose heydey, the Time, is lost in the fog of myth.

Worse, she discovered that not all relics originated with the long dead...

Now, Angela is on the run, blamed by the police for the massacre that concluded Relics - and by the surviving relic hunters, for the loss of their friends and family. She has left London and is back in the US, trying to lie low, but the past - and the Kin - have other ideas.

This is an excellent follow-up to Relics, possibly actually better than the earlier book. There is a notable shift in tone, as Angela has to engage with what the existence of the Kin means for humanity. The Kin are bewitching, delightful, so rare and special that even meeting one is a privilege - but they are also inhuman, savage and powerful.

Many hark back to older times when they strode the land without fear.

Some aim for Ascent, revealing their power and taking back their usurped place in the world.

And in the space between those two ideas of the Kin - the rare and the precious, hunted almost to destruction by humans, and the powerful and deadly - sits this story. It's a tale sketched in shades of grey, with no moral absolutes. The Kin have suffered, we see them suffering, but they are also - or some of them are - ruthless and savage.  Lebbon is good at sketching the sheer otherness of his monsters, their non-humanity - even the most sympathetic. These aren't run of the mill urban fantasy creatures settling down to cosy, albeit weird, lives that echo those of humans. There's a real sense of rawness, of peril here, never more than when the story turns to the enigmatic fairy Grace, whom Angela rescued in Relics.

At the same time, and despite the many brutal deaths littering the book, Lebbon doesn't portray humans, either, as victims. The "kin-Killer", Gregor, strides through this book like the very worst of monsters, his goal obscure, his blade sharp and his tread ominous. He will cross paths with Angela, and the life of her niece, Sammi, will hang between them.

It's an excellent horror story, a superior fantasy, soaked in blood and haunted almost to the end by mystery. And best of all the story clearly isn't over, with The Edge still to come.

This series could have settled down into a bland life-among-the-monsters fantasy but in Lebbon's hands we're given something more, something older, deeper and much, much darker.

Strongly recommended.

For more information about this book see the Titan website here.

Blogtour: Summoning the Dead - extract

I'm honoured to be hosting an extract from Summoning the Dead by Tony Black - a new DI Bob Valentine case, is out now from Black & White Publishing. You can buy it from your local bookshop, or here, here or here.

Prologue

November 1984

The farm road was pitted with potholes and loose scree washed down from the hills. Beyond the encroaching bramble bushes were the low-hanging branches of trees. At their thickest, the branches and the creeping bushes made a connection to their counterparts on the other side of the road, creating an arbour. Although the scrub was dense, it was not thick enough to provide shelter from the heavy rain that poured from the night sky.

The uneven road, no more than a track really, with its dents and declivities made for heavy going in the Transit van. Inside the vehicle, beyond the rain-battered windscreen and the furiously pumping wiper blades, the men cursed the job that had brought them out in such conditions.

‘I swear the weather’s better back home, and that’s saying something,’ said the driver, his mate next to him nodding in agreement.

‘Just go easy. I don’t want to return this van with a broken axle – it’s costing us an arm and a leg as it is.’

‘I’m doing my best. It’s pretty bloody choppy out.’

The needle on the rev counter danced as the Transit struggled, its wheels slipping in the mud.

‘I said watch it!’

‘I am. I am.’

The voices were rising, along with the tempers. The larger of the two men removed his hat and started to strangle it in his hands. As the van progressed, rounded the bend at the top of a small brae and drew to a halt outside a farmhouse the tension in the cab was palpable.

‘This it?’

‘Must be. I don’t see anywhere else.’

‘We should try the door.’

‘There’s no one in, I told you.’

‘We should try it anyway. You know what these places are like. The people are hillbillies – point a shotgun at you soon as look at you.’

The driver reached for the door handle. ‘Do what you like. I’m going to find what we came for.’

The rain was almost horizontal, backed by a strong westerly that threatened to take a man off his feet. The gable end of the farmhouse offered little shelter, the big man plastering himself to the sandstone and edging along slowly, so as not to be blown over by a freak gale.

The other man turned up the collar on his black reefer coat and faced the elements. He headed beyond the farm- house, towards the outbuildings. When he reached the first of the small stone buildings he raised a hand to shield his eyes and shouted to his partner.

‘It’s here!’

He couldn’t hear the reply, drowned out by the wind and rain as it was.

The man moved off again, content that the other man knew where to find him, and negotiated the steps to the rear of the first outbuilding. As he peered over he leaned the toe of his boot on the rim of a large oil drum; it didn’t move. He crouched lower, still holding the wooden rail that skirted the steps, and pressed his weight against the drum.

‘What in Christ?’ he said, the words trailing before being taken by the wind.

His friend reappeared. ‘There’s nobody there.’

‘I told you.’

‘I wanted to check.’

‘Are you happy now?’

‘I am, yeah.’

The man in the reefer coat stood up again. ‘I don’t know how anyone can be happy out in this.’

‘I didn’t say I was ecstatic. I’d sooner be on my way home to the Dumbarton game at Pittodrie.’

‘Stuffing the ’Gers 2–1 at Ibrox not good enough for you?’

They smiled, the talk of their team winning thawing the tension. Aberdeen were on a winning streak; the gaffer had done wonders with the team. No one could really believe they had only recently been European champions. Would that ever sink in?

The pair had trailed their team around the country on an old trawler, chasing cod and odd jobs along the way. But the experience, initially so exciting to their ears, had worn thin as the odd jobs got even odder.

‘I can’t move it,’ said the man on the steps. ‘I can’t budge it an inch.’

The bigger man walked around the barrel, stalking it like a strong man facing a lifting challenge. He tested the steel with his toe, as his friend had earlier. It sounded solid.

‘What’s in it?’

‘I was told not to ask.’

‘Was that wise?’

‘I didn’t care. Look, they were paying cash, you had your share and now we have to dump it.’

The big man gripped the drum, put a shoulder lock on the rim and heaved. ‘Are you sure this is the right one?’

‘Of course it is. There’s the ICI badge and the cross painted in green, like he said.’
They wrestled with the barrel together, managed to tip it on its side. The ground shuddered a little as the heavy barrel splashed down in the mud.

‘It’s going nowhere. The bloody Transit won’t move with that in it, if we could get it in.’

‘I don’t suppose we’ll manage to get it on the boat either, not without a pulley and winch.’

‘We’d snap the cable – and sink the boat.’

‘That’s that then. Bollocks to it.’

‘We can’t leave it. We’ve been paid up.’

‘Have you got a better idea?’

He looked around. The rain was coming straight down on their heads now, bouncing in stair rods off the wet ground. ‘We’ll bury it here.’

‘What?’

‘Not right here, over there.’

‘In the fields? The first time someone runs a plough over it the bloody thing will stick out.’

‘Between the fields then. We roll it over and bury it as deep as we can. No one will see it, no one will know and your man will be none the wiser.’

‘I don’t know about this. Maybe I should call him. I saw a phone box back on the main road.’

‘You know what he’ll say – you took the money, now do the job he paid us for.’
‘We could give the money back. I never liked the sound of this anyway.’

‘You don’t give money back to people like that. Forget it. We bury it and walk away.We won’t be back this way again, so it’s not our worry.’

The man brushed the pooling water from the shoulders of his reefer coat. The action caused a shiver to enter him.

‘What do you think’s in it?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.’

The shivering passed. He pointed back the way they had come. ‘I saw some shovels over by the barn.We’d better get started, it’ll take forever in this rain.’

Chapter One

Present Day

Detective Inspector Bob Valentine struggled with the blue shoe covering, the elastic stretched to its snapping point. He knew he should sit down, take his time, but that would mean admitting to himself that the spreading paunch above his belt really did require his attention.

He leaned against the wall. The morgue tiles were cold on his back and another reminder that he was some- where that he really did not want to be. He told himself that the corpse on the mortuary slab through the wall held no fear for him. At least, that’s how it had always been. Until now.

‘Bloody things.’ He finally managed to get his last brogue covered and sighed towards DS Sylvia McCormack, who was waiting by the door, smirking slightly.
‘Something funny, detective?’ he said.

‘No, sir. Well, maybe a little.’ McCormack took a few steps towards him. ‘Have you thought about losing a couple of pounds? You’d feel the benefits of it.’
‘I’m not carrying any weight, Sylvia.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He rubbed his stomach. ‘It’s dyspepsia.’

The smirk was back. ‘Boss, you’ll be telling me it’s the job next.’

‘It is the bloody job! Well, this case.’

‘Certainly seems to be making you irritable.’

The DI eased himself off the wall, rubbing his stomach.

‘Bad guts is no laughing matter. I wouldn’t wish it on any- one, well, maybe just Dino. I mean, what does she expect us to find here?’

‘Cause of death.’

‘Apart from the blindingly obvious. There’s no foul play involved, we’re all agreed on that. It’s only the media interest that has her rattled.’

Sylvia motioned towards the door. ‘They did feature it on Crimewatch, sir.’

Valentine shuffled his feet, made a show of distaste for the blue coverings. ‘And why was that? Not because it was a pressing crime that required the vigilance of the public to solve.’

‘No, sir.’

They walked towards the morgue door; Valentine held it open for McCormack to enter first. ‘No, it was more to do with the CCTV from the hotel going viral. Cheap opportunism on the part of the programme makers. They’re not interested in justice or protecting the public – it’s ratings they’re after.’

As they headed towards the centre of the room two men, dressed in white scrubs, waited beside a large, steel-legged table. Immediately Valentine identified the taller of the two as the pathologist.

‘Hello, Wrighty,’ he said.

‘Bob . . . Sylvia,’ he nodded. ‘Here to get the low-down on our superstar?’

‘Give it a rest.’

‘I’m serious. Half a million hits on YouTube this lad got; that’s up there with Oscar winners in my book.’

Valentine turned to McCormack. ‘You see what I mean? We live in tawdry times. Everyone’s chasing celebrity! Even Wrighty’s excited to meet the Thin Man.’

The pathologist stepped aside and made a show of whispering into Valentine’s ear. ‘Do you think it would be OK to take a selfie with him, Bob? Nothing tasteless, just for Twitter and that.’

The DI’s expression soured; he looked ready to break into a tirade.

‘Bob, I’m pulling your plonker,’ said Wrighty. ‘Bit of gallows humour, so to speak.’

‘I’m laughing inside, I can assure you of that.’

The team assembled around the table and watched the pathologist go to work. His first incision on the corpse marked the beginnings of an inverted Y, from the sternum through to the top of the stomach.

Valentine felt his own insides tightening as he watched; his stomach pains had intensified to the point where he had to place a steadying hand on the slab’s rim.

‘Everything OK, Bob?’ said Wrighty.

‘Just this indigestion.’

‘You had that when I spoke to you on Monday as well. You aught to get that checked out.’

‘Is that a medical opinion? If it is, I’d like to ask when you last had a live patient?’
DS McCormack had been scrutinising the organs the pathologist removed from the body when she interrupted the banter. ‘Can I ask why they’re so shrivelled?’

Wrighty looked up. He had his hands under the swollen, reddish ball of the stomach. ‘Probably the chemotherapy.’

‘He’d been treated for cancer?’ said the DS.

‘Yes.Though not recently.These organs are riddled with it. By the look of it, I’d say the tumour was in the stomach and the cancer spread.’ He called for an aluminium dish to place the latest removal in; the assistant took the dish away and laid it with the other organs.

‘Anything you can tell us is a help,’ said Valentine. ‘We’ve no dental, and he’s not on any DNA databases.’

‘I saw that on the telly the other night. They said he’d removed all the labels from his clothes too.’

‘Cut them out.’

‘What was all that about?’

‘It’s common enough for suicides, when they don’t want to be found. There was a French lad who went up the hills that had done the same a few years back. Took Northern an age to track him down.’

Wrighty paused and looked at the officers. ‘It’s a sad business. I take it that’s what all the CCTV footage was about as well?’

‘Every time he left the hotel the cameras in the foyer caught him with a carrier bag. The street cameras caught him putting it in the bin a few times. He was disposing of all his effects because he clearly didn’t want to be identified after death. He probably never dreamed the tide would carry him back in either, and now here we are poking about in his last days and hours in the hope of undoing all his hard work.’

The pathologist summoned his assistant and started to remove his gloves. ‘Well, I’m afraid I can be of little help to you. There’s nothing to suggest foul play here. I’d say entirely natural causes, likely a massive cardiac arrest as a result of the pressure the swim had put on his heart. He was a very sick man; his organs are riddled with cancer. He wouldn’t have lasted much longer even if he hadn’t gone for a dip on Ayr beach.’

Valentine allowed himself a half smile. ‘Well, that’s that then. Nothing to see here, Sylvia, write it up as natural causes.’

‘And what about his family, boss?’ she said.

‘What family? We don’t know he has any. We don’t even know his name.’

‘It just seems so, I don’t know, sad and mysterious.’

‘And that’s what it will remain, I’m afraid. We can’t solve them all; we wouldn’t have a station full of cold cases if we could.’

‘It seems so final.’

‘It is. Unless we get a call out of the blue, we don’t have the resources to scour the globe for potential relatives. Don’t be downhearted, Sylvia, it’s just the way it goes.’

‘We can’t win them all.’

‘Sometimes it’s a miracle that we win any of them at all, you know that.’

‘Yes, boss.’

The officers thanked the pathologist, shook hands and headed back to the car. Outside the morgue door Valentine removed his blue shoe-coverings without effort. ‘Would you believe it? I think my dyspepsia has gone. No, it definitely has. Completely vanished.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Maybe your bad mood will have went with it. You’ve been like a bear with a sore head – I mean stomach – all week.’

The DI pointed the key at the car and opened the door as the blinkers flashed. Inside he turned to McCormack and said, ‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’

‘What?’

‘That I’ve lugged around bad guts, just as we’re investigating the Thin Man.’
‘Who we discover today had stomach cancer. It’s a coincidence of sorts. You’ll be telling me you’re getting the dreams again.’

Valentine turned to face McCormack. ‘Who said they’d stopped?’

‘But I asked you just the other day and you said . . .’

‘No, Sylvia, you asked if I had had any dreams about the case.’

‘And you said you hadn’t. Are you telling me that’s not the whole story now?’

The DI tapped the car keys on the rim of the steering wheel and looked away from McCormack. ‘I did see the Thin Man in one of those intense dreams.’

‘And what?’

‘Nothing. Well, nothing about the case.’

‘He clearly told you something.’

Valentine shifted to face the DS once again. ‘He was there, on Ayr beach, and he said he had a message for me.’

‘Go on.’

‘He said I had no need to worry because, when it was my time, my mother would be there to take my hand.’

‘That could have been just a dream, you know.’

‘I told you, they’re not like dreams at all.’

‘Maybe we should have another meeting with Hugh Crosbie.’

‘Who?’

‘The psychic, spiritualist bloke that Colin Baxter – the precognitive – put us in contact with before. He might have some insight.’

‘I’m not sure about that.’ Valentine put the key in the ignition and reached for his seat belt.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know whether he was a help or a hindrance the last time. There’s some things you’re better off not knowing about.’

‘That sounds like denial to me. Aren’t you getting dangerously close to burying your head in the sand?’

He paused. ‘Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.’

‘OK, but don’t come crying to me when you’re toppled over with stomach pain again, or worse, maybe headaches from a victim of a shotgun blast!’ McCormack kicked her bag into the footwell.

As Valentine started the engine the radio came to life. The voice of Jim Prentice on the control desk sounded stressed, directing officers to a rural location.

‘I know that place,’ said Valentine.

‘Sounds like a farm.’

‘That’s exactly what it is. Ardinsh Farm – it’s out Cumnock way.’

‘They’re talking about getting the SOCOs – must be a new crime scene.’
Valentine reached for the radio and spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Jim, it’s Bob Valentine. What’s the story with Ardinsh Farm?’

There was a gap on the line and then the desk sergeant replied, ‘If you stayed away from that Krispy Kreme in Braehead you might be able to hear what’s going over the radio, Bob.’

‘You’ve spoiled the surprise. I have a dirty big doughnut sitting here for you.’
‘Lovely. I might even get a chance to eat it before midnight.’

‘So what’s all the commotion?’

‘Excavator driver’s turned up an oil drum in one of the fields. Looks like an old corpse inside.’

‘Old? How old?’

‘Put it this way, it could pass for a pharaoh.’

Valentine altered his tone. ‘No more jokes, Jim, please.’

‘Who’s joking? The corpse is mummified.’

Blogtour - The Vanishing Year extract

I'm really pleased to feature an extract from Kate Moretti's new book The Vanishing Year - a thriller with pace, intelligent, rounded characters and above all, heart.

You can read my review here. Now, over to Zoe...


1. APRIL 2014, NEW YORK CITY

Lately, I’ve been dreaming about my mother. Not Evelyn, the only mother I’ve ever known, the woman who raised me and loved me and taught me to swim in the fresh water of Lake Chabot, bake a sticky sweet pecan pie, fly-fish. I’ve thought about Evelyn plenty in the five years since she died—I’d venture to say every day.

My dreams lately are filled with the mother I’ve never met. I imagine her at sixteen years, leaving me in the care of the neonatal nurses. Did she kiss my forehead? Study her baby’s small wrinkled fingers? Or did she just scurry out, as fast as she could, hugging the wall, ducking the shadows to avoid detection until she burst through the doors, into the night air, where she could breathe again?

I could have been born in a bathroom stall at the junior prom or in the back of her parents’ car. I prefer to imagine her as a scared young kid. The only thing I know about her at all is her name: Carolyn Seever, and that is likely a fake.

My dreams are disjointed, filled with bright colors and blinking lights. Sometimes Carolyn is saving me from a faceless killer and sometimes she is the faceless killer, chasing me with knives up winding staircases that never seem to end.

Even when I’m awake, chopping vegetables for a salad for lunch or taking notes for a board meeting, I’ll drift off, lost in a daydream about what she might be doing right now or if we have the same dark, fickle hair or the same handwriting. Wonder what quirks, biologically, I’ve inherited from someone I’ve never met, and sometimes, I’ll come to in the middle of the kitchen wielding a large butcher knife, the lettuce limping on the counter. I’ve killed quite a bit of time this way.

I wonder if she’d be proud of the woman I’ve become.

The benefit for CARE, Children’s Association for Relief and Education, starts in an hour. I pace back and forth in the bedroom. I’ve never chaired before and I can’t afford to be distracted, yet here I am, my brain run amok when I can least afford it.

“Relax, Zoe, you’ve done a fabulous job, I’m sure. Like always.” Henry approaches me from behind. His large hands dance over my clavicle as he fastens the clasp of a single strand of freshwater pearls around my neck. I close my eyes and relax back into his lean frame, all sinewy muscle despite his forty years. He kisses my bare right shoulder and runs a hand down my side. His palm is hot against the fitted silk of my gown and I turn to kiss him. I step back and admire his tuxedo. His slick, blond hair and angular jaw give him an air of power, or maybe it’s just the way he appraises people, even me. He is studying me, his head cocked to the side.

“What?”

“I think the single diamond would look stunning with that dress,” he suggests softly, and I pause. He crosses the bedroom and opens the safe, retrieving one of many velvet cases and I watch him deftly remove a thin, sparkling chain, return the box to the safe, and give the dial a clockwise spin. I love the curve of his neck as he examines the necklace, the small dip behind his ear and the slope of his hairline, his hair curled slightly at the nape, and I want to run my nails up the back of his scalp. I love the long lines of his body and I

imagine his spine beneath the layers of thick fabric, all hard-edged dips and valleys. I love his almost invisible smirk, teasing me, as he motions me to spin around. I comply and in one swift motion he removes the pearls and clasps the solitaire. I turn and gaze into the mirror and a small part of me agrees: the solitaire looks fantastic. It is large, five carats, and it rests above the wide band of the strapless dress, the bottom of the teardrop hinting seductively at an ample swell of cleavage. As always, I am divided with Henry. I love his authority, the strength he has that his opinions are not merely suggestions. Or maybe it’s just that he’s so different from me: decisive, definitive.

But I did love the pearls.

“Seems indecent somehow for a benefit, doesn’t it?” I am tracing the outline of the diamond, watching him in the mirror. His eyes flicker over my reflected body. “The size of the diamond,” I clarify.

He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t think so. It’s a benefit for children, yes, but only the wealthy attend these sorts of things. You know this. It’s as much a display of the organizer as anything else. Everyone will be watching you.” He rests his hands on my shoulders.

“Stop! You’re making me nervous.” I am already on edge, my mind swimming with details. I’ve done a few of these kinds of events as a second chair but never as a chairperson. There will be a large crowd, all eyes on me, and my heart flutters against my rib cage at the thought.

I’ve been in Henry’s world more than a year now and the need to prove myself seems never-abating. This will be the first time I’ve taken any of the spotlight for myself. My debutante ball, if you will. And yet, I’m completely foolish. I’m risking everything for a slice of validation. These are things I can’t say to Henry, or to anyone.

His palms are cool and heavy. We stand this way for an indefinite amount of time, our eyes connected in the mirror. As usual, I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I have no idea if he is happy or pleased, or what he feels beyond anything he says. His eyes are veiled and closed, his mouth bowed down in a slight frown. He kisses my neck and I close my eyes.

“You are beautiful,” he whispers, and for a moment, his cheekbones soften, his eyes widen slightly, the tautness of his mouth, his chin, seems to loosen. His face opens up to me and I can read him. I wonder how many other women say this, that their husbands befuddle them? Most of the time, Henry is a closed book, his face a smooth plane, his bedroom face similar to his boardroom face, and I’m left to puzzle him out, to tease the meaning from carefully guarded responses. But right now, he looks at me expectantly.

“I was thinking about Carolyn.” I wince, knowing this isn’t the right time. I want to pull the words back. He gives me a small smile.

“We can talk later. Let’s just have a nice time, please?” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He strides out of the room and my back is cold, missing the heat of him. My shoulders feel lighter, and when I glance back to the mirror, my mouth is open as if to call him back.

It’s not that he objects to my finding Carolyn necessarily, he’s just impatient with the recent obsession. He doesn’t think these things ever end well, and he is the kind of man who respects the current “state of affairs”—he may have used those words. He can’t understand the need. You have me, he says when I bring it up. You have us, our life, the way it is now. She rejected you.

I think he takes it personally.

We have been married nearly a year and have the rest of our lives to “complicate things.” I think about couples who giggle and share their pasts, their childhood memories and lost loves. Henry thinks all these conversations are unnecessary, trivial. He is the kind of person whose life travels a straight path, his head filled with to-do lists and goals. Meandering is for slackers and dreamers. And certainly, mulling over the what-has-been is a fruitless effort; you can’t change the past. I admitted once to having a journal in college, a place to keep scraps of poetry, quotes I’d picked up along the way, slices of life. Henry cocked his head, his eyebrows furrowed, the whole idea unfathomable.

And yet, here I am. This house. This man. This life. It’s mine, despite the insecurities that seem to follow me around like a stray cat. I stare at my reflection. A thin, pink scar zigzags horizontally across the top of my right wrist, as I touch the diamond at my throat, the setting big as a strawberry.

His sure footsteps beat against the teak floor of the apartment and his deep baritone echoes as he calls for the car. Time to leave.