Welcome to Bleach House Library. Book reviews, giveaways, blog tours and bookish posts. There are no spoilers and all reviews are honest. No posts are sponsored. Can also be found on twitter @margaretbmadden and FB at Bleach House Library.
Wednesday, 21 November 2018
BleachHouseLibrary.ie: The Pact by Carol Coffey. Exclusive Extract and Gi...
BleachHouseLibrary.ie: The Pact by Carol Coffey. Exclusive Extract and Gi...: Thanks to Poolbeg Books, I have an exclusive excerpt from Carol Coffey's latest novel, The Pact . There is also a copy to ...
The Pact by Carol Coffey. Exclusive Extract and Giveaway.
Thanks to Poolbeg Books, I have an exclusive excerpt from Carol Coffey's latest novel, The Pact. There is also a copy to giveaway. Enter via rafflecopter link at the end of the excerpt. Open INT and ends on 30th November. Good Luck!
The Blurb
When Richmond homicide detective Locklear is called in to investigate the attempted murder of a young Mennonite in a Virginian farming town, he is instantly drawn into a web of secrecy and lies spanning back to the American Civil War.
Frustrated by the refusal of locals to co-operate with the investigation, Locklear realises that to find the perpetrator he must first solve a 150-year-old mystery. With his leads restricted to historical records, the Native American is running out of time to save the orphaned boy’s siblings from a similar fate. As the body count in a seeming local feud rises, Locklear is no nearer to solving the most complex case of his career.
Flanked by his trusted colleague Jo Mendoza and local cop Carter, Locklear finds himself embroiled in a silent religious community where nothing is as it seems and everyone has something to hide.
Praise for The Penance Room
‘A must-read for fans of Jodi Picoult . . . Quite irresistible’
Sunday Independent
Chapter 1
The 5 a.m. call from Lieutenant Alex Kowalski had woken Locklear
from a fitful night’s rest. For two weeks since his enforced vacation, the kind
of sleep he was accustomed to had eluded him, nights of deep exhaustion when he
would sleep soundly and escape the horrors of his waking hours. For it was by
day that visions of the murdered – faces of men, women and children – haunted
him until the perpetrators were caught and he sentenced the victims to the
watery grey grave of his tormented mind. He was known in the department as a
detective without a life, who spent what time remained to him trying to solve
why others lost theirs and who had taken it from them. It was a life that even
now, only a few years from retirement, he knew he did not consciously choose.
In his drinking days, when his thoughts were ironically clearer, he believed
that this life had chosen him. This life of structure, routine, of method –
things he had not known in his youth spent travelling the country with his
Native American, mentally fragile mother and her array of badly chosen
boyfriends.
As he lay there he went over the information his boss had given him.
He had worked under Alex Kowalski for almost thirty years and considered the
man as near to a friend as he would ever want, or need. A Mennonite youth named
Andrew Fehr had been found hanging in a disused barn on an abandoned farm,
barely hanging on to life, Kowalski had said, apologising quickly for the pun
that Locklear did not get. The small, tightly knit religious community would
not comply with the local police, not even the local pastor who had
miraculously found the young man struggling on a rope. The rafters were too
high to climb without a ladder so a suicide attempt had been ruled out. There
were fresh tyre tracks in the barn and on the dry dirt road leading to town so
the boy had not been alone, at least not until he was strung up and left to
die. The trooper, a man named Carter who would link up with him when he
arrived, said the boy had some kind of mental disability and that the
paramedics had said it would be a miracle if he survived, but if he did it was
likely that the damage to his brain would mean he would be unable to say what
had happened. Locklear felt that this was why Kowalski had chosen him for the case.
He usually only dealt with homicides and the young man, at least for now, was
still alive, but Kowalski had a good nose and knew this would suit him. He
didn’t relish the idea of seeing or speaking to a living victim but the boy’s
brain, he figured, was as good as mush so he was no better than a corpse. He
preferred his cases cold, preferred to follow his own leads, preferred when
there were no emotions to deal with and he could work on the hard facts.
Locklear lifted himself off his bed and took a cold shower. The July
sun was already blazing through the windows of his apartment. He had lived in
the tiny one-bed almost as long as he had worked for the Richmond P.D. It
suited his needs in this life which were few.
After a brief tour of duty in the army, he had joined the police in
South Dakota where he had been born and where his mother, in the throes of
dementia despite her middle age, was seeing out the last of her days in a haze
of confusion. He stayed to be near to her but found himself unable to visit,
unable to see her in that condition. She did not know him and he had never
known her. When she died he could find no reason to remain in South Dakota – he
had no other family, least none that he knew of, so he wandered around from
state to state, much like his mother and he had done together, until his money
ran out, forcing him to take a post in New York in narcotics. The work of the
division frustrated him – hours spent investigating small-time drug-addicted
mules, while their bosses who hid behind legitimate businesses in uptown
addresses, walked free. As each year passed, Locklear felt that he was dying
inside, a slow death caused by inexplicable rage against an enemy he could not
see. It was during these years that his heavy drinking began – initially as a
way of finding sleep from the tormented thoughts that filled his every waking
moment. Soon, his days were lost in a haze of legal bureaucracy and his long
nights in drunken stupors. Four torturous years later, a chance opportunity to
work on the murder of a narcotic crime lord had whet his appetite for homicide
and he finally found his passion, his home. So, with an ease he did not think
possible, he put the bottle away and bided his time.
When a job in homicide came up in Virginia, he did not even think
about the upset of relocating on his life. He didn’t have very much to move.
It was almost seven by the time he took to the road for the
three-hour drive to Dayton, a tiny farming village of Mennonites. Irene, his
station’s secretary, had booked him into a hotel in the nearby town of
Harrisonburg where he would pick up local trooper Carter and take a look at the
site. His most recent trooper had thrown in the towel and had asked for an
assignment as far away from his fractious superior as possible. The trooper had
lasted five months – a record as far as Locklear was concerned.
As he drove along Route 64 he went over the details he knew so far.
He knew from previous cases that it took no more than six minutes for a person
to die from hanging so the chance arrival of the local pastor was suspicious
and not miraculous. He reasoned that the pastor must have been present when the
crime was taking place – but why string the boy up and then save him? And if he
wasn’t in the actual barn, if he was watching from nearby, why let the person
commit the crime? Why not stop it? At the junction on 64, he took a right onto
the 81 and thought about the victim. Why would someone harm a mentally
deficient youth, especially in a religious community? The idea that the perpetrator
was unknown to the youth, that the crime was committed by a stranger, was out
of the question. Someone had put time and thought into the crime – and emotion
– possibly hate – but why? Why not shoot the youth? It was quicker so there was
less chance of getting caught. Unless the killer, or would-be killer knew that
even if he – or she – was seen, no one in the community would tell.
As he pulled up in front of the large police station, he already
knew that this was going to be a frustrating case where nothing made sense and
clues led nowhere ... for now. As he pulled back the door into the reception
area, he knew immediately that the trooper sitting at the desk farthest from
the door was Trooper Carter. Even from a sitting position, Locklear could see that
the trooper was tall and lean – an ex local-team baseball hero, now retired
and no doubt teaching junior league on
Saturday mornings to a brood of kids.
Locklear waited while Carter, who had his back to him, threw a small
ball back and forth against the wall while he talked on the phone.
“Sure did ... poor kid was almost dead ...”
Locklear flashed his ID at the man on the desk and then stood
silently as Carter revelled in what was probably the most exciting thing to
happen around there in a hundred years.
“Yeah ... I did an examination of the scene myself ... got the big
boys coming down from the city to tell us how it’s done and do what we did all
over again.”
Locklear coughed.
“Yes ... sir ... can I help you?” Carter spluttered, standing to
attention.
Locklear had seen hundreds like Carter over the years.
Not-too-bright troopers good at the local police stuff but useless as shit when
it came down to serious crime.
“Hope so ... I’m one of the big boys come down to tell you how it’s
done.”
Carter blushed. “Ah, I was just kidding – that was my wife Virginia
– she’s chuffed I’m working on this – telling her friends and that – so I was
just ...”
Locklear took a better look at the man who would be his partner in
this investigation. He guessed Carter to be around thirty years of age, yet
there was more innocence to his bright blue eyes and thick fair hair than a man
of his years had a right to. Despite his height, Carter looked like a boy in a
police uniform.
“Your wife’s name is Virginia? Seriously?”
Carter blushed some more. “Yeah, her folks are immigrants. Loved the
place when they got here and I guess they wanted to show their appreciation of
this fine state, you know?”
Locklear nodded at his genial partner, although he didn’t know. He
rarely understood what ordinary people did in ordinary circumstances.
Carter looked the tough-looking plainclothes detective up and down,
trying to make out where he was from. He hadn’t said enough to place an accent
but he wasn’t from around here, that was for sure, so he already knew there’d
be trouble. People here didn’t take too kindly to strangers poking their noses
into things they didn’t rightly understand. But the face told a lot. The
criss-cross of fine broken veins across his bulbous nose told a story of
drinking, past behaviour by the look of things. His dark-brown eyes did not
match the pale colouring of his face. He could tell Locklear had once been a
handsome man before the ravages of drink set in. The detective had high, hollow
cheekbones and a strong jaw line. A furrowed brow told of a man who had spent
many years outdoors but his hair was the most interesting, thick and straight,
a little on the long side for a police officer and still jet-black for a man of
advancing years, suggesting some mixed blood – Native American he would have
guessed but mixed up with enough white people to have given him skin no darker
than what came naturally from too many years in the sun.
“Well, trooper, are you going to stare at me all day or are we going
to Dayton?”
“Guess we’re going to Dayton, sir.” Carter had seen enough. For the
next few weeks, or months, depending on how drawn-out the investigation was, he
would be second fiddle to a possibly half-Indian ex-alcoholic who already had
him pegged as an idiot country bumpkin cop.
The town of Dayton, which lay just over five miles away, had clearly
become an extension of Harrisonburg as the larger town sprawled towards the
pretty village. Only a small green belt divided the two towns but the change in
landscape during the twelve-minute journey was obvious. Large, middle-class
houses gave way to worn-down clapboards. Fast-food joints and express coffee
houses disappeared and were replaced by fields dotted with cattle and sheep,
milking parlours and an air of poverty. Carter had insisted, albeit politely,
that the pair travel in his police car which the locals of Dayton would
recognise.
After a brief ride along the John Wayland Highway, Carter turned
right onto Mason Street and right again into the parking lot of an impressive
faux-Georgian building which seemed at odds with the dilapidated houses that
surrounded it. The two-storey building of bright brick was adorned with five
marble pillars and large-paned windows that gave a stately, almost regal look
to the rural police station.
“What are we doing here?”
Carter shrugged. “This is where your incident room will be.”
“I know that! I meant what are we doing here now? I’ve got to take a
look at the goddamn site! Now!”
Carter did not move. He stared hard at the sergeant as the broad
smile slowly drained from his face. “Sir, you ought not to take the Lord’s name
in vain – especially around here.” He sat a while longer, unease rising through
his lean body. His fingers twitched around the bulk of keys hanging from the
ignition but he did not turn the key.
Locklear watched as each muscle in the trooper’s jaw jumped.
“What is it?” he asked, almost shouting without meaning to.
“You’ll see,” Carter replied quietly, turning the patrol car slowly
right onto Mason Street and out of town.
As they neared the site, Locklear sat bolt upright in his seat.
“Jesus!”
Carter stopped the car and lowered his head as though he was looking
for something on his lap.
The barn and the entrance leading to it, which was the scene of the
crime and Locklear’s only real hope of figuring out what had happened, was
occupied by about fifty people, each stomping over the evidence that he needed
to see. The police tape which cordoned off the area had been torn down and two
small Mennonite boys were using it as a tug-of-war rope.
Locklear opened the door of the car and was greeted by singing, the
soft hum of the voices of Mennonite women spread through the small group. The
men stood silently, nodding, their heads bowed and their lips moving without
sound. The crowd did not look entirely as Locklear had expected them to. Some
of the women were, as he knew was customary, dressed in long, plain grey
dresses and white lace bonnets and the men were dressed in black waist-coated
suits and white shirts, but most of the people present were dressed in plain
clothing, ordinary clothes which were no different to what would be worn in any
farming community.
At the entrance to the barn an old Mennonite man of around eighty,
in traditional dress, sat in his horse-drawn black carriage, the only buggy to
be seen among the pickups and station wagons parked haphazardly around the lot.
Locklear noted the body language of the man. He was the only one who did not
appear to be praying and his stone-like facial expression gave him the air of a
man who did not want to be there.
Locklear moved his gaze to the centre of the crowd, none of whom had
taken notice of his arrival. The man holding the Bible looked like just about
every preacher he had seen on television, clean cut and freshly shaven with the
bright clear eyes of a clean-living man. Dressed in modern clothes, the
middle-aged preacher stood around six five with a shock of thick, blond hair.
He looked up briefly from the tome and smiled broadly at the visiting policeman
before returning to his prayers which Locklear noted were in what sounded like
German. Low German it was called, he remembered.
Locklear, aware that he was being ignored, suddenly exploded. “God
dammit!”
Carter rushed from the car, grabbing him by the arm.
“Sir, be careful not to upset sensibilities here. They mean no harm.
Praying is all they’re doing.”
“Praying all over my goddamn crime scene!” Locklear spat as he
marched closer to the crowd.
“They don’t see it that way. They answer to no one but the Lord.”
Locklear swung round and glared at Carter. “Are you one of them? Are
you?”
Carter looked to the ground. “No, sir. I’m Baptist but ...”
“Well, then do your fucking job and help me get these people off my
crime scene.”
Locklear’s language finally roused the attention of the
congregation. He looked towards the now hushed crowd which parted without fuss,
freeing the path of the preacher.
Locklear could feel himself tense a little. He had no experience
interviewing so-called holy men and did not know what the correct protocol
should be.
The preacher threw out his right hand.
“Willkamen,” he said.
Locklear searched for insincerity in that one word but found none.
He didn’t take the outstretched hand.
“Snackst de Platt?” the pastor asked.
Carter moved forward and shook his head. “English, Pastor Plett.”
“I’m Pastor Plett – Henry – and this is my wife, Rachel.”
Locklear watched as a small dumpy woman, dressed in a long grey
dress and a white bonnet covering her blonde hair, moved forward, smiling as
she walked through the crowd of worried faces.
“Welcome,” she echoed. “You’ve come from Richmond. We’ve heard of
your arrival. Please come to our house after prayers for sustenance.”
Locklear thought for a moment. “Heard of my arrival. From whom?”
Rachel Plett now looked as worried as her husband’s small congregation.
She glanced nervously over Locklear’s shoulder at Carter who had not taken his
eyes from the dusty ground, now trampled by fifty pairs of uninvited feet.
“Pastor,” Locklear began as gently as his angry mood would allow,
“this is a crime scene. None of these people should be here. I need everyone
gone right now so I can find out what happened here.”
Henry Plett’s face darkened. “Your name, sir?”
“Sergeant Locklear.”
The pastor seemed to hesitate, then said, “Your Christian name?”
Locklear grimaced. He never told anyone his first name. It resulted
in too many questions. Only Kowalski knew it and he was not likely to repeat
it.
“I am not a Christian,” Locklear replied defiantly, hoping to put an
end to the probing.
Quiet murmurs grew up from the crowd but the sound he heard loudest
was the groan emitted from Carter’s mouth.
“Mr Locklear, we are here to pray for young Andrew. He is much loved
in our community.”
“Then let me do my job. Let me find out who tried to kill him and
get off this godd–” He stopped before using his favourite curse word. “Please
leave so I can do my job.”
Pastor Plett looked at his congregation and beckoned for them to
leave. Slowly, men, women and children, even the very young ones, filed
silently past him, most with eyes fixed on the ground. An occasional woman
glanced at Locklear nervously.
When the last of the crowd had driven off the dusty lot, Locklear
surveyed the ground. Scores of tyre tracks criss-crossed the ground around the
barn and on the roadway that led into the farmyard, making it impossible for
him to figure out the type of car that was present when Andrew Fehr was hanged.
He hunkered down and spread his fingers across the dry earth.
Lifting a small piece of soil, he smelt it and held it in his hands. He was never
sure why he did this. It was instinctive. It was in his blood. Each time he did
this something stirred in him. He loved the earth, the soil, and if his work
didn’t keep him in cities it would be here, in nature, that he would live and
breathe. But there weren’t enough murders in the countryside to keep him alive
and so he lived among tall buildings and concreted ground where soil was absent
and the only trees he saw were plastic offerings in the entrances of foyers.
He stood and walked towards the barn and through its open, weathered
wooden doors. Inside, bales of mouldering hay lined its sides. He could hear
the quiet footsteps of a nervous Carter behind him. He looked up at the long
beam that ran across the middle of the large barn. There was nothing that the
boy could have used to climb on, not even the hay which was little more than
dust, obviously forgotten by whoever had packed it there.
“I took photos of the tyre tracks and of the rope,” Carter said.
“They’re with forensics in Harrisonburg.”
Locklear did not reply. It didn’t look like he was going to be able
to trust Carter and he had already decided to ask Kowalski to send another
outsider to help with the investigation.
“You think that boy climbed up here and tried to hang himself?”
“No, sir,” Carter replied quietly.
“Then ... what do you think happened?”
Carter stared blankly at Locklear. “I don’t rightly know, sir.”
“Yep, I was afraid you were going to say that, Carter.”
“Why?”
Locklear ignored the question and made his way out of the barn to
take in the vista. The abandoned farm was more rundown than he had imagined it
would be. A small, dilapidated farmhouse faced the barn, its back to the road,
giving the area a sense of old-world isolation. There was no glass in any of
the windows and the front door was missing. A torn fly-screen screeched eerily
in the wind as it moved backward and forward on its rusted hinges. The farm was
situated on a high hill and as far as the eye could see the soil was parched
and lifeless, sheltering only a few tufts of dry patchy grass. Locklear scanned
further and noticed a small holding set on lower land adjacent to the farm. Its
grass was a deep green and fat milking cows grazed in the lush pasture. A tiny
house could just about be seen as the land dipped steeply away. It was a simple
scene but even in the distance the neighbour’s farm appeared to be well kept
compared to the wasteland on which he stood. What, he wondered, could make two
adjoining farms look so very different?
“Who owns this farm?”
“It belongs to the Fehrs.”
“Why aren’t they farming it?”
Carter shrugged.
Locklear grunted. For a man who was teamed up with him to supply
local knowledge, Carter seemed, or pretended, to know very little. Locklear
threw down the soil he was still holding and, as he moved back towards the car,
he noticed a tall man standing in the dried-out scrub at the entrance to the
farm. A brown-felt cowboy-type hat was pulled down, shielding his eyes. From
the clothes he wore Locklear could tell the man was young – light-brown boots
over dark-blue jeans and blue-check shirt. As they passed he made no attempt to
move and even Carter, who seemed so at ease with the unusual community, visibly
tensed.
“Who was that?”
“Luke Fehr,” he answered quietly.
“The victim’s older brother.”
“Gotta talk to him,” Locklear said, looking back into the scrub for
the man but he had already disappeared from view.
“Oh, he won’t talk to you, sir. Luke Fehr doesn’t talk to anyone.”
*******************************
The Pact is published by Poolbeg Books and is available in TPB and ebook format. You can order your copy HERE.
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Further Reading from Carol Coffey |
Monday, 19 November 2018
BleachHouseLibrary.ie: Book Review: As Good As Gold by Patricia Furstenbe...
BleachHouseLibrary.ie: Book Review: As Good As Gold by Patricia Furstenbe...: ***We received a copy of this title, from the author, in return for an honest review.*** Having read, and loved, Patricia's c...
Book Review: As Good As Gold by Patricia Furstenberg.
***We received a copy of this title, from the author, in return for an honest review.***
Having read, and loved, Patricia's children's novel Joyful Trouble, we were more than happy to review her new collection of poetry and Haiku. Each of the 35 poems are written from a dogs perspective and delightfully explore the sights, sounds and smells they encounter. The collection is split into four parts: Questions, Colours, Musings and Haiku.
In Questions, we encounter inquisitive dogs who are fascinated with their surroundings. They have questions about other animals and different types of weather, and often ending with their 'humans' coming to rescue them from potential problems. In Why, Rain? a puppy escapes from the safety of the garden and, distracted by new experiences, he finds himself in a jam:
"And puppy cries, his feet are stuck,
He cannot cross this river;
He's cold and hungry and alone.
"I'll help you," speaks a small snail.
"I'll call your mom. Just wait a bit. I'm going."
In Orange, the joy of Christmas is seen through the eyes of a dog:
"It's weekend, there's such rumbling and they're all over the room,
Mom, Dad, the children... the grandparents too!
There are plenty of boxes, some open, some not
And there's something else, in the house, in a pot!
It doesn't make sense.
A tree indoors?
There are plenty of photos throughout the book, my only qualm being that perhaps younger children would enjoy pictures of the other animals and birds dotted throughout the collection. An owl, a frog, a snake. Kids love to see pictures when being read to.
This is a very cute addiction to a family library and the short poems are ideal for distraction or night-time reads. Who doesn't love puppies?
As Good As Gold is available in paperback and ebook format. Both can be ordered via amazon via links below:
Wednesday, 7 November 2018
BleachHouseLibrary.ie: My Mum Tracey Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. Review ...
BleachHouseLibrary.ie: My Mum Tracey Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. Review ...: We received a copy of this title, from the publisher, in return for an honest review. Review from Endija, aged 11. My Mum Tracy ...
My Mum Tracey Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. Review from Endija, aged 11.
We received a copy of this title, from the publisher, in return for an honest review.
Review from Endija, aged 11.
My Mum Tracy Beaker is a funny, loving book by Jacqueline Wilson, starring Jess Beaker (Tracy's daughter) and Tracy herself.
Jess thinks Tracy is the best mother ever, but when Sean Godrey (Tracy's childhood friend) comes along, Jess isn't happy, though Tracy is over the moon.
Jess wants everything to go back to the way they were, when it was just her and her mum living in their perfect flat.
But will things work out for Jess and Tracy Beaker? Find out in this brilliant book!
Suitable for ages 8+
*****Note from Editor*****
Reviews from children are the best! There is nothing like the way they word things. There is no need to change them, as their words are the genuine ones. The photo above - complete with tea stain - shows how the reviews begin as hand-written ones, with plenty of mistakes as they gather their thoughts. It can be hard to get children to read, never mind review books, so asking them to embellish more is not feasible (or wise). Age appropriate reviews are perfect and may assist parents/guardians/teachers in their search for the right book, for the right age-group.
My Mum Tracy Beaker is published by Doubleday and is available in HB, ebook and audio. You can order your SIGNED* copy with FREE WORLDWIDE POSTAGE and 12% discount HERE.
*limited signed stock
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