Book Description
Two murders, committed over three decades apart, set in motion a modern noir detective story that plays out against the chaos of a Britain at odds with itself. As Brexit bites and Britain begins to tear itself apart, DI Reider returns from a manhunt in Europe with a bullet hole in his shoulder and decides it’s time to retire from the force. But Reider hasn’t counted on his first case coming back to haunt him. He hasn’t counted on his career going full circle and he definitely hasn’t counted on Sasha Haye.
Angry and heartbroken, Sasha is seeking answers about the death of her boyfriend and Reider might just be the only person who can help her find them.
Against the backdrop of thereferendum and its aftermath, the pair embark on a journey that brings them into contact with extremism, celebrity, politics and the world of vintage porn, as they attempt to unravel a murderous knot with threads that lead into the dark heart of the establishment, and a past which has a cold and unrelenting grip on the present.
Extract
Sasha, 35 years old, homeless, jobless and skint, again, stood next to Solly outside the Pillars of Hercules as rain started to fall onto an already defeated Wednesday night in January. They made an odd couple. Solly was nearly forty years her senior and dressed like a down at heel race-course manager in tweed and corduroy that had all begun life in Bond Street and since seen better days. Next to him Sasha looked like the wayward granddaughter in black jeans, decrepit motorcycle boots and a cotton jacket once commissioned by some Vietnam vet. Black when it was new but fraying and greying now. Across the yoke of the shoulder in fading yellow stitching atop a map of Hanoi ran the words “When I die I’ll go to Heaven coz I’ve served my time in Hell.” Solly was upbeat about the whole affair.
“Well, the timing couldn’t be better little Sasha. I’ve been keeping an eye peeled for you for a while, I’ve had a bit of an idea. A brainwave. A flash of inspiration. The muse has visited and…”
Sasha finished her roll-up, let it drop from her lips to the floor and heard it fizz as it hit wet concrete.
“Oh, just get on with it Solly…”
He smiled at her benignly and extinguished his own cigarette.
“I ventured down to the basement Sash, hadn’t descended those rickety old stairs for an age, just been throwing things down there for decades, promising myself that one day I’d clear it out and rent it to someone, a tattooist or something. There’s stuff down there you wouldn’t believe, there’s a fortune telling machine, remember those? Madame Zondar sees all. Cross her palm with silver and she’ll tell you what’s to become of you. I rented the ground floor to an amusement arcade once, late eighties, they must have left it there. That’s a grim game. Fortunes won and lost in ten pence pieces. Anyway, in amongst all this, that and the other and more besides I found these boxes of dirty photos. Great stuff, from the old Soho days. Lots of them Sash, a smorgasbord of fleshly delights. Thought to myself they’d make a splendid book, no-one in the world has laid eyes on these pictures since before you were born. Thought we could do one of those coffee table books, you know, the ones they charge fifty quid for on the Charing Cross Road. People’ll get nostalgic over anything these days Sash, especially porn. I thought you could you know, do it, go through all the stuff, get it together, make it all into a book, corral it. You’re an illustrator, be right up your street. I’ll provide the pictorial whatnot, dig through the little black book, shake the old Soho tree and see who falls out. There’s still a few people in the book business hereabouts, et voila… I can get it into every bookshop from here to Knightsbridge. The world will be our lobster and we’ll split anything we make fifty-fifty, minus the small allowance I’ll no doubt have to dish out while you get the thing together. It won’t change the world but it’d be nice to put a book out, no? Can’t lose Sasha Haye, can’t lose.”
Sasha went to say something, to object perhaps, but the objection never came and Solly was having none of it anyway. He held his hand in the air to stop her, his gold signet ring glinted in the streetlight.
“…how’s this then Sasha my girl, while you’re working on it you can have the top floor of my place again, move back into the old flat, a Soho address, close to all the amenities, greatest city in the world on your doorstep, all this love and light at your fingertips.”
He let his hand sweep across the dismal Soho night,
“Where are you living at the moment?”
Sasha blew out smoke and spoke in a voice that managed to combine defiance and defeat,
“Edie’s couch.”
@LeeBullman @ZooLoosBT @Bookworm1986 @bookworm86 @SpellboundBooks @Spellboundbks
Author Bio
Lee Bullman has something of a chequered past but he did once meet Michael Caine on a boat.
He is the author of the best-selling crime memoir Blowback, a collector of early 1960s R’n’B blasters and doesn’t really believe in anything.
When not writing he buys and sells antiques and loves a decent nineteenth century tapestry.
He has a son called Tom and lives with the visual artist Siena Barnes in the birthplace of the gothic imagination where they are restoring a nice old house and happily living the dream.
Follow him at:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drleebullman/
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