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Showing posts from January, 2013

FLASH FICTION, GUEST AUTHOR: Joe's Pint by Nick Quantrill

‘Busy day?’ Barry’s pouring me a pint.   ‘You know how it is.’ I’d spent the day driving around delivering unwanted warrants to unwilling punters, chasing the bastards round backstreets and grey estates - the private investigations business isn’t all glamour.   ‘You know City were at home in the Cup last Saturday?’ Barry put the beer on the Carlsberg mat on the bar.   I wiped the bottom of the glass. ‘Won easy, didn’t they?’   ‘Two-nil; barely had to break sweat.’   The pub was quiet, so he joined me on my side of the bar. ‘We had a load of the other lot’s supporters in here. Giving it plenty of attitude – like they were a firm, or something.’   Barry was hard as nails. You had to be to run a pub in this city. Even though he was well into his sixties, you didn’t mess with Barry. He was old school and the pub reflected that: rough around the edges, but with a certain charm.   ‘They were acting like they owned the place,’ he explained

BOOK REVIEW: Stop Dead - Leigh Russell

   The opening of Leigh Russell’s Stop Dead finds Inspector Geraldine Steel recently installed in a north London homicide team. Far from Kent and her familiar turf, Steel is yet to finish unpacking the moving crates that litter her new flat. It’s a new start all round: new gaff, new job, new colleagues and the twists of turns of the new office’s sexual politics to negotiate. ‘She hadn’t realised how lonely she was in London. But there was no time to question the sense in driving two hours to meet a friend for a drink.’   To top it all, there’s a murder to solve. Patrick Henshaw, owner of a swish Soho restaurant has been found brutally murdered at the wheel of his Merc on the Caledonian Road. As Steel negotiates the opening stages of the case with her new Detective Sergeant, Sam (Samantha) Haley in tow, she needs to find her feet, and fast. When Henshaw’s business partner is murdered in the same horrific manner, Steel is under pressure.   If there isn't t