Today I’m taking part in the blog tour for Three Little Girls. I’m sharing an extract with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell and the team at Question Mark Press for inviting me on the tour and for my copy of the extract.

Blurb:

Three Cold Cases – one determined cop.
Someone’s playing tricks on Karen at home and at work.
When two cold case files about missing girls turn up on her desk, she’s fuming.
When a third arrives…she blows a fuse.
Her boss demands she takes holiday leave just as she discovers
her late father was involved in one of the cases.
Now she’s compelled to investigate them.
She’s accompanied by sometime boyfriend John –
but can she trust him or his friend and map keeper Mr Binks?
She has formidable detective skills but will they work in places
where old-world magic is still powerful?
Karen’s life is in serious danger… But from whom…or what?

Extract:

As she drove to the lab, Karen was neither singing nor shouting in the car. Instead, she was having a conversation with whoever it was who had been playing tricks on her. 

‘OK, you may think you’re very clever, but I am sure as hell that I will find you out, and then you just wait and see what I do to you.’ 

She went through the office personnel one by one. Macy was the obvious one, she knew Karen better than almost anyone, but it wasn’t her style. Besides, in the last few years, Karen had dragged many a colleague over to her flat, solely to discuss whatever case she was working on. So, except for Macy, it could have been almost any of them. Most of them seemed to be pranksters from time to time. It was a by-product of the stress that inevitably arose on a daily basis. And no one liked her.

Karen pulled up in the lab car park, illicitly parked in a space reserved for senior personnel and made her way to the modern but unremarkable red brick building. They knew her well and the receptionist was almost a fan.    

‘Good morning, DS Thorpe.’ 

‘And you.’

Karen made her way to John’s office. John was tall and slim and, as he had noted himself, was not that far in dress and appearance from being a male version of Karen. His face broke into a smile as soon as she walked in.

‘Hello my love,’ he began.

‘Cut the crap, this is serious,’ Karen replied. ‘Can’t stop, just picking up the results from the RTA. But there’s something else.’

‘Go on.’ John was always interested in Karen, but he picked up her mood and tuned into it.

‘Someone’s playing silly buggers. Playing tricks on me,’ Karen began. 

John’s eyebrows raised with a hint of who would dare to pick on you? ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

‘No time to talk now. Come round tonight, dinner on me. Seven sharp. But get me a camera, will you? One of those snake ones would do. I’ll tell you about it tonight.’

‘Of course,’ John could barely stop himself grinning.

‘And wipe that smile off your face. This is serious’ Karen replied, smiling as she turned away from him.

‘Haven’t you forgotten something precious?’ John teased.

Karen stopped in her tracks. If he thinks I’m going to engage in soppy talk anywhere, never mind at the office... She turned to face him; her smile evaporated. ‘How is your mother?’

John gaped. ‘She’s fine. That’s not what I meant.’ Karen frowned, confused. ‘The results,’ John said, now smiling at her. ‘Don’t you want these?’ He patted the brown envelope on his desk.

      ‘Ha!’ Karen grabbed the package and swept out without another word.

***

Three Little Girls is available from Amazon.

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