BOOK BLAST
Book Title: The Grocers’
Son
Author: Garrick
Jones
Publisher: MoshPit
Publishing
Cover Artist: Garrick
Jones
Release Date: September 21,
2022
Genres: Crime Fiction;
Detective; Thriller
Tropes: Lost lovers
reunited
Themes: The strength of relationships over time; What one will do for
love
Heat Rating: 2 flames
Length: 138 629 words/ 422
pages (paperback)
It is a standalone book and
the third book in the Clyde Smith Mystery series.
It does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links
Amazon AU | Amazon
US | Amazon UK | Smashwords
Blurb
“I swear to God it was Willoughby. My brother stood not
two feet away from me, called me Lina to my face, and pulled Harley into his arms, saying he
was sorry, sobbing, and calling him his boy.”
An apparition in Sydney’s fruit and vegetable market leaves
the mother of one of Clyde’s best friends believing that her brother, hanged for murder
twenty-four years beforehand, has somehow risen from the grave and confronted
her.
She is adamant that the visitation was real and visits Clyde
asking him to investigate the mass murder her brother was supposed to have committed.
She believes he was either set up or was covering for someone else’s crime.
Could this vision have been a folie à deux, a delusional
vision shared by both mother and son? As Clyde investigates, clues lead him to one of
Australia’s most famous silent screen actors, a man who, together with his murdered father,
becomes intrinsically linked to the mass murder, known as The Killing at Candal
Creek.
Wheels within wheels, lies, extortion, and coverups lead
Clyde to a bloody confrontation on a deserted beach in the tropics. This time, it’s not only
his own life at risk but also that of one of his most valued and closest friends.
Excerpt
I was in my “puzzle room” when I heard Harry’s cooee from
the front door.
I called it a puzzle room because that’s the phrase we’d
used during the war to describe a safe place where we could discuss plans, devise strategies,
and toss ideas around. Mine was my bathroom, lying on my back in the bath with the lights
out and the shower falling onto my legs, the only illumination from the flickering blue light
of the gas geyser. After eating dinner, I’d listened to Mama Lena’s Arrivederci Roma
radio programme then had got stuck into some research on Elwood Pearson.
I could hear Harry clunking around in the hallway. “I’m in
here!” I called out.
“I know!” he responded, then appeared in the doorway,
totally naked except for the black bow tie around his neck and wearing his socks and
garters.
“What happened to the master of the house looking for the
lazy footman?” I said, laughing because I could see he was more than three sheets to the
wind.
He climbed into the tub and sat between my legs, water
pouring over his head, grinning at me stupidly. “I changed it,” he said. “It’s master of the
house, pissed out of his skull, ravishing the naked footman in the bathtub.”
“Come here,” I said, and pulled his head down for a kiss.
“You’re not that drunk,” I added, my hand having found no evidence of brewer’s
droop.
“Shh!” he said, biting my chin. “Mark’s crashed in the spare
room.”
“What?”
“Too many cocktails, both of us. We caught a taxi and he
helped me up the stairs.”
“So, no noise then?”
“Nup,” he said, then pulled my legs around his hips and let
forth a loud wolf-howl.
I laughed then pushed my wet washcloth between his
teeth, which he spat out then attacked my mouth with his own. I really hoped Mark had
closed his bedroom door. When Harry was in this sort of mood, he could make a lot of noise
… not that I was complaining.
About the Author
From the outback to the
opera.
After a thirty-year career as a
professional opera singer, performing as a soloist in opera houses and in concert halls all
over the world, I took up a position as lecturer in music in Australia in 1999, at the Central
Queensland Conservatorium of Music, which is now part of CQUniversity.
Brought up in Australia,
between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, I retired in 2015 and now live in
the tropics, writing, gardening, and finally finding time to enjoy life and to re-establish a
connection with who I am after a very busy career on the stage and as an
academic.
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