Devil's Cauldron by Alasdair Wham

 

I would like to thank Reading Between the Lines Blog Tours for giving me the opportunity to bring you this book, my Bookaholic friends. This gritty thriller is set in my native Scotland, so a real local flavour today. It's enough to make you crack out the Whiskey.

Blurb

What would you do if you saw your father murdered and no one believed you? When he was twelve Finn McAdam, saw his father, a scientist, murdered. No one believed him. Now he has returned to his native Galloway to discover the truth. Wherever it leads him. Whatever it costs. But the conspiracy he discovers exposes a cover-up involving leading political figures and places his life in great danger. Some people are determined that the truth must not get out.

Extract

The jam and cream filling palatable, the sponge harder to swallow, the flavour now tainted with the metallic tang of blood.
An elderly couple got up to leave, and as they reached the door it was held open by a woman who was entering. She was dressed in a black jerkin and matching black trousers – a uniform. She headed to his table to be greeted with a brief smile as she stood there, not, it seemed, expecting to be asked to sit down.
‘How long, Tania?’ I had heard that voice before.
‘The car is ready, sir. They managed to repair the puncture. I’ve parked it in St Andrew Street, close to the Kings Arms Hotel. As usual, there were no spaces left on King Street,’ she added, not with a smile but with a slight softening of her features, an attempted apology for any inconvenience caused. There was a rapport between them. Tania must be his chauffeur.
Tania was stocky, muscle not fat, I thought, her dark shoulder- length hair streaked with wisps of grey, her face impassive. She knew her place. She was also disrupting my plans. I couldn’t approach him now, not when he had company. I quickly supped some of the coffee to suppress my emotion.
‘That’s good. I’ll be out in a minute. Just wait in the car.’ He certainly was a charmer, knew how to treat women. Same way that he treated my father, contempt inbred. Now things could change with a bit of luck, I thought, shovelling down another piece of cake, although it stuck in my gullet.
Tania complied, not reacting to the brush-off, and turned about to leave the cafe. I looked around, no one else had noticed his chauvinism. However, no one else had the personal interest I had in him.
After a few seconds, he drained his coffee cup and stood up, putting his pen back carefully inside his jacket, and then, picking up the paper, he beckoned the waitress over and handed her a paper note. He waited while she brought his change. I kept my head down, managing another mouthful of coffee, masking my face.
‘Thank you.’ He took his change and headed towards the door.
Suddenly, I realised that I needed to pay and follow him, but the waitress had disappeared into the kitchen. I got up as he left and rushed over to the counter.
‘Hello,’ I said loudly and rapped on the counter. I repeated myself and a face appeared, an older woman.
‘I need to pay up, I have to go.’
‘Okay, no problem. Michelle, can you settle this gentleman’s bill? He’s in a hurry,’ she added.
Seconds passed before Michelle appeared. Precious seconds. Michelle returned, reached up and took the tab from a clip and checked the menu for prices.
‘Everything okay, sir?’ She glanced across at the half-eaten cake.
‘Yes,’ but she was taking too long. He could be away in his car by now. I threw down a ten- pound note and said, ‘Keep the change.’ I turned and ran out of the cafe. A glance told me he wasn’t on King Street. I knew Castle Douglas well – after all, I had lived in it for many years when I was younger – and rushed the short distance to St Andrew Street and looked along it. There he was, walking slowly, catching up with Tania who had not yet reached the car. I lurked at the corner and then quickly crossed the street and tried to walk fast without attracting their attention. I stopped beside an antique showroom as Tania pressed a key fob. The indicator lights flashed on a dark-coloured sports coupe, trimmed with a line of lime along the sill, the vivid colour reflecting off the highly polished body of the car. It looked like an Aston Martin, top of the range, a dream car only for the wealthy. Tania held the passenger door open and, as he got in, I took a picture with my iPhone.

Tania paused as she walked round the car, as if she had noticed my action. I turned away and took a picture of a white plaster bust of some historic figure in the window and pretended to be interested in it, breathing hard to steady my tension.
Minutes later I heard the throaty sound of the sports car starting and turned trying to note the registration number, but a car passed blocking my view. I could only see three letters... AGL. The car turned up Queen Street, which ran parallel to King Street, and was gone. I stood for some time, letting my emotion subside before I continued towards Queen Street.
He existed and he knew the area. I had to find him, so many questions to ask him and then... as my thoughts turned to plotting revenge, I saw the car pass the end of the road. I barely had time to turn away but noticed a lime-coloured stripe on the bonnet. Had Tania doubled back to check up on me? Had he recognised me after all? Unlikely, but I had to be careful until the conditions were right for me to exact my revenge.

You can buy the book via the link below. These are affiliate links and I will take a small amount of money if you buy the book. 

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About Alasdair Wham

Alasdair first two two novels were set in Islay and Mull (west coast of Scotland) and have proved very successful, rich in local detail with interesting plots.
His third novel, Devil's Cauldron, is set in Galloway which is in south-west Scotland, he likes to write about places that he knows the best.

Before he turned to fiction, he produced a series of books exploring Scotland's lost railways, a hobby that he enjoys with his sons and that took him all over Scotland.

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That's it for another week my Boookaholic friends. I will see you soon with another post. Until then, keep on reading and writing. 

The Migrant by Paul Alkazraji - a do not miss thriller

 

Hello, Bookaholics, and welcome back as I bring you another cracking book. I did review Paul's book previously on this blog and you can check out my review here. Today, I am honoured to be bringing you an exclusive extract from the book so you can find out why I loved it so much I am devoting two blogs to telling you about it. 

Blurb

Fascist populists, callous sex-traffickers and murderous mafia gangs - these were not what Pastor Jude Kilburn had expected to face when he moved to Albania. But when vulnerable 19-year-old Alban disappears from his poverty-stricken village to seek work in Greece, Jude has to undertake the perilous journey across the mountains to try and rescue him from the ruthless Athenian underworld. Accompanied by a volatile secret-service agent and a reformed gangster, Jude soon finds himself struggling to keep everyone together as personal tensions rise and violent anti-austerity riots threaten to tear them apart and undermine the mission. Caught between cynical secret police and a brutal crime syndicate, the fate of them all will be determined by a trafficked girl - but not every one will make it home. The Migrant is a tense and evocative thriller with a powerful redemptive twist.

Extract

It was then that Alban heard two different sounds almost at the same time. In the corner of the clearing a branch snapped. Two round eyes, low to the ground, bounded towards the plastic bags and beer cans, and the form of a large brown bear took shape in the darkness. The bear stopped when it saw them and gave a long, whining growl. Heavy running footsteps and the electronic hiss of a two-way radio came from the stone bridge. Ervin was staring wide-eyed back at Alban. Seconds later, the muscular policeman climbed up on the far edge of the clearing. The bear growled at him and rose up on its hind legs before turning and bolting back into the undergrowth. The policeman fell back out of sight.

Alban grasped his sack and plunged into the pine trees until the branches struck his face and knocked him onto his back. Ervin suddenly stood over him looking down.

‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘Quickly, get going.’ Ervin lifted him by the shoulders. Alban turned and began scrambling forwards on all fours dragging his sack along with him. He could feel Ervin at his heels bumping into him. The stones, twigs and pine cones scratched his forearms and knees as he charged under the tightly interwoven lower branches. He coughed and gasped for breath as the dust came up into his face. He felt two hands grasp his ankles and he spun over to see Ervin being dragged backwards, his hold now released on him.

‘Go – just go. Keep going,’ shouted Ervin. He saw his friend’s eyes widen as his arms flailed and grasped at the rows of trunks. He heard him cry out in pain. Alban turned to look ahead of him, and set off like some spooked forest creature, on and on until he tumbled out of the far edge and down a bank. He got to his feet and sprinted along a narrow track, up onto a rocky knoll, and jumped down into a cleft between two boulders to hide. As his panting for breath began to ease, he wiped the tears and dirt from his cheek. He listened. It was quiet. He waited and could hear no one in pursuit. He lowered his head into his hands and heaved out two sobs. Oh, Uncle Skender, he thought to himself, what have I done?

There was little noise around him except the hum of cicadas and the far-away trickle of water. Then carrying across the still night he heard a voice shout something in Greek and a terrible shriek of pain, and fragments of phrases: ‘No, no ... please ... stop ... don’t ... dog ... you dog.’ He listened again. Ervin cried out. Alban bit his hand as he heard it and closed his eyes. He let his head hang and then he drew his hand under his nose to clean it. He lifted his face slowly, rose out of the rocky cleft and peered around. There was no one. He threw his sack over his shoulder and trod down the knoll. He walked cautiously back in the direction he had come until he found the place where he had tumbled out of the pine trees. He moved past it looking to see where the treeline went, and kept to it hoping he might circle back close to the clearing where they had been. Ten minutes later, he was following the ravine back upstream until he could make out the arch of the stone bridge ahead of him. The sound of Ervin screaming and pleading had grown louder. He winced. He crawled closer on his front up a bank and set aside his sack. He peered over the edge of the clearing and he saw his friend being held by his shirt at the neck. The policeman flung him down and kicked him. Ervin moaned and rolled over.

Sliding back down lower, Alban closed his eyes. He thought about what he could do. He opened them and looked at his hands. They were trembling. He saw a broken branch by his side. It looked thick but dry and rotten. He stretched his hand towards it, and with the tips of his fingers pulled it closer and into his palm. He eased himself onto his back and began to breathe deeply. He saw his breath steam rise high in gusts. He looked up at the millions of stars in the clear Balkan night above him. In his field of vision the policeman suddenly entered and stood looking down on him. For a split second he saw his broad, muscular shoulders, his hair sheared close across his temples, and his eyes – yet one was odd. In fear and panic he brought the branch up into the man’s face and it smashed there into pieces. The man groped at his eyes and tumbled down the bank.

Alban got to his feet, grabbed his sack and ran towards Ervin. He pulled him up off the ground and looked at his face. It was dark and blood-sticky.

‘Hey, friend. Are you coming with me to Greece?’ he shouted. A grin broke across Ervin’s dazed face. Alban clutched his shirt and dragged him forwards, stumbling over the clearing. They tore down the edge of the treeline together. Soon they were running parallel to the ravine. Alban’s sack caught a branch and was snagged from his hand. He stopped to retrieve it. He looked back. The policeman was up now and coming.

They came to a rocky hillock and bounded up it like young goats and then down the other side into a hedge of rosehip bushes. Ervin waded through them ahead lifting the long fronds aside so that they would not snap back on him. Alban, though, felt the thorns of one cut into the flesh of his shoulder and he cried out. They tumbled out of the other side onto the grass and crawled forward until they came to the edge of the land. Alban looked down. Below them was an almost sheer bank of earth falling to the rocky bed of the stream perhaps fifty metres down. He looked out over the mountains before them. The moonlight caught a row of wind turbines on a distant ridgeline. He could smell Ervin’s sweat and blood. He thought he heard the bear growl far away, but he was sure he heard a man grunt and spit. He turned to look behind them. On the top of the hillock the policeman stood against the stars. He reached his hand down to the holster on his thigh and drew out the fat, black pistol.

‘You little dogs!’ he shouted. He mounted it across his right forearm with his left hand. Alban grabbed his friend’s arm and dragged him over the edge as two shots cracked out and echoed along the ravine.

You can buy the books via the links below. These are affiliate links so I will receive a small amount of money if you buy. 

    

About Paul Alkazraji

Paul Alkazraji worked as a freelance journalist in the UK from the mid-nineties. His articles were published in Christianity Magazine, The Christian Herald, The Church Times, The Baptist Times and other publications. His travel articles were also published in The Independent. His first book Love Changes Everything, a collection of seven testimonies, was published by Scripture Union in 2001. His second book Heart of a Hooligan, a biography of ex-football hooligan Dave Jeal, was published by Highland Books in 2000. His third book Christ and the Kalashnikov, a biography of missionaries Ian and Caralee Loring, was published by Zondervan in 2001. From 2004 to 2010 he was editor and publisher of Ujëvarë magazine in Albania. His first novel, 'The Silencer', was published by Highland Books in 2012. His new novel, 'The Migrant', set in Albania and Athens during the austerity troubles, was published by Instant Apostle in February 2019.

I hope you have enjoyed the extract and it's whet your appetite for the book as a whole. Meet me back here soon for another cracking blog post and until then, keep on reading and keep on writing. 

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Thank you to Reading Between The Lines Book Tours for the opportunity to highlight this book.