I am delighted to welcome Rachel Lynch's Bitter Edge to the blog today to celebrate the 4th in her DI Kelly Porter series. You can read my interview with Rachel Lynch here. I also have an extract from Bitter Edge for you today. First, of course, here's a little more about the book:
DI Kelly Porter is back, but so is
an old foe and this time he won’t back down...
When a teenage girl flings herself
off a cliff in pursuit of a gruesome death, DI Kelly Porter is left asking why.
Ruled a suicide, there’s no official reason for Kelly to chase answers, but as
several of her team’s cases converge on the girl’s school, a new, darker story
emerges. One which will bring Kelly face-to-face with an old foe determined to
take back what is rightfully his – no matter the cost.
Mired in her pursuit of justice
for the growing list of victims, Kelly finds security in Johnny, her family and
the father she has only just discovered. But just as she draws close to
unearthing the dark truth at the heart of her investigation, a single moment on
a cold winter’s night shatters the notion that anything in Kelly’s world can
ever truly be safe.
Don't miss this gripping crime
thriller featuring a phenomenal detective. Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons,
Patricia Gibney and Robert Bryndza.
Extract
Chapter 3
Kelly Porter heaved the freshly
felled Norwegian pine into the boot of her Audi Q6. It smelled like Christmas.
Johnny shoved it from behind. He’d carried the thing on his shoulder as Kelly
watched out for obstacles on the way to the car park. There were others doing
the same thing. Families with shrieking children, couples gazing at one another
lovingly, and men on their own, ticking off a last-minute job before heading
home to surprise their families.
They pushed it in, trunk first,
and slid it all the way to the front window. They had to bend the top around in
a semicircle to fit it in, and as they slammed the boot down, they both crossed
their fingers that they hadn’t chopped it off. The tree seemed secure, and
Kelly got into the driving seat, with Johnny having to manoeuvre himself into
the back, ducking underneath branches that were contained for the moment by
mesh. The journey back to Pooley Bridge was unique, surrounded by the smell and
tickle of pine.
Getting the thing into Kelly’s
living room was another task altogether. Her house in Pooley Bridge was a small
stone cottage, overlooking the River Eamont. The wooden terrace, suspended over
the river to the rear of the property, had been its selling point, and Kelly
spent most of the year out there, any time of the day, in any weather,
contemplating what had gone, what was, and what was to come. Sometimes she
found answers and sometimes she did not.
Inside, the house was modest but
spacious. Even after almost a year, she still hadn’t filled all the rooms, and
the small third bedroom remained a dumping ground. The spare room wasn’t much
tidier, but the rooms that were lived in and cherished were tidy and bright.
She’d had a new bathroom fitted, getting rid of the dated avocado suite and
replacing it with a modern wet room; and she’d bought a huge, luxurious corner
sofa for the living room, along with a vast TV. She hardly watched the TV, but
Johnny did, and he paid for the Sky Sports subscription. He watched extreme
fell races and sailing mostly. He still hadn’t bought the boat he’d promised
himself.
Johnny kicked the door shut and
they propped the tree up across the hallway. It filled the space. Kelly went to
take off the mesh.
‘Wait a minute.’ Johnny held up
his hand, panting. ‘If you do that, we won’t get it into the living room.’
Kelly’s hat had slipped over her
eyes, she was sweating under her padded walking jacket, and the woollen scarf
at her neck tickled. She was quickly losing her sense of humour and wanted a
glass of warm red wine. She left the tree and went to open the double doors
that led to the living room, then snatched off her hat and quickly undid her
jacket.
‘Any time tonight,’ Johnny said.
It had taken them two hours to choose and transport the tree, and Kelly knew
that he’d be off to do it all again tomorrow with his daughter, Josie, for his
own house.
She smiled at him and deliberately
took her time walking back to her end of the tree. She picked it up, and they
manoeuvred it to where they’d agreed it should go, propping it up against the
sofa next to the stand. It was one of the growing list of things they had in
common: neither of them was precious about stuff; things were just things, and
they were both more interested in the outdoors.
‘Should we have a glass of wine
before we get it up and decorate it?’ Kelly asked.
Johnny nodded, and they left the
tree and unpeeled themselves from their heavy coats. The fire was ready to be
lit, and Johnny set about doing that while Kelly fetched two glasses from the
kitchen to the side of the hall. The two rooms were all that comprised the
entire downstairs, and it made the little house comforting and cosy. They both
took off their shoes, and once the fire was lit and roaring, Johnny placed the
guard in front of it and they sat on the sofa. Kelly put her feet up.
‘Good job,’ he said.
‘Thanks for helping me. I feel as
though I just want to leave it there now. No wonder Mum and Dad never bothered
with a real one.’
Kelly checked herself. Dad was such a natural and common
expression that not to use it would have been weird. But she hadn’t yet decided
how she felt about finding out that John Porter was not in fact her biological
father, and the phrase slipped out as it always had. She fiddled with her
ponytail and Johnny put his hand on her knee.
‘He’s still your dad, like he
always was,’ he said. Johnny had never met John Porter, but Kelly had described
him many times.
She laid her head on his shoulder
and mused on how it might feel if they lived together like this. They rarely
disagreed, they didn’t get in each other’s way, and they liked the same kind of
things, whether it be what snack to eat on a hike, or which song to play on a
Friday after a long, exhausting week.
The fire began to throw out its
heat and the first sips of wine made her insides warm. Johnny wasn’t on call
for the mountain rescue tonight. There was no doubt that he could still
navigate Striding Edge after a glass or two, but that wasn’t the point. It was
a rare night off. They’d been busy lately, with accidents on Broad Stand, on
Scafell Pike, at a record. The series of steps and slabs of sheer rock linking
Scafell to Mickledore on Scafell Pike is described as a scramble, but anyone
who has negotiated it knows that it is anything but, and falls are usually
fatal. For her part, Kelly had been dealing with the awful case of Jenna
Fraser. Due to the horrific nature of the girl’s injuries, they’d assumed
murder – any violent death in such circumstances was suspicious – but they’d
found nothing to support the theory.
‘Shall we?’ Johnny said. ‘Come on,
it’ll distract you.’
She looked at the boxes of
decorations. She’d dragged Johnny around countless shops, antique and
otherwise, searching for baubles and hanging bits to adorn her dream tree, and
now the moment was here. The task would take all night, but Johnny was
committed; he couldn’t back out now. It was his turn to cook, and they had
enough wine to keep them going for hours. He would stay here tonight, knowing
Josie was all right on her own until their trip back to the forest tomorrow for
their own tree. Josie was fourteen years old and perfectly capable of looking
after herself. She enjoyed a great deal of freedom for her age, but Johnny
trusted her. She’d turned up earlier in the year, fed up of living with her
mother. It had been a shock for Kelly, but they’d both had to get used to it. A
few years ago, she might have run a mile rather than even think of becoming a
stepmother figure, but Josie wasn’t needy.
‘Let’s crack on. You can unpack
all your shiny things and I’ll get the curry on,’ he said.
‘Is that your final standard
operating procedure?’ She poked fun at his army jargon, but he didn’t mind.
Johnny had been out of the army for six years now, but he still used its
peculiar terminology. His ex-wife had hated it, as she had hated anything to do
with the army, but it brought about the opposite response in Kelly. Language in
the police force was similarly old school, and they understood one another.
She waited and watched him,
smiling. She’d softened him. He was no longer hard, the fighting man he’d
described to her after his return from Afghanistan. She couldn’t imagine
anything other than the peaceful strength she’d grown used to, but he’d told
her that for a while, he’d carried his anger round with him like a great
weight. She saw the odd flash of it –when he heard that a former colleague had
committed suicide due to PTSD, for instance – but Lakeland life had generally
calmed him and absorbed his brutality. The demons had all but gone.
She touched his hand and he put
down his glass of wine, pulling her towards him, kissing her. The fire crackled
and kept them warm as he peeled layers off her. They threw their clothes onto
the floor and Kelly lay down underneath him. The sofa was large enough to
double as a bed, and only the sound of the cushions moving and their bodies
pushing against one another punctuated the sizzle of logs and the puffs of hot
air. Johnny buried his head in Kelly’s neck as they both tensed, and she
wrapped her legs around his back, holding onto the moment. Stepdaughters and
dead teenagers were all forgotten in the time it took for their motion to
quietly subside.
My Thoughts
This book sums up for me all that I have gained from having a book blog. Before I started Books, Life and Everything, I wouldn't have even thought of reading this genre. But how I would have missed out on some wonderful writing with an intricate plot and superb characters. DI Kelly Porter is such a great character. She is doggedly determined and has a real forensic approach to detection. However there is more to her than that. I loved her back story and the family dynamics which continue to unfold in this fourth book.
The setting in Cumbria is stunning but also forms part of the plot. It is not there as a pretty background. The story lives and breathes within the environment and the weather. It is perfectly captured in the cover. At first, it seems initially confusing as the various characters are introduced but then the links between them become clearer, There are some heart-breaking moments as the lives of the young people come into focus and in parts, the story is a shocking indictment of our social media dominated society.
In short: A police procedural set firmly in the 21st century.
About the Author
Rachel Lynch grew up in Cumbria and the lakes and fells are never far away from her. London pulled her away to teach History and marry an Army Officer, whom she followed around the globe for thirteen years. A change of career after children led to personal training and sports therapy, but writing was always the overwhelming force driving the future. The human capacity for compassion as well as its descent into the brutal and murky world of crime are fundamental to her work.
You can follow Rachel here: Twitter
Thanks to Rachel Lynch, and Ellie Pilcher of Canelo Books for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.
Catch up with the rest of the tour!
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