BOOKISH FRIDAY: “PERSONS UNKNOWN”

Welcome to another Bookish Friday, in which I  share excerpts from books…and connect with other bloggers, who do the same.

Let’s begin the celebration by sharing Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and let’s showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

What a great way to spend a Friday!

Today I am featuring an ARC from Amazon Vine, from a newly discovered author.  A book that is second in a series:  Persons Unknown, by Susie Steiner, is a  brilliant crime novel from the author of Missing, Presumed.  A complicated detective investigates her most personal case yet: a high-profile murder in which those she loves most become suspects.

 

Beginning:  (Day 1, December 14, Jon-Oliver)

Down.  Dizzy.  Pitching left.  He is draining away like dirty water, round and round.  Stumbling not walking, the ground threatening to come up and meet him.  And yet he presses on.  Something’s not right.

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56:  (Manon)

“Oh, God, you need wine,” Manon says, pouring Sauvignon Blanc into a glass and handing it to Ellie, who’s sitting at the kitchen table pushing a balled tissue into a nostril.  Her eyes are red, her lips cracked.  She takes the glass gratefully.  “Hang on,” says Manon, making for the doorway, “—right back.”

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Synopsis:  Detective Manon Bradshaw is five months pregnant and has officially given up on finding romantic love. Instead, she is in hot pursuit of work-life balance and parked in a cold case corridor—the price she’s had to pay for a transfer back to Cambridgeshire. This is fine, she tells herself. She can devote herself to bringing up her two children: her adopted twelve-year-old son, Fly Dent, and the new baby. Fly needed a fresh start—he was always being stopped and searched in London by officers who couldn’t see past the color of his skin. Manon feared that Fly, increasingly sullen and adolescent, was getting in with the wrong crowd at school, or that possibly he was the wrong crowd. Being home by five, for the sake of her children, is what Manon tells herself she needs.

Yet when a wealthy businessman is found stabbed close to police headquarters, Manon can’t help but sidle in on the briefing: The victim is a banker from London, worth millions. More dramatically, he was once in a relationship with Manon’s sister, Ellie, and is the father of Ellie’s toddler son.

The case begins to circle in on Manon’s home and her family. She finds herself pitted against the colleagues she once held dear: Davy Walker and Harriet Harper.

Can Manon separate what she knows about the people she loves from the suspicion hanging over them? Can she investigate the evidence, just as she would with any other case? With every fiber of her being, Manon must fight to find the truth.

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Would you keep reading?  Do the excerpts grab you?

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