The Deal

By A. W. Lambert
Suspense/Thriller. 534 pages
Cover design by A. W. Lambert, finishing cover art by Pat Evans

Seventeen years ago teenager Nicardo Clarke grasped his brother’s hand and a sibling deal was sealed. Now Nicardo’s brother is dead, brutally murdered and Nicardo, forced to honor the deal, is drawn to another continent and a dark world where life is cheap and one man fears placing his trust in another.

Excerpt:
It was as black as pitch and Nick could see nothing. His heart was thudding like a steam hammer and his breath was coming in short cramped gasps. Pain lanced through his neck and head and one knee felt as if it had been stepped on by an elephant. But he was conscious; he could think, and slowly the situation came into focus. The car was on its roof and he was doubled in two, hanging upside down, his weight driving the still-attached seat belt deep into his stomach. It was why he was finding it difficult to breathe.

With one hand he reached down and pushed hard against the roof of the car, easing his weight from the belt. With the other hand he searched for the buckle, hoping it hadn’t been damaged and would release. It did, and with a painful thud he crumpled into the roof of the car. Screwed almost into a ball, he lay for a moment, his breathing easier now, taking stock and listening, the only sounds the hisses and creaks of a dead engine cooling in the dark night air.

Without light…probably the crash had caused the car’s battery to be ripped from its connections; he could only go by feel. He groped to where he thought Aisha should be and his hand found her head lolling awkwardly forward. She, too, was hanging, bent double in her seat belt. He ran his hand over her face and it came away sticky.

“Aisha,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”

There was no reply, but he thought he could hear the rasp of laboured breathing. He squirmed to one side and attempted to lift her body and release the belt, but the angle was too great and as strong as he was, he couldn’t manage it. Finally, turning on his back, he wriggled one shoulder beneath her hanging body and eased her weight from the seat belt, reaching round her prostrate form searching for the seat belt buckle.

Suddenly he froze.

A new sound had joined the slowly diminishing hissing and ticking of the engine. It was a gentle whoosh, a sound he instantly recognised and one that struck a cold terror in his heart.

“Jesus God,” he muttered, fumbling frantically around the front of Aisha, not caring what part of her lifeless body he clutched at. “We’re on fire, Aisha girl. We need to get out of here, so come on, move yourself.” He knew she couldn’t hear, couldn’t move anything. He was talking to himself, but somehow just talking helped, made him feel less alone. At last his right hand found the buckle buried beneath her furled up top, jammed deep into her stomach. He pulled the buckle open and Aisha collapsed on top of him. He rolled her away from him and as he did so realised he could suddenly see. He could see by the light of the flames licking around the front of the car directly in front of the shattered windscreen. The heat and fumes immediately began to permeate the car, a heavy, choking, petrol-filled fug getting thicker by the second.

Edge Of Reason, A Theo Stern Novel

By A. W. Lambert
Suspense/Thriller, 454 pages
Cover art by Pat Evans, background provided by A. W. Lambert

Blurb:

It’s 2006 and a group of university students enter into a reckless dare which culminates in the death of one of them. A formal investigation classifies the death as being accidental.

Fast forward to 2014, and the remaining students who took part in that dare, now each residing in various UK towns, one even in Australia, are being sought out and one by one brutally murdered. But what, after all this time, has sparked the killing spree and who is responsible? In one of the most involved cases of his career Theo Stern is hauled from one town to another, even travelling to Australia, in an attempt to uncover the truth.

Excerpt:

Total fatigue had won the day and a still fully clothed consciousness had only returned with the tentative but persistent tapping on his bedroom door. He forced glued eyelids apart and peered down at his watch. Half past two.

“Yeah, I hear you. I’m on my way.”

He peeled himself out of his clothes and staggered into the shower. Every room with en suite; well done, Cherry. Ten minutes later, feeling almost human, he was out front where he found Keen leaning patiently against the Hyundai. He smiled, the best he could do, hoping it made up just a tad for four plus hours of almost constant silence his young sidekick had had to endure on the way here. “Okay, let’s see what we can come up with, shall we?”

Their contact this time was a young DC called Roberts who could have been no more than a couple of years older than Keen. He had in tow the senior of the two uniformed constables who had responded to Sally Buckingham’s emergency call. He’d been the first to wade through an inch of water to the back room, the first to see the carnage there.

Roberts was quick and on the ball, fully briefed, and with a car at his disposal. Half an hour after arriving at the nick and parking the Hyundai, they were pulling up outside Mo Rahman’s closed and sealed pharmacy. Again, full marks to O’Connor, or someone on his behalf, for making the right contact, and to the locals for their instant cooperation. Nationwide, Stern thought, the police liaison and collaboration was better than ever.

A uniformed constable was guarding the taped-off front of the premises. Their access, Roberts informed them, would be through a rear entrance. From the street they made their way along a short alleyway leading to a small square yard. A green wheelie bin stood to one side of a doorway into the back of the shop. The door was open and two individuals clad in white coveralls were at work inside. Stopping at the door, Roberts turned to Stern. “Instructions are not to...”

Stern nodded. “Yeah, I know the score; no one in until the SOCOs say so, right.”

“Sorry, I forgot, you’ve done all this before, haven’t you?”

“Once or twice.”

Roberts gave a little self-conscious cough. “By the way, Mr Stern. Just for the record, they prefer to be called CSIs now. Crime Scene Investigators.”

“Really? Thanks for the update. Has the job changed?”

Roberts shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

Smiling, Stern gave a little shrug. “Oh well, a change is as good as a rest, I suppose.”

Keen leaned in close and whispered in Robert’s ear. “Take a look at DI Stern’s record.” Stern heard the comment, noting his elevation back to DI, but said nothing. He did wonder if it meant Keen had himself looked him up, studied his record, and if so, did he already know about Stern’s connection with his father? If he did, he’d certainly shown no sign of it. Stern pushed the thought from his mind…now was not the time.

He stood on the threshold looking into the room. Old habits die hard. For all those years his own little routine, still not forgotten; the first few minutes on an initial visit to any crime scene always spent on the outside, standing back looking in. An overall scan, before closing in and studying detail. Surprising what you can spot from a distance that might blur up close, he would maintain to any subordinate willing to listen.

Forbidden Legacy

By A. W. Lambert

Action/Adventure 388 pages

Cover art by Pat Evans

Background photo by A. W. Lambert

ISBN 978-1-61309-095-4   $7.50

ISBN 978-1-61309-908-7   $12.95

Blurb:

When a remote farmhouse burglary results in the death of one of the two elderly sisters living there the police are led to believe only a few trinkets were stolen. But then the surviving sister seeks out Theo Stern and admits that during the raid a priceless painting was also taken. But why were the police kept in the dark? She confides all to Stern, swearing him to secrecy and begging for his help to retrieve the painting.

Stern’s encounters danger at every turn when his investigations lead him from a wealthy, influential French banker with links to the French underworld to a vicious London abduction and a twenty-year reign of unsolved crimes in the UK?

Excerpt:

Woodford, a large suburban town in northeast London, occupies the northwestern part of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located approximately 9.5 miles northeast of Charing Cross, supports its own railway station with links into the centre of London via the Central Line and sits conveniently a little more than two miles from the feed onto the M11motorway.

The motel is situated just a short walk from the railway station. The room is small, measuring little more than a dozen feet square. It houses a bed, alongside which sits a bedside cabinet carrying a shaded lamp, a narrow chest of drawers and a single chair pinched into one corner. Even though an extractor fan hums continually, the sickly aroma of elicit cigarette smoke and stale alcohol combined with hastily sprayed air freshener, hangs in an uncomfortably humid atmosphere.

Today the room has been booked for just a couple of hours and the signature on the motel register is not the real name of the guest, but that is of no consequence to a bored desk clerk, who is more than happy to pocket the full daily rate in cash for just a couple of hours nobody else will ever know about.

Ronnie Price, the real name of the guest, is a jovial, forty-five year old Liverpudlian. He stands no more than five ten in his stocking feet and weighs a little under ten stone; this probably because, to him, food is not of great priority and also because he smokes like a trooper. Price works as a driver on the London underground system and has never missed a day’s work since he was first employed there. He is well-liked by his work mates and is considered by his employers as a conscientious, first class employee and a model citizen. And indeed that’s what he is. In the daytime. At night, however, Price assumes a very different persona. He is, and has been for almost twenty years, what is colloquially known as a cat burglar, one who specialises in entering houses at the dead of night, with a particular forte for high windows and skylights.

And Price is every bit as successful at his night-time activities as he is at the day job. He works totally alone and limits himself to just two or maybe three jobs each year, travelling extensively in his spare time, crisscrossing the country in order to survey potentially lucrative targets, preferring mainly rural counties where police numbers are limited. He is scrupulously selective and plans each job meticulously. As a result, no police database holds his name and, despite extensively contributing to almost every county’s unsolved crime list over the years, his face is completely unknown to any law enforcement agency.

Long ago the press had latched onto the story, headlining it as the UK police force’s most embarrassing case since Jack the Ripper. They’d named him “The Shadow” with front page captions such as The Police Again Left Chasing The Shadow and Once Again The Shadow Evaporates After Daring Robbery. Price revelled in the dichotomy; as The Shadow, he was known to almost everyone in the country and yet his identity was completely unknown to anyone.