Tooth and Claw - Couverture rigide

McCrery, Nigel

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0307377024 ISBN 13 : 9780307377029

Editeur : Pantheon Books, 2010

Synopsis

Working at home for a year to control his synesthesia, Detective Chief Inspector Mark Lapslie is summoned back to active duty to investigate the murder of a high-profile reporter, a case that is quickly complicated by the bombing death of a second victim.

A propos du livre

Extrait

PROLOGUE
 
‘Tip your head back and open your mouth.’
 
The voice was cultured, smooth, devoid of any obvious emotion. No anger, no hatred, no lust. Just the faintest tinge of academic curiosity; nothing else.
 
He shook his head. ‘Please,’ he begged, his voice cracking, ‘I don’t—’
 
‘I said, tip your head back and open your mouth.’
 
He could smell alcohol on his captor’s breath. The blindfold around his eyes meant he couldn’t see what was happening, so when fingers entwined themselves in his hair and pulled his head back until his face was pointed up towards the ceiling, he gasped in shock at the pain. His hair felt as if it was being pulled out by the roots. While that hand was still entangling his hair, another one took his chin and forced his mouth open. It let go, but before he could close his mouth something was pushed past his teeth: something that felt like a dental dam of some kind, a plastic plate with a hole in the centre, too rigid for him to crush between the roof of his mouth and his tongue. It kept his mouth gaping open in a silent, frozen scream. He wanted to fight against it, to push his captor away and rip the thing from his mouth, but his arms were tied to the chair and he couldn’t move.
 
His breath came in ragged gasps past the obstruction in his mouth. He wanted to gag. The insides of his cheeks and tongue were drying out as his saliva evaporated. Tears squeezed their way out of his closed eyelids and prickled their way down past his temples and into his hair. He felt a hot flush of shame across his skin. He wanted to be strong but helplessness made him feel faint.
 
‘I’m going to put something into your mouth,’ the voice said, as calm and as measured as if his captor was reading a set of instructions for some new beauty treatment. ‘It’s important that you don’t swallow. Close your throat up and breathe through your nose.’
 
He tried to shake his head but the grip on his hair intensified. Something smooth and warm touched his lower lip. He tried to pull away but the hand on the back of his head pushed him suddenly forward.
 
A tube pushed past his teeth and into his mouth through the hole in the dental dam. He nearly gagged on the plastic as it scraped his tongue. Before he could even take a breath, a warm, thick liquid invaded his mouth, trickling around between, his teeth and his cheeks, infiltrating its way beneath his tongue, sending questing fingers down his throat until he blocked it. He felt his stomach rising up in protest. He had to breathe through his nose, but he was hyperventilating and his nostrils were closing and his breath wasn’t coming fast enough. He began to feel light-headed.
 
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ the voice said as a hand stroked his hair. ‘It’ll all be over soon.’
 
And then, nothing. Nothing but the solidifying waxy mass in his mouth, and the increasingly difficult whistle of breath through his nostrils, and the red static that invaded the darkness of his blindfolded eyes, creeping in from the outside until everything was red and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to die . . .

Présentation de l'éditeur

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Lapslie and Sergeant Emma Bradbury are back in an electrifyingly suspenseful new novel, chasing down one of the most fearsome, brilliantly terrifying characters to ever stalk the pages of a book.
 
After a year of working at home in order to control his synaesthesia (the rare neurological condition that causes his brain to crosswire his senses), DCI Lapslie gets a visit from Emma Bradbury, summoning him back to active duty. A well-known television reporter has been brutally murdered and the top brass think Lapslie is the man to investigate the crime. With no witnesses and no suspects, Lapslie finds himself facing one of the toughest cases of his career. Then, in short order, he has a second murder on his hands: a man is found dead in a train-station bomb explosion. Despite all odds, Lapslie begins to suspect that the two high-profile cases may be connected. Under pressure to produce results and with the media bearing down on him and his synaesthesia going wild, Lapslie approaches his breaking point, but the solution to what’s beginning to look like the crimes of an especially evil—and diabolically creative—serial killer remains elusive. To make matters worse, the killer’s next target may be much closer than Lapslie could possibly guess.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Pantheon Books
• Date d'édition: 2010
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0307377024
• ISBN 13: 9780307377029
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 310
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible