It’s always exciting to be given a publication day to look forward to – it means the hard work will be over and the celebrations can begin.

 

There will, of course, be an online party with lots of prizes on offer, with silly games, music and virtual food and drink to keep the party spirit going.

 

A little after the online release, I’ll be hosting a real life book launch party at The Bookshop, Sabinillas (date and time to be announced). As soon as the date is set, I’ll be issuing a general invitation to come along and have a glass (or two) of bubbly and some nibbles.

 

So, what is Looking for a Reason about? For those of you who follow the D.I. Paolo Storey series, you will know that Paolo’s cases are never straightforward. There are always more suspects than one detective should have to cope with. The crimes, too, are never as simple as they first appear. There are always twists that turn clues into red herrings, suspects into victims and victims into suspects.

 

Looking for a Reason, the fourth in the series, next in line after Bad Moon Rising (a People’s Book Prize finalist), Someday Never Comes (entered for a CWA Dagger award) and Call it Pretending (released December 2013), gives Paolo even more headaches as nothing is quite what it seems.

 

Someone is abducting men and subjecting them to three days of rape and torture, but who? More to the point – why? After enduring cruelty, starvation and water deprivation, they are released.

 

Paolo has lots of questions. Why three days? Why that particular form of torture? Why deprive them of water? Why let them go?

 

The biggest question of all: Why will none of them talk about their time in captivity, or give any information which would help the police to find the perpetrator? The victims, to a man, refuse even to admit they were held captive.

 

In addition to the above, Paolo’s personal and professional lives are once again in turmoil.