After is the first book in the Inspector West crime series, which explores the lives of people who commit crimes, mess up relationships and fall in love - not necessarily in that order - and the life of Inspector Carl West, who sometimes solves a crime or two.
Mysterious death reveals her secrets.
Inspector West investigates the murder of school teacher, Josie Ford.
Her husband faces impacts beyond grief as Josie’s secrets are revealed.
If you like mystery mixed with suspense, you’ll probably love the intrigue and surprise in Peter Mulraney’s debut murder mystery: After.
Excerpt
‘It says here that a bloke can expect to live until he’s ninety, maybe even older if he’s fit and healthy, and gets plenty of sex.’
‘Paul, turn out the light and go to sleep. I’m too tired.’
‘Relax. I wasn’t chatting you up. I just hadn’t thought about living that long. I thought I’d be dead way before ninety.’
‘You’ll be bloody dead before morning if you don’t shut up and let me get some sleep.’
Paul switched off the light. He lay there thinking about living for another fifty years or so and wondering how he was going to pay for twenty five to thirty years of retirement living. He would just have to get serious about financial planning, once they had passed through the private school fees paying phase of middle class living. The last time he had seriously reviewed the family budget the most obvious fact was that their expenses matched their income. There was no surplus for contingencies.
His thoughts turned to Josie. It was always a challenge being next to her in the bed. He wanted sex every time he touched her naked body. Josie, however, had a different perspective. Obviously, as far as Paul could see, God had a twisted sense of humour. How else could you explain the different arousal rates between the sexes? He sees or thinks naked woman - instant arousal, with lumping great erection advertising the state of his interior monologue. She requires hours of talking, coupled with gentle, slow foreplay, before she even thinks about having sex and, even after all that, she is just as likely to roll over and go to sleep, and leave him there with his dripping erection. At least, that had been his experience.
‘Paul, stop tossing and turning! Every time you move you pull the covers off my shoulders.’
‘Sorry. I’ll try to die as soon as possible.’
She ran her smooth hand over his belly. It felt good. His penis stirred from its frustrated slumber.
‘I’m sorry, honey. I’m just really exhausted and I’m finding it hard to go to sleep.’
She snuggled up to him. Within three minutes she was asleep.
It was no wonder prostitution was a thriving business, he thought. It was married men who required the services of prostitutes and supposedly celibate men, in the guise of clergy, who were most strident in their opposition to the profession. He wondered what it would be like having sex with a prostitute. She certainly wouldn’t engage with the client on a personal level. After all, the client was just another transaction and, to survive as a person, the prostitute would have to shut down her emotional self while she was on the job. He decided he’d stick with Josie.
He thought of those times when they did connect and the sex was indescribable. What was the point of sex anyway? It wasn’t about the physical relief, even though that was good, it was about the sacredness of intimacy and that required connection on all three levels of being: physical, emotional and spiritual. He understood why communication failure led to relationship breakdown. The blokes were too much into the physical to notice that the girls were coming from the emotional looking for the spiritual. He knew it was when he came from the emotional, and they touched the spiritual, that they had great sex in the physical.
He looked at the clock: 11:55. He got up and went down the corridor to the toilet for a piss.
He got back into bed to wait for sleep. Josie was snoring softly. He knew he didn’t snore softly because Josie always woke him up and told him to stop it.
Josie wasn’t the only one snoring. He could hear Matthew trumpeting away in the next room. That boy was always making noise. He spoke with a sonic boom and whenever he blew his nose you thought of a ship lost somewhere in a mid-Atlantic fog.
Book Four in Belinda Lawrence mystery series. Confirming the Professor was murdered proves to be a challenge and, gradually, as they get to know those associated with the Manor House, Belinda and Hazel discover another murder and an intricate web of
