Kindle Edition
The Shape of Rain
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: The Bohemia Literary Club
ISBN-10: B00Y2SJLOW
Type: Fiction
Copyright: Jun 1, 2015
Price: $3.29 (eBook)
Weapons inspectors in Iraq, a spate of unexplained high-profile deaths and a coded message hidden in the lyrics of a 30-year old song…somehow all linked to the moon landings. A casual conversation at the baggage carousel in Prague airport plunges music journalist Jack Conrad into a race against time to find out how.
In 1967, after the Apollo 1 disaster, eight powerful men meet in a small town on the Californian coast to ensure America’s planned moon landing will be a perceived success.
Fast-forward thirty-five years to September 2002 and a celebrated investigative reporter is murdered at BBC headquarters in London; he was just about to broadcast an explosive story about Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction.
A coded message hidden in the lyrics of a thirty-year old song hides an explosive secret connecting the two events.
An innocent chat at a baggage carousel at Prague airport pulls music journalist Jack Conrad into a race against time to decipher the secret of the song. As he starts digging, he is completely unprepared when attempts are made on his life and he discovers a shocking conspiracy between government and media. With key witnesses meeting with violent deaths, his journey takes him from Europe to the Saudi Arabian desert from where he has to make a terrifyingly unconventional airborne escape. Conrad’s resilience and determination in the face of overwhelming adversity succeeds in exposing a sinister global network specialising in misinformation and, unexpectedly, uncovers two cold case murders.
Excerpt
“Surrounding the bustling, ever-growing steel and glass centre of Riyadh, a suburban sprawl extended across the desert plateau. Low-rise, uninspired suburban housing lined the wide streets punctuated by occasional shops and the shells of unfinished villas. Beyond these suburbs, on the edge of town, life was lived much as it had been for the previous seventy years or so, ever since the oil had been discovered and changed the history of the country irrevocably. This was an area where Man and desert fought for control of the environment with no clear winner. Acres of ramshackle structures, half-tent half-shed, clung precariously to the scrubland watched over disdainfully by nomadic camels standing, seemingly motionless, in small family groups. Scatterings of locals, all male, in their near identical thobes and ghutras, stood around meeting, greeting, arguing, debating. Inside the tent-shed buildings all manner of business was conducted, cars were serviced, tyres changed, sheep bought and sold, metal welded, cloth cut, second-hand furniture shifted. Everywhere could be heard the sound of haggling and thick rolls of Saudi riyals regularly changed hands.” The Shape of Rain – extract from Chapter 25
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