Books
Small Town Nocturne
Synopsis
A photographer takes some pictures of a couple leaving a hotel arm in arm. He took them for no good reason, other than the fact that he despised the man involved. A married, weasel of a man, head of the local council's planning department and out carousing with someone other than his wife. When Stuart's editor published an article about local hotels, he used a photograph of the happy couple below his banner headline. Neither Stuart nor his boss realised at the time that a lethal mistake had just been made.
Never one uncomfortable with a complicated lifestyle, Stuart compounded a dangerous situation by sleeping with a property developer's wife. This singular act somehow connected with his earlier episode outside the hotel. Stuart suddenly finds himself in the middle of a huge conspiracy involving council officials, illegal property deals and a youth club run by a man with a taste for youngsters at the lower end of the teenage scale.
A frantic message left on his answer phone from his newly acquired mistress, screaming and shrieking as an obvious assault takes place. Events spiral out of control, as a husband's vengeful jealousy homes in on Stuart. Passion had become linked inexorably with deception and homicidal revenge. But who set up the affair in the first place? And did an assault actually take place? These questions nag away at Stuart as he twists and turns. Eventually comes the growing realisation that the woman he photographed in the first place is pulling all the strings.
This tightly paced thriller builds to a shocking denouement as the full extent of this seemingly unremarkable woman's murderous manipulation is revealed.