The tension is maintained throughout this absorbing story, with its dark alleys,
riots, foreboding tunnels and caves, gaslit docksides, terrifying train journeys
and nerve-
“...a suberb thriller, murder, mystery and time travel combined, I was hooked from start to finish...”
“...Cross Cut is historical novel meets thriller in this tale of murder and mystery which ricochets through time keeping the reader guessing to the end...”
“...much more than a whodunnit. It brings the past alive and has you living the story. A great read...”
“...Then he hears it again. Is it behind or to the side? It could be from the stone itself. They’re breaking through! He moves forward again, slowly at first, then runs headlong as he hears a heaving, scraping all around... The noises again, dull, stifled, but close, very close...all darkness now. Silence, then the sounds again, scratching, voices. Someone is close, very close, as if they’re breaking through to him...”
“...The tunnel is plunged into impenetrable blackness. She stands motionless and petrified, afraid to move forward and afraid to move back, but she must turn and face that closed off entrance. She sees nothing, hears nothing, but feels the terror of someone about to be closed up forever. Closed, bricked up, desperate to escape! Now she knows something beyond that sudden outpouring of energy transcends the wall. Someone is coming through...”
Cross Cut, a riveting and tense detective story, journeys into the turbulent past, sweeping through a modern investigation and the dark events of another age with their terrible consequences for the present. Looming ominously throughout is the foreboding atmosphere of the Cross Cut canal with its shrouded secrets and the fearful power of its tunnel to reach across time.
Where is Bernard Weston? Is he dead or alive? How is his disappearance connected to the campaign to reopen the brooding and abandoned Cross Cut canal?
For Detective Chief Inspector Jenner, a routine missing person enquiry quickly turns into something more sinister with the present dislocated against the background of 1840s Nottingham. Trusting to instinct as much as to reason and teaming up with Ettie Rodway with her psychic insight, he’s forced to adopt unconventional methods. Combining their skills of intuition and deduction produces a powerful partnership, but this is stretched to breaking point as they try to avert disaster.
Can Jenner trust his gut feelings and take a path he’s reluctant to go down? How much can Ettie risk her own safety to help him? Can they unravel the crime only in the present or must they step into the past?
“…a tall, angular figure appears, dressed all in black with sharp penetrating eyes, a long nose and short black hair. She has long arms and turning in a wide arc, points a long finger…”
Soon to be published, Out of Time is the fantastic atmospheric prequel to Cross Cut A story of mystery, revenge, discovery, and intrigue, in which accidental adventurers in the present, aided by besieged, but resolute fighters in the past are pitted against the forces of power, greed and deception.
International financier Sarah Layman has a ‘mystery’ to discuss with freelance journalist Carla Diemer ? What Carla discovers has nothing to do with finance, while psychic Ettie Rodway has also been approached by Sarah. Joined by a maverick historian, obsessed with a lost Anglo Saxon Chronicle and Carla’s dubiously motivated father, they become embroiled in a perilous quest spanning 1200 years.
From the ninth century they must find a ring, a sword, a brooch and a belt, but while these objects can solve the mystery they may also unlock immense, unpredictable powers. Confronted by ruthless adversaries intent on the same discovery, the hunters become the hunted as they realise the Chronicle is much more than an obscure historical document.
Penetrating to the heart of their own origins and identities, their search takes them across country from the brooding wetlands of the east to the shrouded hills of the west and even to America. Friend and foe from both past and present are difficult to disentangle. Swept into the swirling currents of a distant age where fearsome warriors spill their bloody inter family feud while in the present, dogged by Chief Inspector Jenner, investigating the unexplained deaths, they must constantly keep one step ahead of their pursuers.
So far, yet so close in time and place, once the past’s magical powers are invoked, all the pieces have to be fitted into place against a frightful deadline. Failing to meet it could mean Time itself is the ultimate victim.