Many thanks to those of you who have been in touch to say you enjoyed my novel, Catching up with Murder (Raider International, 2011). It is available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk as well as Barnes and Noble. Few bookstores in the UK will obtain it as the publishers do not work with the main English Book Suppliers. [Raider did not think it necessary to advise me of this fact.] I hope you will enjoy becoming reacquainted with Fred Winter and his long-suffering partner Carol Brady; other characters from the first novel also appear.
Predisposed
to Murder is not available in print format, but I plan to
upload it as an e-book later in the year. [I have become so disillusioned with
literary agents and publishers that turn out to be vanity publishers that I’ll
avoid them from now on...unless someone makes me an offer I can’t refuse,] Chapter
1 will appear on the blog on Friday
April 6th and subsequent chapters on Mondays and Fridays as before.
PREDISPOSED TO MURDER: a novel in three acts
by Roger Taber (Approx 100,000 words)
SYNOPSIS:
A complete novel, this is the second of a planned
series of books featuring FRED WINTER and CAROL BRADY. It follows the same
format as the first Winter novel in first setting the stage for Winter’s
investigation and then taking the reader back into the past before resuming
Winter’s task of solving a case that involves drugs, deception, obsession and
murder.
ACT I:
Fred Winter,
a retired police inspector, receives a visit from an old friend and one-time
lover, Carol Brady and her friend ANNIE CUTLER. Annie is concerned about
the disappearance of her son MAX. She blames his girlfriend, “that harlot” NINA
FOX. Unconvinced there is a case to look into, Winter is eventually persuaded
by Carol to investigate. Nina shows Winter some threatening letters which, it later
transpires, were not written by Cutler, as Nina suspects; the most recent,
however, carries blood stains that are a DNA match for Cutler. Less convinced
now that he is looking at nothing more than the product of an over-protective
mother’s imagination, Winter’s search for Cutler takes him to Whitstable in
Kent. Here he stumbles on a body soon identified as a local drug pusher, Kate
‘Gypsy’ Fernandez. He also encounters hostility from local police colleagues
who warn him against treading on sensitive toes.
ACT II:
The reader us taken some seven years to the time PIP
SPARROW was eleven years-old and adopted by NATHAN SPARROW and his wife; it
looks at her obsession with Nathan that borders on the psychopathic. Pip loses
her adopted mother and young brother in a house fire survived only by her and
Nathan. Pip takes on the task of keeping house for Nathan and looking after him
while still managing to do well at school. Two years later, Nathan meets Nina
Fox and becomes engaged to her. Pip tries to be happy for her father but is
secretly devastated that someone else will take her place in his life. Then a
close friend of Nina’s is stabbed to death at her flat. Nathan confesses to the
crime and is subsequently found guilty of manslaughter but refuses to see Nina.
ACT III:
We return to the present day and Winter’s
investigation. Nina disappears. Pip becomes frightened for her life and is
subsequently discovered dazed and bleeding by a blazing caravan, apparently the
victim of an attempted rape during which she kills her attacker. It seems like
an open and shut case of self-defence. Winter begins to suspect otherwise.
Could the complex relationships between Nina, Max and Pip conceal a motive for
murder? Things continue to look bad for
Max Cutler until the final shocking dénouement. In addition to being the prime
suspect for the murder of “Gypsy” Fernandez, he has been enjoying sex with all
three women and is a suspected cocaine addict.
The novel sees Fred and
Carol drawn into an unfolding drama of drugs, jealousy, obsession and murder.
As if this wasn’t enough to put a strain on their relationship, the latter’s
inability to accept that she is about to become a grandmother doesn’t help
matters either.
Copyright Roger N. Taber 2012
Enjoy the novel:
http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/predisposed-to-murder-chapter-one.html
http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/predisposed-to-murder-chapter-one.html
