The Beauty Killers
dreams were coming true.
under lock and key in a dirty cell.
there are two other women with Kirsten – one has been incarcerated so
long her hair is falling out in handfuls, the other is going mad.
Spinks’
past links him to the killer.
FREE!!**
London Noir
are picked off one by one.
decades.
Ann Girdharry is an Award winning, British crime thriller author.
BOOK
AWARD FINALIST 2017 and a READERS’S FAVOURITE Five Star Book.
in
the UK as a manager in the not-for-profit sector. Today, she lives in
Montpellier, France with her husband and two children.
France.
Extract 2 – The Beauty Killers
Jennifer Morris lay in the pitch black.
She had a stabbing pain in her head and her wrist was throbbing. She couldn’t remember
anything. In fact, she couldn’t think of much at all, not even who she was. Her head was fogged up
and thoughts kept slipping away. It was like one hell of a bad hangover and much more besides.
The floor was smooth and smelled musty. Groaning, she rolled to the side and gave a gasp as her
wrist scraped the ground.
‘For God’s sake shut up!’
The whisper was full of fear. It sounded so urgent she stopped breathing. The hair at the back of
her neck stood on end.
After a few seconds, slowly and carefully, she pushed onto her knees. Her heart hammered and
she waited, hoping it would calm. Staring out into the dark, she couldn’t make out a single thing.
Should she answer? Should she curl up and hope the other person went away? She couldn’t think
what would be best to do. In the end, she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She did her best to make her voice steady. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Shut up. Don’t make a noise or they’ll come for you.’
This was crazy. It didn’t make any sense. She shook her head but her thoughts wouldn’t come
into line. The voice was a woman’s and it came from nearby though not really close.
On her knees, she inched her way in the direction of the voice. She was stopped by something
cold and hard. Reaching out her good hand she felt vertical metal bars. Prison bars, said a thought in
her head, and that idea made her heart hammer even faster.
Everything was so pitch black. Why the hell were there no lights?
And she couldn’t stand the silence.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
A second voice spoke, again from the other side of the bars, except this time from the left.
‘Are you stupid or something!’ the voice hissed. ‘You want to be dead? Shut the fuck up.’
Now her heart thumped like it might burst.
The first voice spoke again in the same urgent whisper. ‘You’re new and you’ll get to understand.
Stay quiet and do as you’re told, then they’ll leave you alone. And for fuck’s sake don’t cry. You’ve
got to make like you’re happy.’
Her head began spinning.
Part of her wanted to laugh and another part wanted to vomit. This was real. This was terror –
she could hear it in the women’s voices. No, more than hearing it, she could feel it. She could feel
their terror in her bones.
Her whole body started shaking. Don’t be frightened, she told herself, this can’t be real. This was
a nightmare. It was all wrong and soon she’d wake up and everything would be all right. Pushing her
head against the metal, she tried to make herself wake up.
The more she ground her head against the bars, the more their warnings rang in her ears. She
pressed her eyes shut and tried not to scream.
The cover makes me want to read the book! 🙂
Oooh… that excerpt is really suspenseful!