Tooth and Claw: A heart-stopping thriller

by Nigel McCrery

Overview

From the creator of the hit BBC drama Silent Witness, comes the gripping second instalment in the acclaimed Mark Lapslie series, sees the DCI come under attack from all sides. Perfect for fans of M.J. Arlidge and Angela Marsons.

By now he had knifed, strangled, blown up, drowned, bludgeoned and tortured ten people. Ten people that he had never even met, and had no knowledge of...

Carl Whittley is seemingly a murderer without a motive. He's just tortured a beautiful, young TV presenter to death and now he's planning to blow an anonymous commuter to pieces. Who will be next? What is the motive behind the attacks? And how will he strike?

DCI Mark Lapslie needs something to do. He suffers from a rare neurological condition that has forced him to leave his family and avoid the police station. For his superiors, he is nothing but a nuisance to be avoided - and the spate of unconnected murders is just what they need to send him into retirement.

Carl wants every death to be different. More violent, bizarre and shocking. But as Lapslie gets on the scent and the force brings in a profiler, Carl makes a new plan. He hasn't killed a policeman yet . . .

Discover the other books in the DCI Mark Lapslie series: Core of Evil, Scream, Thirteenth Coffin and Flesh and Blood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849169547
Publisher:	Quercus Publishing
Publication date:	12/22/2011
Series:	DCI Mark Lapslie , #2
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Nigel McCrery worked as a policeman, until he left the force to become an undergraduate at Cambridge University. He has created and written some of the most successful television series of the last ten years - his credits include Silent Witness, Born & Bred, New Tricks, All the King's Men and Back-Up. He is also the author of five internationally bestselling Sam Ryan mysteries. Nigel lives in London.

Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE
 
‘Tip your head back and open your mouth.’
 
The voice was cultured, smooth, devoid of any obvious emotion. No anger, no hatred, no lust. Just the faintest tinge of academic curiosity; nothing else.
 
He shook his head. ‘Please,’ he begged, his voice cracking, ‘I don’t—’
 
‘I said, tip your head back and open your mouth.’
 
He could smell alcohol on his captor’s breath. The blindfold around his eyes meant he couldn’t see what was happening, so when fingers entwined themselves in his hair and pulled his head back until his face was pointed up towards the ceiling, he gasped in shock at the pain. His hair felt as if it was being pulled out by the roots. While that hand was still entangling his hair, another one took his chin and forced his mouth open. It let go, but before he could close his mouth something was pushed past his teeth: something that felt like a dental dam of some kind, a plastic plate with a hole in the centre, too rigid for him to crush between the roof of his mouth and his tongue. It kept his mouth gaping open in a silent, frozen scream. He wanted to fight against it, to push his captor away and rip the thing from his mouth, but his arms were tied to the chair and he couldn’t move.
 
His breath came in ragged gasps past the obstruction in his mouth. He wanted to gag. The insides of his cheeks and tongue were drying out as his saliva evaporated. Tears squeezed their way out of his closed eyelids and prickled their way down past his temples and into his hair. He felt a hot flush of shame across his skin. He wanted to be strong but helplessness made him feel faint.
 
‘I’m going to put something into your mouth,’ the voice said, as calm and as measured as if his captor was reading a set of instructions for some new beauty treatment. ‘It’s important that you don’t swallow. Close your throat up and breathe through your nose.’
 
He tried to shake his head but the grip on his hair intensified. Something smooth and warm touched his lower lip. He tried to pull away but the hand on the back of his head pushed him suddenly forward.
 
A tube pushed past his teeth and into his mouth through the hole in the dental dam. He nearly gagged on the plastic as it scraped his tongue. Before he could even take a breath, a warm, thick liquid invaded his mouth, trickling around between, his teeth and his cheeks, infiltrating its way beneath his tongue, sending questing fingers down his throat until he blocked it. He felt his stomach rising up in protest. He had to breathe through his nose, but he was hyperventilating and his nostrils were closing and his breath wasn’t coming fast enough. He began to feel light-headed.
 
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ the voice said as a hand stroked his hair. ‘It’ll all be over soon.’
 
And then, nothing. Nothing but the solidifying waxy mass in his mouth, and the increasingly difficult whistle of breath through his nostrils, and the red static that invaded the darkness of his blindfolded eyes, creeping in from the outside until everything was red and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to die . . .

Editorial Reviews

At the start of British author McCrery’s middling mystery thriller, the sequel to Still Waters (2008), Det. Chief Insp. Mark Lapslie has been reduced to working at home. Lapslie suffers from synesthesia, a neurological disorder that causes him to hear tastes. Then he receives a high-profile assignment—investigating the torture murder of TV newscaster Catherine Charnaud. Det. Sgt. Emma Bradbury, Lapslie’s former partner, gives him a pair of headphones to block out noise at the crime scene, the victim’s house in Essex, where Charnaud’s body was found with its left arm completely stripped of flesh. Meanwhile, a disturbed young man, whose mother happens to be a criminal profiler, sets off homemade bombs to kill small animals. Aided by Bradbury, Lapslie perseveres in spite of sensory overload as more murders follow. While the detective’s unusual disability lends interest, clichéd plot developments and an overly pat resolution disappoint. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly