Just a reminder that Conversations with Dead Serial Killers is currently available for pre-order. The book is going to be released on Valentine’s Day and it tells the story of two brothers connected by a shared passion.
In the novel, this is how we meet the elder of the two brothers: Derek Turner.
“I’m getting a message,” Derek declared. “It’s from someone with the initial J. Does that mean anything to anyone?”
He stood alone on an otherwise empty stage: a dishevelled man with thinning curly hair, wearing a rumpled grey suit and assuming a slouching posture. Yesterday’s five o’clock shadow made his jawline fuzzy. A blinding spotlight bathed him in whiteness, as though he had just been helped down to the stage by the hand of God or the transporter beam from an alien spacecraft. Derek drew a deep breath and refused to let his nervousness show. He had never been nervous on stage before and he wasn’t going to start with such theatrics now.
He intended spending his first half hour on stage at the Swansea Playhouse doing cold readings. Clive’s remote voice was in his ear, whispering occasional words of encouragement and commentary, whilst Derek cajoled the audience with cold readings to get them to accept his abilities as a medium before he started using any of the hot-reading information supplied through his brother.
“The initial J,” Derek repeated. “Does that mean anything to anyone here tonight?”
There was a moment’s hesitation.
There always was.
No one ever wanted to be the first to say they believed: that was just a sign of foolish gullibility. But someone would bite soon enough because the majority of them were in the room wanting to make contact with someone who had died and it was an unwritten law of every Conversations with Dead Friends show that, if the punters didn’t bite early, they’d never get another chance.
“The initial J,” he prompted. He glanced toward the left of the auditorium and said, “I’m sensing it might be someone on this side of the room. Does the initial J mean anything to anyone here? I think it’s someone who passed after a long illness.”
A hesitant hand went up. “My mum died from a long illness,” a weak voice told him. “But the letter J doesn’t mean anything to-”
“I’ve got the letter J and a long illness,” a voice to his right declared triumphantly. Derek turned to them, thinking that this sounded like the winning call from someone playing a game of ‘Dead Relative Bingo’.
Conversations with Dead Serial Killers is currently available for pre-order and will be released on Valentine’s Day 2022.
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