13 Hollywood Apes

Book 1: Layla Remington

by Gil Reavill

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FINALIST, BEST EBOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL

In a savvy, stylish thriller debut perfect for anyone who loves the crime novels of Michael Connelly or Nevada Barr, Gil Reavill unravels a chilling tale of murder and mayhem among humans and their closest evolutionary relatives—a primate family that may just be too close for comfort.
 
As a wildfire rages outside the Odalon Animal Sanctuary in the rugged Santa Monica foothills, the retired Hollywood movie chimpanzees housed there are shot and left for dead. When Malibu detective Layla Remington reaches the grisly scene the next morning, she’s deeply disturbed—and even more confused. The victims are not human, so the attack cannot be classified as homicide. Yet someone clearly wanted these animals dead, and executed them with ruthless efficiency. Miraculously, there is one survivor: a juvenile male named Angle.
 
But as Layla reaches the veterinarian’s office where Angle is recovering, a man with rock-star good looks and a laid-back Southern California attitude swoops in and removes him. And just like that, an unusual case turns truly bizarre. Soon reports surface of ferocious attacks against Odalon employees . . . with Angle as the prime suspect. As a wave of senseless violence reaches its apex, Layla chases a mystery man and his chimp—but everything comes back to that terrible night at the sanctuary.

Release date: December 16, 2014

Publisher: Alibi

Print pages: 310

Sample

1

The family members settled for the night among the sweet-smelling spindle trees and eucalyptus along the eastern boundary of the yard. They had been restless all day from the sharp scent of smoke in the air, the far-off call of sirens, the busy staccato motor noise of humans in the hills around them. Delinquent flames showed on a ridgeline to the north, orange-black in the distance.

Dread of fire, an age-old fear, was bred into their bones. They gathered as a family that sweltering October night, the last of their lives. For all their nervousness, they performed their usual evening rituals, grooming one another, shaping their tree-bough bedding for the night. Janey and Arbor, always the best of friends, played at tossing clumps of leaves and broken-off sticks onto the cargo nets strung between wooden posts below them.

They fell into wakeful sleep one after another: Mister Jeepers, Monk, Chow-Chow, Stella. Veronica curled up with the playful youngster she had adopted, Bee Bee. Pamela slept with her daughter, Amy. Eric paired off with the elderly Bess.

Out of the dark came a laser pinprick of light. Odd, dancing, crimson, it searched among its targets until it settled upon Booth, the pepper-haired patriarch, who lay alone in a self-created sling of branches high up in a eucalyptus.

The gunshot broke the night open.

The family startled instantly awake, and the yard echoed with screeches, barks, and howls. As the others scattered, Booth remained inert and motionless at the foot of the tree.

The night air filled with sharp, echoing reports, one after another, spaced among the screams. Moment by moment, the members of the family fell. The big chain-link fence cut off all retreat. There was nowhere to run. The killing took but six minutes.

Finally only a single lost soul survived, an eight-year-old male, running along the ditch on the grassy western side of the compound, frantic after the death ruckus of the others. He sped not away but toward the shooter.

Confused, or angry, bent on revenge.

The ruby laser dot searched, discovered, settled. Five grams of copper-clad lead caught the last survivor with a glancing blow on his right shoulder, spun him around, and pushed him into the concrete ditch.

Then, silence. A few night birds called, poorwills and mourning doves. Above, through the leaves, the far-off, uncaring stars. Somewhere to the east a two-stroke engine sputtered, sounding barely there.

Later that night, the dry October winds pushed the flames down out of the hills into the parched grasses and brittle, needle-heavy trees of the compound. But the wildfire found nothing left to kill and, in its impotent rage, could do nothing more than cook the dead.