Dust Up

Book 3: Doyle Carrick

by Jon McGoran

Genres: Mystery; Conspiracy Thrillers; High-tech & Sci-fi Thrillers

Synopsis

In this outstanding international thriller by Jon McGoran, Detective Doyle Carrick is awakened in the middle of the night by frantic banging on his front door, followed by gunfire. Ron Hartwell, a complete stranger, is dying on his doorstep.

A halfhearted investigation labels the murder a domestic dispute, with Miriam, Ron’s widow, the sole suspect. Doyle discovers the Hartwells both worked for a big biotech company and suspects something else is going on, but it’s not his case. Then Miriam tracks him down and tells him her story.

Miriam and Ron had been working in Haiti and visiting her friend Regi Baudet, the deputy health minister, when they stumbled upon a corporate cover-up of tainted food aid that sickened an entire village—and was one hundred percent fatal. They were coming to Doyle to blow the whistle. Before Miriam can say more, they are attacked by gunmen and she flees, then disappears.

Doyle tracks her to Haiti, a country on the brink of political chaos. Working with Miriam and Regi, he must untangle a web of deceit and unconscionable corporate greed in order to stop an epidemic of even greater evil before it is released onto an unsuspecting world.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: April 19, 2016

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 368

Sample

1



At the first knock, I was fully awake. It was that kind of sound—hard, sharp, urgent. Loud. I pulled on my pants and grabbed my gun. There was the tiniest pause, and for a moment I wondered if it was a cop. It was an almost perfect cop knock—bang, bang, bang. Maybe it was Danny and something was wrong. Or one of my other fellow public guardians got drunk and thought it would be a hoot to “cop knock” my door in the middle of the night. Or maybe I was in trouble.

Then it kept going. Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang.

That was no cop.

The pounding grew faster, from urgent to frantic. I was halfway down the stairs when it changed again, from a fist against a door to an explosive report. A gunshot. Then another and another. The sounds didn’t overlap—when one started, the other one stopped.

Bang bang bang bang bang—BANG BANG BANG.

I skipped the last few steps, but by the time I jerked open the door, both sounds were gone, replaced by the squeal of tires and the engine roar of a black Toyota Corolla speeding away. Just before it disappeared, the driver looked right at me. She was Asian, young, maybe pretty, but her face was contorted. Anguish, sorrow, fear. Then she was gone.

I looked down.

“What is it?” Nola asked, coming down the stairs behind me.

“Stay back!”

She stopped, halfway down. “What is it?” she asked again, quieter, sadder. Like somehow she knew.

“Just … stay back, okay?”

The red blossom on his chest was still growing, but his eyes were glassy and gone. Nothing was pumping that blood. He let out a soft sigh. His last breath.

I wanted to close the door, go back to bed and pretend it hadn’t happened. Maybe I would have, but he was slumped across the threshold. I knew it would be a while before I closed that door again.

“Doyle?” Nola called, still standing on the steps, sounding small and far away.

I looked out the doorway, up and down the deserted street.

“It’s okay,” I told her.

That’s what you have to say. What I meant was, I was okay, although that wasn’t true, either. I came back to the bottom of the stairs. “Someone’s been shot.”

She nodded because she already knew it. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”



Copyright © 2016 by Jon McGoran