STORYGRAPH GIVEAWAY: The Trouble, by Mike Martin -- Final notice

Hey there, Storygrapher!

Congratulations on winning a FREE digital copy of The Trouble. The link to the Free book will be active for 2 days on Amazon starting tonight at midnight PST, Feb 16, until midnight PST Feb. 17.

With a much-less cluttered look, Amazon has made finding books easier now on author pages, so here's mine.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Martin/author/B08N6YNR8L

Here's the book page, too.

https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-civil-serial-killer-perfect-ebook/dp/B0BCXD8MVR

If you are outside the US, the links are a bit trickier. Go to your country's Amazon site (e.g. co.uk, .in, .ca, com.au, etc.) and just search for "The Trouble" with my author name. 

Simply inserting the country code into the .com URL doesn't always work. -- Cheers!  Mike Martin

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In The Trouble, homicide detective Adam Kincaid doggedly pursues a serial killer across the border to Northern Ireland, where most of the battles, bombings, and bloody mayhem occurred during the civil war known as The Troubles.

An inspector with the Irish Republic's police agency, An Garda Siochana, Kincaid forms an uneasy alliance with a police sergeant from Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary, Kevin O'Connell.

The killer targets male victims in the Republic, female victims in the North. Women are burned; men crucified, quartered, or beheaded.

In search of a "why", Kincaid and Sister Jane Grey, a forensic psychologist, research old-school executions. In one book, they read:

“Women guilty of heresy and other crimes against either the Catholic or Anglican Churches were almost exclusively burned, to avoid the ‘indecent’ exposures which might occur during those execution techniques reserved for men, notably quartering and beheading.”

 

When a grander scheme emerges, Kincaid and Grey discover a high-level coverup between the Catholic Church and state agencies on both sides of the border.

 

Along the way, readers meet and interact with some of the Troubles' most notorious participants: terrorists to their enemies, warriors to their friends.

These real-life characters, imagined before they became infamous, include James Mitchell, a leader of the Glenanne Gang; Robin Jackson, an assassin later known as The Jackal; and Brendon Smyth (Brenden Wryth in the story), a Catholic priest and convicted child molester whose crimes helped bring down the Republic of Ireland's government.

 

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‍Here's a short excerpt from THE TROUBLE.

 

“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE in hot pursuit of a fleeing question,” Sr. Grey said.

Kincaid smiled. “I’ve been reading that book you gave me. Says burnings were reserved for women and Protestants.”

“Do we know any more about the third victim?”

“Every bone in her body was ripped from its joints and sockets. Before she was burned.”

“Sounds like she was racked,” Grey said. “How ghastly. And still no idea who she is. Was, rather.”

“M. E.’s hoping for a dental match.”

Kincaid picked up Reformation Saints. “Speaking of racks, Baldwin’s killer or killers used the bookshelf ladders in the Long Room to replicate the rack Plunkett was drawn and quartered on. ‘Dragged, usually by horse, on the rack, to the place of execution,’” Kincaid read from Reformation Saints.

“The horse outside the library,” Sr. Grey said. “Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh. How much do the current archbishops know about all this,

I wonder?”

“Might not hurt to inform them,” Kincaid said.

“Or warn them,” Grey said.


SISTER GREY DROVE THE cramped Ford Zephyr with her eyes up and her head down, lowered reflexively when the first helicopter buzzed overhead.

“You’re getting into the routine of things,” Kincaid said.

“And you’re not crouching low enough,” she said.

She raised her head when they approached a checkpoint, where a British soldier stuck his nose in the car demanding their business and any papers they might have to support it. Variations on, “A garda? Here? Why?” were the most common questions Kincaid answered, some delivered with more seething than others.

“I lay in bed, hearing bombs or bullets somewhere,” Grey said as they continued onward. “The other sisters count them like sheep. The first question at breakfast repeats like the machine guns. ‘Who did we know was killed last night?’ They always know someone.”

She parked on Castle Street in Armagh and looking up the street and down it, again and again, unloaded Kincaid’s folded wheelchair from the back seat. She looked through the fence at the cathedral.  

“I’m sorry I’m not much help,” he said.

“It’s light and I’m strong,” she said. “And you can still be a sentry.”

She helped him into the chair and they went around to the open gate and along a flat, narrow drive to the entrance. The cathedral’s verger met them near the tall, arched front doors.

“Inspector Kincaid, Sister Grey. Welcome.”

“Thank you for arranging this.”

“I can’t take much credit,” the verger said. “Archbishop Simms was eager to meet you. He’s been following these killings.”

GET THE TROUBLE AT AMAZON

 

‍Thank you so much for reading!

Until next time,

Michael Martin

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