Ctrl-Alt-Delete
During the summer of 2010 Dave wrote his first novel. A 'cyber-killer, Facebook cyber-stalking, modern love story, crime thriller set in south Wales'.
Dave has just published Ctrl-Alt-Delete as an e-book with Amazon kindle and has had great reviews already!
Below is the front cover and the opening few pages...
Prologue
August 2010…
Jenny had drunk far too much white wine. It was such an easy
mistake to make and now she was going to die.
How long had she been unconscious? She had no idea. No concept of time. Struggling hard not to panic as she felt herself begin to hyperventilate Jenny instinctively knew she must absorb and assimilate every detail, something somewhere might save her. She also knew she must act immediately if she wanted to escape.
She
struggled for breath and forced herself not to give in to the gagging
reflex as her desert-dry mouth filled with burning bile. Jenny’s swollen
eyes strained to become accustomed to the murky gloom. She tried to
shake her long, curly brown hair away from her face but dried sweat held
it tight as the cold metal of the handcuffs cut into her wrists. Her
whole body was aching and her pulse throbbed relentlessly in her head.
Thinking back to earlier that evening she vaguely remembered
her vision blurring and the muted sound of words slurring, like holding
your head underwater in the bath. Then her stomach had tightened and
warm flushes had begun to spread out all over her body. A distorted
Daliesque clock face slowly slithered down the wall. As Jenny’s coordination flew off into the evening
her knees buckled. She headed for the carpet in slow motion. A small,
rough hand expertly plucked the free-falling wine glass from mid-air and
delicately placed it on a low wicker table.
Terror can manifest itself in different ways but all Jenny
could visualize at this moment was Hal’s grinning face staring back from
the centre of a computer monitor. In the first brief seconds of
consciousness she searched for reassurance. She tried to reason with
herself, to tell herself it would be OK.
She tried to justify her actions, to make sense of it, to
make it alright. It wasn’t her fault. What else could she have done?
Stalkers don’t just stalk anybody do they? You have to give them a
reason. You have got to make them want to do it.
Oh shit! What have I got myself into? The thought of being a
lonely old spinster was suddenly very appealing… then unexpectedly, off
to the side, a long penetrating torch beam flashed across her body and
in a nanosecond she was catapulted back to the present. The harsh light
settled on her pale face and blinded Jenny for a brief moment before an
echoing click plunged her back into silence and darkness.
With her senses heightened by fear she could taste the damp,
musty smells of straw, onions and potatoes. The odour of mouse droppings
mingled with the stink of rotting, wet vegetables. She desperately
searched the dim recesses of her prison. Her funeral-black pupils
frantically scanned the darkness for hope. Penetrating, probing. Looking
for anything that could offer her a way out of this nightmare… and then
she saw them.
Laid out purposefully in a neat line on the small wooden
bench in the corner of the barn. Almost out of sight. Not placed in
front of you - for effect. Not staring you in the face, not carefully
arranged like pretty glass ornaments on a living room shelf. Not meant
to shock or terrify. These had been put there for a purpose. Practical.
To be used.
Jenny shivered, her big brown eyes grew to saucers, her face
became china-white as the adrenaline kicked in and coursed through her
blood. She tried to jerk free but the restraints held firm as she slowly
traced the metallic shapes in perfect clarity. Her screams were muffled
by the crimson scarf tied tight around her mouth, and an earthy taste of
silk mixed with her briny tears as they streamed into her mouth.
Suddenly and without warning she felt warm liquid flow down
her legs as her bladder opened involuntary. She stank of fear. She
missed her daddy.
Then, slowly but surely, the same rough hand emerged from the
shadows and reached for a shiny, clean scalpel that glinted sporadically
in the half-light. It edged closer to her, leaving the rest of the
knives, dissection instruments and power tools set out clinically in the
dark.
One
April 1st 2010…
Hal
Griffiths had been fast asleep. His head submerged deep in a pillow,
Egyptian cotton sheets wrapped around his lean but muscular torso.
A thick winter duvet lay in a pile on the floor next to a
pair of old Levi jeans and a faded blue Billabong tee shirt. Bridgedale
light-weight walking socks and a pair of Merrell trail shoes were close
by. Smiling to himself, semi-conscious now, he kept his eyes closed
tight.
These were the precious minutes just before waking when your
mind knew it was time to face another day but your body craved another
hours rest, or was it the other way around? Either way he wasn’t going
anywhere, the voluptuous super-model Elle McPherson was with him.
To download the whole novel for just £1.53 - click here.
A paperback version
has just been released too which should be available in Waterstones,
Amazon and all good book shops soon. To buy a copy direct from the
author - click here.
Sequel / trilogy
Dave is about to start work on a sequel, set in Kenya, although this
will depend on whether you leave some reviews on Amazon :) OK,
you have...
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