Prologue

Blunt force trauma.  The weapon, a fireplace poker, lay by the body.  The face was barely recognizable.  It was disfigured and distorted, with multiple facial fractures, and all of it lay in a pond of blood.  The hair was matted with dried blood, stuck tight to the face.  The eyes were open, caught there by surprise, but now with a milky film of death obscuring the color of the iris.  The nose was obviously broken, crushed into fleshy pulp and his mouth was gaping open, with the skin split open from the right corner of the mouth up to the left nostril, revealing several missing teeth.  There was no tentativeness in this beating, there would be no pulse.  The nine-one-one dispatcher relayed the message that this was a homicide.  When the crime scene investigators and homicide detectives arrived, riding the swell of the sirens, the only smell there was that of blood, raw like old coins.

Reviews

[Pierre Roy]

Great prologue. Can't wait to read more. Very intriguing