A sample of the mystery novel
By Alan McDermott
Jess finished writing the story she was working on, then picked up the mail and checked for the sender’s address. That was a pretty good indication of whether it was worth her time opening it. Most of the stuff she received at the office was junk mail.
This one, though, had nothing on the envelope apart from her name and the address of the LA Telegraph. Hoping it was at least interesting, Jess ripped it open and pulled out a bunch of letter-size pages.
The typewritten note on the first page got her immediate attention:
Hello, Jess. You hold in your hands the scoop of the decade. This is just the beginning, but there will be more to come. Much more. I want you to tell my story, because they have to know. They have to feel it, too.
You’ll find the body in chapter two at ///await.sugar.groom.
She immediately recognized the code, having done a piece on the What3Words app when she first joined the newspaper. A woman had gotten lost while camping in the Mojave Desert. Her motorcycle wouldn’t start and she had no idea how to guide her rescuers to her, until one of them told her to download the app. She was found a couple of hours later.
It was when she read the word “body,” that Jess’s hands started to shake. Not with fright, but anticipation.
For two years, she’d been the junior reporter with the Telegraph, LA’s eighth most-read newspaper. In that time, she’d covered everything from burglary to grand theft auto, muggings to rape, but she’d never been given a murder to report. Those jobs always went to Sam Harkness or Claire McMillan, the two senior crime reporters who were constantly vying for top billing. To have a story like this handed to her on a plate was beyond belief, but the initial elation soon passed. If she went to the editor with it, he would take it off her hands and give it to one of his golden pair.
Jess wasn’t going to let that happen.
She hadn’t become a journalist to cover fistfights at bake sales or local charity fraud. She wanted a real story, and now that one had presented itself to her, she wasn’t going to give it to anyone.
Fifteen Times a Killer
“Not for the faint hearted!”
This book contains scenes of graphic violence.
When journalist Jess Duffey gets the first chapters of a bad serial-killer novel, she dismisses it as a prank, a ploy for publicity. Until she follows the writer’s directions to the grave and stumbles head-first into an FBI investigation of a grisly cold case.
The manuscript is not fiction. It’s true crime.
The anonymous chapters keep coming, leading Jess and the police to more horrifying discoveries of brutal murders committed years earlier. The killer wants Jess to publish his account, word for word, and doing so is the only way Jess and FBI Agent Corrina Stone can find the killer before he completes his evil mission: to kill Fifteen Times.
Fifteen Times a Killer is the latest blockbuster from million-copy bestseller Alan McDermott.
“A gripping, dark and haunting voyage into the mind of a murderer. Not for the faint hearted.” Alex Shaw, bestselling author of the Jake Tate thriller series.
“A heart-pounding, nail-biting read that keeps you guessing until the end.” —Vivian Barz, bestselling author of FORGOTTEN BONES
Find more about the book at the author’s website or directly on Amazon.
Alan McDermott
is a full time author from the south of England, married with beautiful twin daughters. He used to write critical applications for the NHS, but now he spends his days writing action thrillers.
His debut novel, Gray Justice, has been very well received and led to the 10-volume Tom Gray series. He was subsequently picked up by Thomas & Mercer, who published his first 10 books.
Alan’s seventh title, Trojan, is a spinoff featuring MI5 agent Andrew Harvey. It was shortlisted for the ITW Best E-Book Original Novel award 2018.
His latest series is the Eva Driscoll thriller series: Run and Hide, Seek and Destroy, Fight to Survive, and When Death Strikes. He has also written two stand-alone thrillers, Motive and Fifteen Times a Killer.
Find more about Alan at:
- his BestSelling Reads author page
- his website
- his blog
- his Amazon Author page.
