Crimson Cloak Publishing are proud to present the fifth book in The Inspector Sheehan Mysteries.
Lin Hui and Cheung Mingzhu win scholarships to study at Queen’s University in Belfast. Alina Balauru departs a poor farm in Romania for well paid work in Northern Ireland. Three lives harbouring long-cherished dreams. Three lives headed for tragedy.
Sheehan and his Serious Crimes Unit discover the body of one of the young women in the garden of an upmarket residence. Confronted with violent Chinese racketeers, brutal human-traffickers and a fiendishly clever killer called The Shadow, they are baffled by a case that seems to lead in two entirely different directions.
Can they find out who The Shadow is in time to save the other two victims?
“Thought-provoking, emotional and gut-wrenching. An exceptional crime-thriller and a must-read for any thriller lover.” says Eric Praschan, author of Blind Evil and The Burden of Silence.
“This is mystery writing of the highest quality by an author who deserves very wide recognition,” says Grady Harp, Hall of Fame Top 100 Reviewer.
“I am a fan of detective novels and this book reminds me pretty much of Stephen King’s or Jeffrey Deaver’s works,” says [Phg Ngx, Online Book Club
“I have no doubt Brian O’Hare will be the next big name in mystery novels,” says Sarah Pingley, Amazon Reviewer.
She studied herself, a seated figure imaged in the dressing-table mirror. She was wearing an apricot dressing gown, soft chiffon, loosely tied over a matching silk night dress. Her gaze drifted to the face—pale, oval, high cheekbones, smooth monolid eyes, framed by long, glossy, black hair. Her scrutiny was frank, without conceit, without narcissistic vanity. “Chinese beauty,” she murmured. But there was no self-regard in her tone. Indeed, the faint pucker of distaste that touched her lips hinted at something much darker.
She knew she was beautiful. Beautiful to Eastern eyes, beautiful to Western eyes. She had been told this many times. Right now, her stare contained no judgement, no assessment. Her eyes were almost empty. But despite the eerie stillness of her expression, her psyche was aflame with memories of where this beauty had taken her—from the small farm near Tianjin in China, to secondary professional schooling at Dàsi Zhèn, to the excitement of securing a place on the Joint Foundation Programme between Shenzhen University and Queen’s University in Belfast. A dream scholarship had allowed her to travel halfway across the world to study English Literature in Northern Ireland. Emotion flickered momentarily in the empty eyes as she remembered the wonder of those early days, struggling with the language, the alien culture, the strange food. But, oh, the joy of it! Could that have only been two years ago?
Her fingers tensed and she shut down those thoughts, staring again into the mirror, allowing her eyes to wander around the room reflected there, to the expensive hangings, the white furnishings, the thick, pale carpet. All hers. An apartment her parents could not even have dreamed of. But again, the examination was neutral. The face and expression remained unmoved, indifferent. There was nothing of pride of ownership, no indication of attachment.
Her eyes returned to the face. A line from one of the English poets she had studied slipped into her mind. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know…” She had been so drawn to that line from Keats when she first encountered it. But now she knew differently. Now she knew that beauty was a curse.
Her expression hardened and her lips suddenly compressed. No more! No more! I am going to live my life as I was meant to, a life where beauty is irrelevant. This ends now. Her hand reached for an elegant ivory telephone on an ornamental cradle. She dialled a number and waited.
Karen J. Mossman 