Book Title: The Bodies Out
Back
ISBN 9781452352657
Part of Series: No
Author: Joseph E Wright
Available at: Smashwords
Price: Free
Number of words (approximately): 71 056
Star Rating (of five): 4
Summary: A young woman
is enticed to take a lease on part of a luxury house, without meeting the
owner. When she does, she becomes
involved in a round of murder and intrigue that keeps everyone guessing until
the end.
Extract:
- “Go back to his house and call Sylvester.” He told
her his superior's home telephone number. “Tell him I've caught the killer. I
know he'll want to bring him in himself. Go ahead, pick up that flashlight.”
“Can't you call?” she asked.
“I have something much more pressing. Go ahead,
please.”
Phillis grabbed the flashlight, all the while keeping
an eye on Pat, and started to walk toward the door, then stopped. “But, isn't
there a policeman on duty in the back alley?” she asked Carl.
“There was. But we couldn't spare him any longer.
Needed him for other duty. Hurry, and if you still think this suave gentleman
is so great, you better pray he doesn't do anything stupid, like trying to make
a run for it, because there's nothing I'd enjoy better tonight than to put a
pound of lead into this pervert's guts. One move, Mr. Gay, and it'll be all over
for you. Now, please get going, Phillis.”
She left the room and raced down the hallway to the
stairs and took them as fast as she could, the beam from Pat's flashlight
bobbing up and down in front of her on the carpeted steps. As she reached the
last few steps before the first floor, she began to change her pace, moving as
if in slow motion. She came to a stop as she entered the living room. She felt faint.
Maybe, she thought, it was from running so fast. She swung the light in an arc
around the room. The sheet-draped figures stood their ground and did not
retreat from her. Would they attack? she wondered. Why was her head spinning so
rapidly? She leaned against the archway between the living room and the short
hall connecting with the dining room. Something, a sort of faint voice, was
trying hard to tell her something. If only she could hear it. She continued now
to walk toward the dining room, knowing only that she had to get help, had to
contact Detective Sylvester. Carl had told her to do that and she had to do
what Carl told her to do. She bumped into the table in the kitchen and hurt her
thigh. The pain shot through her, reached her brain, but couldn't make itself
completely felt. Something else was there ahead of the pain, something far more
important. It was all coming to her, that voice inside, repeating over and over
the same few words. She stepped outside into the fresh night air and her brain let
up some of its thumping. “Yes, yes, that's what I must do,” she said aloud.
The gate in the back wall was locked. Of course it was.
Why did she even try to open it? That only slowed her down. She raced through
the alley to the front of the house, to Cydelpan Street , to the end of the block,
then turned, heading toward Spruce
Street .
The air was rapidly lifting the fog from her head and
everything, she knew, was now clear to her--so very, very clear. She had been
such a fool all this time, she told herself, such a damned stupid fool. A few
words spoken in an unguarded moment and everything, every part of the puzzle
fell into place. Of course, she would call Sylvester. He'd have to get there
and get there as soon as possible, but there was someone else far more
important who should be there. She would, she knew, have to get that person up
to the third floor of the Rhynn house as soon as her feet and her power of
conviction could get him there.
He has to be home, he simply has to be home, she
prayed as she turned onto Spruce Street
and hurried to Pat's house, then past it. She took the front steps two at a
time, rang the doorbell, then immediately began pounding on the front door.
“Oh, please God, make him answer!”
She heard a sound inside, then the rattle of a chain and
the door opened slightly.
“Sarah!” she cried out and roughly pushed herself past
the startled woman. “Mr. Heisler, I must speak to him immediately.”
“Mr. Heisler's asleep,” Sarah said and stepped in
front of Phillis who was by this time looking up the staircase.
“Then I'll awaken him,” Phillis said and raced up the
staircase calling out his name, leaving a frightened Sarah standing, mouth
agape, at the foot of the stairs. -
Reviewer’s Comments:
Structure: The book is
well structured and easy to read. The
language used is good. I managed to spot
only one typo.
Content: The book is a
combination of detective, quasi romance and thriller, and it all works well,
with many twists, false leads and surprises, leaving one feeling satisfied at
the end of it all.
Reviewer’s Comments: I really
enjoyed this book. It is light reading,
with a little moral overtone and some criticism of the society in which it is
set, but all in comfortable proportions.
It is a book that makes me want to read more by this author.
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