Blog tour ~ extract: Out of Sight by Anna Legat

Genre ~ Crime fiction

Series ~ Standalone Sixth book in the DI Gillian Marsh murder mysteries series

Publication date ~ October 16, 2023

Page count ~ 267

I am delighted to be on this blog tour and share an extract ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.

⤵ check out what my fellow bloggers thought of this one ⤵

Extract:

Father Ronan parked his battered VW on the road, diagonally to the pavement, and hurried along the street, seeking Number 8. He had never visited Nora at her house though she was a frequent visitor to his church.

He was gate-crashing. He had invited himself to the party after she had let it slip that the dreaded anniversary bash seemed unavoidable. He wanted to see for himself where things stood between Nora and her husband, and whether there was the slightest chance of reconciliation. If however it was as bad as he had feared, he wanted to be there to hold her hand and guide her to the other side of her unhappy marriage. It wasn’t because he was a priest – or not only because of that. He was also, if not foremost, a friend – that’s what friends were for.

He suddenly realised he had left his present in the car. It was rather special: a multi-coloured Venetian glass vase he had acquired on one of his many pilgrimages to the Holy City. He turned back and sprinted to his car. Father Ronan sprinting wasn’t entirely incomprehensible. He might have been be in his mid-sixties, but he was as fit as a fiddle. His daily fitness regime was responsible for that. And he was dressed for a sprint. Moving with the times, he had left his cassock at the rectory and was wearing comfortable sports shoes, demure and black though they were. He didn’t break sweat retrieving the package, jogging back along Masons Lane and ticking off house numbers until at last he located Number 8.

It was a custom-built Art Deco villa surrounded by glass balustrades and nestled in the greenery of a tall hedgerow. The front door was open, a wooden hedgehog carving serving as a doorstop. That subtle touch told Father Ronan that this indeed was Nora’s home.

And there she was, hiding inside a long beige cardigan. Neither the cardigan nor the bright make-up detracted from her internal beauty that was shining through with all its might. She was in the company of a tall Nordic type with a bloated belly symptomatic of little exercise and plenty of beer – Stewart. One of his big bad Dobermans sprang to its feet and charged towards Father Ronan, snarling. The other one followed, eager for some action.

Father Ronan shoved his hand in the dog’s face, his knuckles up. ‘Good boy! What a beautiful beast you are!’ Despite the persistent snarling, he patted the dog on the head and delivered the same treatment to his brother. The dogs submitted. Father Ronan was in no doubt that they would. He knew how to handle beasts, large and small.

Book blurb:

On the morning after his thirtieth wedding anniversary Stewart Harding is found dead. He was an arrogant and thoroughly unpleasant man and there is no shortage of suspects, but all of them have firm alibis. In any case, everything points towards it being an opportunistic killing linked to a robbery.

Newly promoted DI Mark Webber is assigned as the SIO with Gillian Marsh overseeing the investigation. However, when her mother dies, she takes leave of absence and lets Webber continue on his own.

Webber is making good progress until his colleague – and secret lover – DC Erin Macfadyen disappears without trace. Webber’s world falls apart.

DCI Marsh cuts her bereavement leave short to take over the investigation into Stewart Harding’s death and to track down her missing officer.

There is no doubt that she will find Harding’s killer, but will she find Erin and are the two cases connected?

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Author Bio – Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mysteries. Murder isn’t the only thing on her mind. She dabbles in a wide variety of genres, ranging from dark humour, through magic realism to dystopia. A globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.