Hi and welcome to FromBelgiumWithBookLove where it is my absolute pleasure to share with you an excerpt from The Pain Tourist! Check out my review here if you missed it the first time around, but the long and short of it is that The Pain Tourist is a massive adrenaline rush. It’s incredibly imaginative and positively riveting, and if you like your thrillers action-packed, high-octane, suspenseful and cleverly plotted, here is where you start!
Many thanks to Anne Cater for having me on the tour, and to Orenda Books for the excerpt.
Let’s have a quick look at the blurb first:
A young man wakes from a coma to find himself targeted by the men who killed his parents, while someone is impersonating a notorious New Zealand serial killer … the latest chilling, nerve-shredding, twisty thriller from the author of The Quiet People…
James Garrett was critically injured when he was shot following his parents’ execution, and no one expected him to waken from a deep, traumatic coma. When he does, nine years later, Detective Inspector Rebecca Kent is tasked with closing the case that her now retired colleague, Theodore Tate, failed to solve all those years ago.
But between that, and hunting for Copy Joe – a murderer on a spree, who’s imitating Christchurch’s most notorious serial killer – she’s going to need Tate’s help … especially when they learn that James has lived out another life in his nine-year coma, and there are things he couldn’t possibly know, including the fact that Copy Joe isn’t the only serial killer in town…
Ready? Set. Go!
James Garrett is on his knees in the lounge. Monster Two can’t find Hazel, which means she didn’t fall from the roof, she didn’t break any bones, she’s got help. He’s scared, his pyjamas are wet, and he can feel the barrel of the gun against his head … He’s waiting … waiting…
The headache that explodes into being is like nothing he has ever experienced – it’s like people are screaming into a canyon, the echoes bottled up and released en masse into the centre of his brain. His skull is tearing open. His brain is expanding and pressing at the jagged edges of the tear. The lounge lights are flickering, they blink off, and—
The surgeons lose James Garrett at 11:39pm. The blood loss and the severity of the injury is making this one of the hardest surgeries Doctor Wolfgang McCoy has ever had to perform. The bullet has entered through the back of James’s skull, creating a fingertip hole that has expanded in a spiderweb of fractures. James’s head has been shaved and that web cut away, opening a window to the brain and the wound below. The bullet has entered on a downward trajectory, furrowing through the occipital lobe and into the cerebellum, and is either lodged in there or against the jaw bone. There hasn’t been time to x-ray the boy to see if the bullet is in one piece or a dozen.
The surgeons attempt resuscitation and are successful.
James is in the dark for only a few moments before the lights in the lounge blink back to life. The loud ringing in his ears – the bottled screams – have dulled. He’s lying on his side, mirroring his mum’s position. His dad is still on his knees with Monster One now pointing his gun at him. What do these men, these monsters, want?
A slight movement from his right. His mum? Yes, there it is again, a twitch. She’s still alive! Monster One also sees the twitch, and turns toward her. He takes aim—
His dad screams, the muscles in his neck tighten, and he snaps the restraints behind his back. Monster One is too slow to react as his dad leaps up and grabs his gun hand and gets it pointing at the ceiling.
Bang!
A hole appears next to the light and plaster dust rains down on them.
Bang!
The light explodes. Monster Two opens fire, bullet holes lining the wall. His dad twists Monster One around and uses him as a shield. The monster jerks back and forth as his chest is torn open by gunfire. The lights in the lounge flicker … they stay on … they flicker some more, then die.
You see what I mean? Hungry for more? Not a problem: The Pain Tourist is out now. Order it directly from Orenda Books here.
Thanks for the blog tour support x
My pleasure, thanks for having me!