#COVERREVEAL of #TheMidnightKilling by Sharon Dempsey with an exclusive #EXTRACT | @svjdempz | @HCinIreland | @AvonBooksUK

She’d cycled this way hundreds of times before, every twist and turn familiar. She didn’t know this would be the last. 

When the body of local architect James McCallum is found hanging in the grounds of his former school one cold, dark night, DI Danny Stowe and forensic psychologist Rose Lainey suspect foul play behind his apparent suicide.

To their astonishment, the trail leads to a 20-year-old cold case of a missing girl, and a teenage party. But what was James’ fascination with the case and how is it linked to his death?

Secrets don’t stay buried forever… but the real killer will stop at nothing to hide theirs…

An absolutely gripping and totally unputdownable crime thriller that will keep you up all night! Perfect for fans of Patricia Gibney, Val McDermid and Rachel Caine.  

The girl wakes. When she opens her eyes she sees nothing
but a velvet darkness that seems to wrap around her,
making her think of the bog. Her mother always warned
her to stay clear of the wetlands, saying that they could
suck her down to the depths of hell like quicksand. Once,
she’d gone looking for tadpoles and when she’d lifted
the jam jar out of the pool it was full of gloomy, gloopy
water, coloured with peat tannins. She knows this because
Mrs Plunket had taught them all about the bog in nature
class. She knows that tadpoles turn into froglets, and
that the dry patches of bog are covered with ling heather,
bell heather, crowberry and blaeberry. She knows a lot
of things, but she does not know where she is or how
she has got here.
There is a buzzing sound that she can’t identify, and
after a while she realises that it is coming from inside
of her. Her head is thrumming, a low drone of pain that
makes itself known through sound. She knows that it is
strange but can’t figure out why. Nor can she work out

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why her legs feel as though they have been filled with
sludge. They feel numb and as dead as the carcasses
hanging in her grandad’s butcher shop.
She is lying on her side and can feel a rough surface
against her cheek. Instinct tells her not to move, for
movement will bring pain. She wants her mammy.
Desperately so. She wants her daddy to lift her up in his
big, strong arms, and carry her to bed. She wants to feel
the warmth of her sister, Ciara, sleeping close beside her.
To hear that chortling, piggy noise she makes when she’s
asleep.
Sometimes she fights with Ciara, pinching her arm or
pulling her hair. She’s sorry about that now. Wishes she
could make up for all the bad things she has ever done.
She can’t help the tears coming, prickling her eyes and
warming her cheeks.
She tries to think of something nice. Whizzing down
the lane on her red bike, the dip of the road and the
way it makes her tummy feel bubbly.
But then she remembers that the bike has been broken. It’s twisted and
battered, and it will be no good for anything but scrap.
A desperate sadness swells up in her chest, squeezing out
all of the air. She can’t say how or why, but she thinks
that she is in danger. That someone has hurt her and
will do so again.
No good can come of being in this blackness, this
much she knows.