One choice: run…or die.
It is a time of austerity. Financial cuts are biting hard and the once great City of Liverpool finds itself now almost bankrupt. At the eleventh hour funding is found in the form of enigmatic billionaire Kirk Bovind, a religious zealot, determined to change the moral fibre and bring salvation to the streets.
Against this backdrop a man disappears without trace. Solitary lawyer, Erasmus Jones, agrees to track the missing Stephen down, but quickly discovers that this is more than just a missing person case. Men are being brutally murdered across the city and Erasmus discovers that Bovind, the murdered men and Stephen once knew each other as boys…
How long can the past be kept secret? How long can secrets stay hidden? And who will be the next to die…?
The Silent Pool
Phil Kurthausen
HQ
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Phil Kurthausen 2014
Phil Kurthausen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472074294
Version date: 2018-09-20
PHIL KURTHAUSEN
was brought up in Merseyside where he dreamt of being a novelist but ended up working as a lawyer. He has travelled the world working as flower salesman, a light bulb repair technician and, though scared of heights, painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ken Dodd once put him in a headlock for being annoying.
He has had work broadcast on BBC radio 4 extra, published some short stories and his novel ‘The Silent Pool’ won the Thriller Round in the Harper Collins People's Novelist Competition broadcast on ITV in November 2011 and appeared in the final. It was later shortlisted for the Dundee International Literary Prize in 2012. He lives in Chester.
“Wonderfully written, tightly written, Erasmus Jones is like Jack Reacher. Wonderful. Cathy Kelly
“This pulls you in at 100 mph. [The] sense of place is terrific. A great central character. I love Erasmus Jones.” Mark Billingham
“I read ahead of myself. Just cracking. Macabre, brilliant.” Penny Smith
“Totally un-putdownable.. Quite Outstanding.” Jeffrey Archer
To my parents
Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50