Front Page Fridays Week-20
Front Page Fridays Week-20
Welcome to Front Page Fridays Week-20. Every Friday I highlight a recently published book by showcasing the first page.
My Front Page Fridays Week-20 guest is a returning guest, Rob Gittins, and his brand-new thriller Private Investigations.
Here’s the first page:
Prologue
My name is Lara Arden. I’m twenty-eight years old. Twenty-two years ago, my mother vanished on a crowded train.
I grew up reconciled to never solving the mystery of what happened to her. A year ago, I did, but that isn’t what this is about.
When I thought she’d walked out on us, simply abandoning me and my elder sister, Georgia, I wasn’t interested in finding out anything about her. Now that I know that’s not true, I want to know everything. I want to reconstruct her life, from the age at which she herself was abandoned to the moment she disappeared on that train. I want to meet, in a sense, the woman and mother I never knew.
As a cop, my life is all about investigations, but this is different.
This is a private investigation.
About the Book
A young girl in a coma after a tragic road accident.
Another young girl has washed up on a remote beach, her identity unknown.
An old man is murdered and hastily buried in a makeshift grave.
A tormented pastor is unable to erase old misdeeds.
Different souls, but with one common link - the past.
Detective Inspector Lara Arden has her own demons to deal with. But as she investigates this raft of seemingly disparate crimes, she begins to suspect there’s a further common link at work here - her own past.
When all when all roads lead back to a former children’s home called Kenwood - and a macabre half-size windmill sited in its grounds – suspicion hardens into conviction.
Lara always believed that Kenwood had to be destroyed. Its old stories haunted it too strongly, like spirits yet to find their voice.
But do the tendrils of its past cling to everyone associated with it, too?
And do they need to be destroyed as well?
About the Author
Rob Gittins is a screenwriter and a novelist. Rob’s written for almost all the top-rated UK network TV dramas from the last thirty years, including Casualty, EastEnders, The Bill, Heartbeat and Vera, as well as over thirty original radio plays for BBC Radio 4.
He’s previously had six novels published by Y Lolfa to high critical acclaim. This is Rob’s fourth novel for Hobeck and is the second in his series set on the idyllic, if occasionally sinister and disturbing, Isle of Wight. Rob’s other Hobeck novels, both standalone psychological thrillers, are The Devil’s Bridge Affair and Can I Trust You?
Visit Rob’s website - www.robgittins.com
Facebook – (2) Facebook
X (Twitter) - https://x.com/Gittins2Rob
Where to Buy Private Investigations – Purchase Links
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D8CSG625
Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D8CSG625
Hobeck website https://www.hobeck.net/product-page/private-investigations-by-rob-gittins
Waterstones https://www.waterstones.com/book/private-investigations/rob-gittins/9781915817600
I hope you enjoyed reading Front Page Fridays Week-20. Please come back next time when I’ll be featuring a different author and the first page of their book.
And please take a look at books already featured on Front Page Fridays:
1. Blood Ribbons by Lin Le Versha – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-1/
2. Fatal Blow by Brian Price – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-2/
3. Can I Trust You? by Rob Gittins – Front Page Fridays Week-3 – Rachel Sargeant
4. The Last Bird of Paradise by AJ Aberford – Front Page Fridays Week-4 – Rachel Sargeant
5. Never Forgive You by Hilly Barmby – Front Page Fridays Week-5 – Rachel Sargeant
6. The Mists of Pencarrack Moor by Terri Nixon – Front Page Fridays Week-6 - Rachel Sargeant
7. The Thief of Joy by Stacey Murray – Front Page Fridays Week-7 - Rachel Sargeant
8. Edge of the Land by Malcolm Hollingdrake – Front Page Fridays Week-8 - Rachel Sargeant
9. The Mind of a Murderer by Michael Wood - https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-9/
10. The Midnight Man by Julie Anderson – Front Page Fridays Week-10 - Rachel Sargeant
11. Dark Road Home by Sheila Bugler – Front Page Fridays Week-11 - Rachel Sargeant
12. Her Charming Man by Rachel Sargeant – Front Page Fridays Week-12 - Rachel Sargeant
13. Wedding Bells at the Lakeside Hotel by Linda Huber – Front Page Fridays Week-13 - Rachel Sargeant
14. Dark Island by Daniel Aubrey – Front Page Fridays Week-14 - Rachel Sargeant
15. The Shame by Maureen Myant – Front Page Fridays Week-15 - Rachel Sargeant
16. Dead Mile by Jo Furniss – Front Page Fridays Week-16 — Rachel Sargeant
17. The Violin and Candlestick by David Jarvis – Front Page Fridays Week-17 — Rachel Sargeant
18. New Memories by S.E. Shepherd – Front Page Fridays Week-18 — Rachel Sargeant
19. Young Blood by Victoria Gemmell - Front Page Fridays Week-19 — Rachel Sargeant