21 Feb Len Maynard A Dangerous Life Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour #HistoricalFiction #Crime #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @len_maynard @maryanneyarde

Featured Author: Len Maynard

It’s my pleasure to feature Len Maynard as part of The Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour being held from February 8th — April 12th 2021. Len Maynard is the author of the historical crime fiction novel, A Dangerous Life (The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries, Book 2), which was released by Sharpe Books on July 28th 2020 (287 pages).

Below are highlights of A Dangerous Life, Ken Maynard’s author biography, and an excerpt from his book.

Highlights: A Dangerous Life

A Dangerous Life

The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries, Book 2

by Len Maynard

1959

A body of a man wearing theatrical make up is found hanging from a tree on Norton Common in Hertfordshire. He has been tortured and his throat has been cut.

DCI Jack Callum, a veteran policeman with his own rules for procedure, heads the investigation into this puzzling crime. The clues lead him close to the answer, but the solution remains elusive. 

Why was the man killed?  What were the victim’s links to London’s gangland bosses?

When an unsolved murder is uncovered that appears to be connected to the case, Jack realises he must use his team to their full strength to separate the innocent from the guilty.

Jack also faces a challenge he never expected as he is accused of an improper relationship with a young Detective Constable on his team, Myra Banks.

In a breathless climax, Myra puts her own life on the line to deal with a figure from Jack’s past, who has now become a lethal threat in the present.

Buy Links:

Amazon UK • Amazon US

Author Bio: Len Maynard

Born in Enfield, North London in 1953, Len Maynard has written and published over forty books, the majority of them in collaboration with Michael Sims. Ghost story collections, the Department 18 series of supernatural thrillers, stand-alone horror novels, the Bahamas series of action-adventure thrillers, as well as a handful of stand-alone thrillers. As editors, they were responsible for the Enigmatic Tales and Darkness Rising series of anthologies, as well as single anthologies in the horror and crime genres. The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries are his first to be written under his own name.

Connect with Len:

Website •  Website “The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries” • Twitter • Instagram • Facebook

Excerpt:

A Dangerous Life: The Second Jack Callum Mystery Excerpt No 3 – Len Maynard

WEDNESDAY MARCH 18^TH 1959

“What do you mean, she won’t identify the body?” Chief Superintendent Henry Lane said as he paced back and forth in his office.

“Just that,” Jack said. “She can’t leave the house.”

“Well, that just won’t do. We need a formal identification.”

“She’ll get her doctor to write a letter of excuse if we put any pressure on her.”

“Excusing her for carrying out her public duty?” Lane said, a vein in his temple bulging ominously as his temper rose. “Never mind her duty as a wife.”

“She’s agoraphobic, sir,” Jack explained patiently. “She suffers from extreme panic attacks if she goes out into the open. Her doctor will confirm that, or so she says. WPC Banks is going to verify that on her way in this morning.”

“Never heard such rubbish,” Lane muttered and stopped pacing. “Well, what are you going to do about it, Chief Inspector?”

“His parents live in Shillington. I’m going to pay them a visit and see if they’ll oblige.”

“Yes, do that, and then we can move this investigation onto a more formal footing.” Lane sat down at his desk and picked up a pen that was lying on the blotter in front of him. He tapped it against his teeth and put it down again. “Nailed to a tree and tortured. What a way to go,” he mused quietly. “Do you think the wife had anything to do with it?”

“I’m not sure,” Jack said. “WPC Banks suggested the same thing.”

“Bright girl that one. Anything else?”

“Mrs Turner gave me a list of people who might wish her husband harm.” Jack took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and laid it on the desk under the chief superintendent’s nose. Lane glanced at it and then snatched it up and studied it more closely.

“I’ve heard of some of the names on here,” he said sounding appalled.

“There’s a couple I recognise too.”

“Our Mr. Turner could give Mussolini a run for his money in the popularity stakes. Are you going to talk to all of these people?”

“I’m certainly going to try.”

“Well, speak to the parents first. See if they can shed any light.”

Jack walked to the door. “I’ll get over to Shillington.”

He drove through the picturesque village of Shillington, tucked just inside the Bedfordshire border. He’d been here some years before when he was looking to make the move from Tottenham in London but had dismissed it as being too rural, too much of a departure from his urban roots.

The Turners lived in a bungalow situated at the blunt end of a cul-de-sac. The surrounding houses looked well appointed, with neatly cut lawns, tidy flowerbeds and clusters of trimmed conifers.

He walked up the gravel path and rang the doorbell, sheltering under the tiled porch from a thin drizzle that had started to fall from a leaden March sky. A tall man with short iron-grey hair and a military bearing opened the door almost immediately. His eyes narrowed as he peered at Jack’s warrant card. “You took your time,” he said bluntly. “After the Harpy’s call I was expecting you last night.”

“The Harpy?”

“The Franklin woman.”

“Your daughter-in-law?”

“Our daughter-in-law was Polly…the lovely Polly.” His voice caught in his throat. “But she was like a real daughter to us in so many ways. The Harpy took her place. She usurped her, damn the woman!”

“I gather that you two don’t get on. So why did she telephone you to say that I wanted to see you?”

“My wife took the call. I hardly ever see the Franklin woman, thank God.” He extended a hand. “Laurence Turner,” he said, stepping to one side. “You’d better come in.”

He led Jack inside the bungalow. It was modestly furnished with a three-piece-suite that was probably new just after the First World War, and had seen its own share of battles since then.

“I was hoping to speak to both your wife and yourself,” Jack said.

“Jean won’t see you. As I said, she took the ’phone call from the Harpy and after that she took to her bed, unable to face the fact that her son, her beloved Anthony, was dead. If she sees you it will make her face the reality of the situation and she’s not strong enough for that…not yet anyway.”

“Your daughter-in…Lois…told her the reason I wanted to see you?”

“You want me to stare at a body on a slab and confirm that it’s my son,” Turner said bluntly. “Yes. She told her, and no doubt derived a lot of pleasure in doing so.”

“They’ve taken him to North Herts Hospital. The mortuary there is…well, the staff…know how to handle these things sensitively.”

Turner flopped down on one of the armchairs and buried his face in his hands. When he took them away from his face Jack was expecting to see tears moistening the old man’s cheeks, but the cheeks were dry and the old man’s eyes had lost none of their disdain.

“Don’t expect me to grieve, Chief Inspector,” Turner said when he noticed Jack’s interest. “I’ll shed no tears for that one.”

“But he was your son, and the manner of his death was…”

“He was my son,” Turner interrupted, “but he was also an unmitigated shit, and I don’t care who knows it. He broke his mother’s heart, never visiting her from one year to the next. And as for poor Polly… That girl deserved so much more out of life. When she fell ill and needed her husband at her side she got nothing. While she lay dying my son was off, having it away with that American whore.”

There was sheer venom in his voice.

“We have a granddaughter, you know, who we haven’t seen since her mother passed away. Can you imagine how much that hurts us?” Turner said, his eyes tearful for the first time.

“I can imagine, sir,” Jack said gently.

“Can we go to the hospital now and get this over with?” Turner said, gathering himself.

“I can drive you there.”

“Let me go up and see my wife, to tell her I’m going to be out for a while. North Herts Hospital you say?”

Jack nodded.

“Bloody inconvenient,” Laurence Turner said sourly.

As they crossed the border back into Hertfordshire, Jack said, “Lois wrote me a list of names of the people who might have wanted to harm your son.”

“Did she? May I see it?” Turner said unemotionally.

Jack took a folded sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to him. For a short while there was no sound in the car apart from the steady swish of the windscreen wipers, the thrum of the Wolseley’s engine and Turner’s slightly stentorian breathing.

“It’s quite a short list,” Turner said at last. “I can think of at least three more names, not including my own.”

“Your son was really that unpopular?”

“It’s hard to credit isn’t it? Tony Turner, star of stage and screen. Loved by the masses, loathed by those who really knew him.”

Jack fished in his pocket again, produced a pen and handed it to Turner. “Just add the names to the bottom of the list, if you wouldn’t mind. Don’t bother to add your own.”

“As you wish,” the old man said.

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