Once again I’m linking up again with Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea who hosts a post every Tuesday for people to share the first chapter / paragraph of the book they are reading, or thinking of reading soon. Diane is currently on a summer break but I have decided to carry on regardless because these are some of my favourite posts. I see others are doing the same – if you are, please leave a link to your post in the comments so that I don’t miss checking out your reads.

I’m also joining in with Teaser Tuesday, hosted by The Purple Booker, where you share two teasers from your current read. I read a lot of these posts over the course of an average Tuesday so thought it would be fun to join in here too.

So, after a very long intro, this is what I’m reading this week…

In the midst of a rock festival, a charity worker is sliced across the stomach. He dies minutes later. In a crowd of thousands, no one saw his attacker. The following week, the body of a primary school teacher is found in a dumpster in an Edinburgh alley, strangled with her own woollen scarf.

DI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach have no motive and no leads – until around the city, graffitied on buildings, words appear describing each victim.

It’s only when they realise the words are appearing before rather than after the murders, that they understand the killer is announcing his next victim…and the more innocent the better.

This is the second book featuring Turner and Callanach and I have high hopes after LOVING the first (Perfect Remains).  Here’s how it starts…

There were worse places to die. Few more terrifying ways of dying, though.  It was an idyllic summer backdrop – the cityscape on one side, the ancient volcano Arthur’s Seat silhouetted in the distance.  The music could be felt before it was heard, the bass throbbing through bones and jiggling flesh. Sundown came late in Edinburgh in July and the sky was awash with shades of rose, gold and burnt orange.  Perhaps that was why no one noticed when it happened.  Either that, or the cocktail or drink, drugs and natural highs.  The festival was well underway. Three days of revellers lounging, partying, loving, eating and drinking their way through band after band, bodies increasingly comfortable with fewer clothes and minimal hygiene.  If you could take a snapshot to illustrate a sense of ecstasy, this would have been the definitive scene. Washing through the crowds, jumping as one, as if the multitudes had merged to create a single rapturous beast with a thousand grinning heads.  Through the centre of it all, the killer had drifted like smoke, sinuous and light-footed, bringing a blade to its receptacle like  ribbon through air.

And here are a few teasers…

“How do you tell someone to shut up in French?” she responded without looking up from her phone

And

Callanach contemplated slipping into his apartment silently, before realising he’d spend the whole evening feeling guilty and rude, and opted for the path of least resistance.  Bunny opened the door as he was knocking. 

What do you think – are these tasters enough to make you want to read more?

Emma x