Blog Tour: An extract from Villain by Caro Savage

I really wanted to read and review this book for the blog tour, but due to other reading commitments I was unable to read it in time. So, instead, The Crime Warp is chuffed to bits to bring you an exclusive extract from Villain selected by the author herself. I guarantee you that after reading this you'll be off to download the full novel - I know I was!

Villain Blurb

To catch a villain sometimes you have to become one.

Bailey's Back! From the bestselling author of Jailbird.

Detective Constable Bailey Morgan is back doing what she does best – working undercover

This time she has to infiltrate the inner circle of a notorious underworld family. Posing as a fellow villain, she is on a one-woman mission to bring the family to their knees.

But things are never that simple. Bailey finds that she is forced to confront shadowy wraiths from her past and will come face-to-face with a set of devastating revelations that will shatter her world and threaten her very existence.

With only herself to trust, Bailey is on her own and the stakes are higher than ever.

Heart-stopping and gripping. Perfect for the fans of hit TV shows such as Line of Duty and Gangs of London.

Purchase Link - https://amzn.to/2V9uUKH

Here's the Sneaky Peek from Villain

It was an exceptionally cold winter’s evening in Chiswick in West London. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Colder than the hinges of hell. Colder than a witch’s tit. Colder than a bucket of snowman’s piss. Colder than…

The homeless man lying in the doorway tried to recall yet some further expression for the cold weather. He was playing this little game in an attempt to distract himself from the icy chill that was biting through to the very marrow of his bones.

Shivering, he huddled deeper into his sleeping bag, which he had additionally cocooned with sheets of newspaper and bits of cardboard boxes. With his fingerless mittens, he reached for the small bottle of cheap brandy he’d purchased earlier that day from a nearby off-licence. He held it up to the light and examined it with a glum expression on his face. Empty.

Illuminated Christmas decorations hung from the lamp posts all along the affluent street in which he’d chosen to bunk down on this particular evening, their glittering lights projecting a wholly illusory warmth. He didn’t know the exact date, but he knew Christmas wasn’t far off, although it was kind of hard to get into the festive spirit when you were homeless.

If anyone had asked his name, if anyone had cared, he would have told them it was Dave Boakes. He came from Bristol originally but had ended up here on the streets of London by dint of a long chain of unfortunate occurrences the nature of which he didn’t like to dwell on too much.

These days, Dave just concentrated on getting through life day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and not for the first time he wished he owned a watch so that he could mark each of those seconds passing by. The only problem was that time seemed to pass so much more slowly when you were cold.

Dave had positioned himself strategically near the entrance to an expensive restaurant in the hope that the passing patrons would feel sorry for him and give him some money. In front of him was a metal mug in which he’d placed a few coins in order to stimulate people’s generosity, but he hadn’t had much luck so far this evening.

He looked over at the restaurant. What he wouldn’t give to be in there right now, sitting in the warm, tucking into a nice juicy steak accompanied by a big glass of red wine. He felt his mouth begin to water.

He blinked the fantasy away. No point in tormenting oneself. He turned his head away from the restaurant and as he did so a movement caught his eye a little way down the road. Squinting, he tried to make out what it was.

At first, in the dimness of the shadows, everything was indistinct, but then he saw it again, a twitch of motion there, low down, by the back of a smart-looking S-Type Jaguar, one of several very nice cars parked along this road. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a figure clad in black kneeling down doing… something.

Intrigued, Dave squinted harder, but it was difficult to make out details for the figure was operating just beyond the pool of light cast by the nearest street lamp, and they were wearing some kind of hat pulled down low over their face which obscured their features. However, some instinct told him that whoever they were and whatever they were doing, they were up to no good. So he stayed completely still as he watched, figuring it was probably in his best interests not to draw too much attention to his presence. At times like this the relative invisibility of being a homeless man conferred a distinct advantage.

After a short while, the figure stood up, fluidly detached itself from the car and melted away into the shadows.

Dave blinked and looked again but it had vanished completely, like some spectral presence that had never really been there in the first place. Much as he’d recently polished off a bottle of brandy, he was pretty certain he hadn’t been imagining what he’d just seen.

More about the author

Author Bio –

Caro Savage knows all about bestselling thrillers having worked as a Waterstones bookseller for 12 years in a previous life. Now taking up the challenge personally and turning to hard-hitting crime thriller writing, Jailbird was published by Boldwood in October 2019.

Connect with her here:

Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/CaroSavageStory

https://www.instagram.com/carosavage/

Newsletter sign up: http://bit.ly/CaroSavageNewsletter

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