Heâs the maverick psychologist advising the police on ritualistic crimeâbut there are dark shadows hunting Harrison Lane from his own pastâŚ
Following the discovery of a missing boyâs body in what appears to be a Satanic killing, Head of the Metropolitan Policeâs Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unit, Dr Harrison Lane is called in to help detectives. When a second boy is snatched, it becomes a race against time to save him.
The police have no leads in the hunt for the kidnapped boy. Can Harrison find him and return him safely to his family?
Harrison had an unusual childhood, raised by a bohemian mother and one of the native American Shadow Wolves - the elite tracking squad who work with US Drug enforcers. Grief stricken after his mother was murdered, Harrison vowed to track down those responsible for her death, and all those who hide behind religion and spiritualism to commit evil.
Preacher Boy is the first in the Dr Harrison Lane mysteries, fast-paced thrillers full of murder and intrigue, with a little romance and humour included. Harrison travels all over the British Isles as he solves the crimes hiding behind folklore, superstition, religion and ritual.
Heâs the maverick psychologist advising the police on ritualistic crimeâbut there are dark shadows hunting Harrison Lane from his own pastâŚ
Following the discovery of a missing boyâs body in what appears to be a Satanic killing, Head of the Metropolitan Policeâs Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unit, Dr Harrison Lane is called in to help detectives. When a second boy is snatched, it becomes a race against time to save him.
The police have no leads in the hunt for the kidnapped boy. Can Harrison find him and return him safely to his family?
Harrison had an unusual childhood, raised by a bohemian mother and one of the native American Shadow Wolves - the elite tracking squad who work with US Drug enforcers. Grief stricken after his mother was murdered, Harrison vowed to track down those responsible for her death, and all those who hide behind religion and spiritualism to commit evil.
Preacher Boy is the first in the Dr Harrison Lane mysteries, fast-paced thrillers full of murder and intrigue, with a little romance and humour included. Harrison travels all over the British Isles as he solves the crimes hiding behind folklore, superstition, religion and ritual.
Dr Harrison Lane pulled into Felton Woods car park and put the Harleyâs brakes on, just in front of the uniformed police officer who stood there, palm forward, ordering him to stop. The young officer looked intimidated but stood his ground with the briefest of twitches, acknowledging the twenty or so colleagues who swarmed all over the area behind him. Harrison took his helmet off and an earbud out, cutting Metallica off in their prime.
âThis car park is closed, sir,â the officer said. âI need you to leave immediately.â
Harrison said nothing but reached inside his leather jacket and pulled out a Metropolitan Police ID card. He handed it to the officer with the raise of an eyebrow and the whisper of a smile. The card read, âDr Harrison Lane, Ritualistic Behavioural Crime Unitâ.
The officer looked at it and then at the face of the man in front of him. Harrison watched as a wave of recognition, then suppressed inquisitiveness, swept across the manâs features. Without another word, he stepped aside and handed the ID back. Harrison took it with the hint of a nod, replaced his helmet, and slowly rode his motorbike into the car park, aware of the young manâs eyes following him.
There was no apparent urgency to Harrisonâs movements. Around him buzzed a swarm of activity. Police officers and Scenes of Crime personnel rushed from vehicles into the woods that formed an embrace of brown and green around the top half of the parking area. He got off his bike and stopped to take in the scene, his eyes scanning every inch.
They had taped the car park closest to the woods off and it was empty except for a single car, a black VW Golf, almost directly in front of him. To his right, a pale-faced man was talking to two police officers, a bored-looking Spaniel at his feet. Near them stood a huddle of white-suited forensic officers sorting small plastic boxes and bags at the back of their van. Three paths broke the line of trees and bushes, the middle one guarded by a uniformed officer. You didnât need to be Sherlock Holmes to realise there was a body in those woods.
Harrison already knew this; heâd received the call at 6.30 a.m., and it had taken him just forty-five minutes to get across town and out here. After running a hand through his short dark hair, he unzipped his jacket. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply so his muscular chest strained rhythmically at the white T-shirt underneath.
He pulled the scent of the place into his nostrils: earthy, the autumnal signature of decaying leaves. A dampness was in the air; that was good. The early morning dew would act as a canvas on which any physical disturbances could be read.
Behind him the young police officer watched transfixed as the solid bulk of Dr Harrison Lane stood planted in the middle of the car park, not moving.
Finally, his eyelids flicked open, revealing a deep look of concentration that sharpened the brown pools of his eyes. After placing the white forensic boots and suit over his clothes, he started a slow journey towards his target.
As Harrison walked, he examined the ground and bushes. The investigating teamâs feet had stamped and churned the path, but that didnât stop him from looking. He knew even the minutest clue could turn the direction of the case.
A forensic photographer came down the path in the opposite direction, brushing past. Harrisonâs concentration remained unbroken.
The path led to a small clearing, a breath of sky that broke the canopy of leaves. At the edge stood two women who stopped talking and turned to watch him, but Harrison didnât acknowledge their presence. He only had eyes for what was in front of them.
At his arrival, the older woman, a plain-clothed police detective in her fifties and clearly in charge, motioned to the forensics team to stop what they were doing and stand aside.
Harrison stepped closer to the centre of the clearing. A body lay amidst the mud and leaf debris. It was too small to be an adult. Pale waxy skin glistened with dew in the thin white light of the morning. He stopped and drank in the scene in front of him. Position. Cover. Conditions. Trees rose all around the clearing, forming an impenetrable circle, broken only by one entry and one exit path. Mature oaks and beech were interspersed with fir and horse chestnuts. Their trunks, skirted by elderberry bushes, were entwined with ivy that reached up towards the branches as though shackling the trees to the forest floor. Where there wasnât ivy, the cracked brown roughness of the bark was upholstered with furred green moss and lichen.
Other than the paths, the wood was a suffocating darkness made more impenetrable by the occasional grey barrier of stone ruins that rose like drowning sailors from the undergrowth. To those who stood in the clearing, this didnât seem like a place to go for a stroll, or perhaps it was the focus of their visit that lent the woods their sombre, ghostly edge.
Slowly Harrison moved forward, turning his attention back to the ground as he walked.
He was upon it now. The body of a boy, around seven years old. He looked like he had just fallen asleep, but the rotting leaves upon which he lay were his grave.
Harrison came to a stop on the forensic platform placed around the boyâs body, and dropped to a crouch. The boyâs thin upper torso was uncovered, and across his chest, âV R S N S M VâS M Q L I V Bâ was written in black marker.
He turned to examine the roughly made wooden cross behind the boyâs head. It looked upside down. The armâfixed by what appeared to be a length of woolâcrossed the vertical bar around one-third from the bottom. Four candles were pushed into the earth at each corner. They had been lit and mostly burned down. In the boyâs left hand was what looked like a small torch.
As Harrison turned his head, he exposed the small brown eagle tattoo on his thick neck to the group of bystanders who all stood watching silently. Even the birds had exited the clearing, as if in respect for the intensity of his concentration.
He stood up and moved around the body, studying the ground beneath the stepping blocks laid out by forensics to protect the evidence. He almost sniffed at the air. There was something raw and animalistic about this man and the way he moved. All his senses focussed and alert.
Harrison gave one last scan around the area just as from behind him the sound of crashing footsteps heralded the arrival of someone new into the clearing.
âSo the Witch Doctorâs arrived!â A blond mid-thirties police detective walked up to the two women and nodded toward Harrison, smirking.
âShut it. Donât start now,â the older woman snapped at him, not taking her eyes off the scene in front of her. The younger woman, an attractive brunette, shot him a look of contempt, which he failed to notice.
Harrison took another walk around the body, and then his face softened. The concentration slipped from him. He gave one last look to the boy, this time with compassion in his eyes, as if seeing him as a child for the first time.
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I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Reedsy Discovery for the ARC copy of Preacher Boy by Gwyn GB.
Gwyn GB has a talent for elaborate description and effectively paints vivid physical scenes. Unfortunately, there are moments in the story when the scene descriptions take over and slow the story.
At times there are awkward uses of simile and comparisons that give the reader pause and pull one out of the story completely. In a scene describing the grief of a lost child Gwyn GB wrote, âThe air hung, dust particles suspended, as though afraid to breathe for fear of being sucked into the vortex of grief.â The thought of dust particles breathing tossed me from any sympathy I felt for the grieving family.
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The story is written in a distant third person that shifts from person to person in the same scene and then, at times, into an omniscient point of view. The distant third person shifts became intrusive as the reader skipped from main character to minor character, to bystanders as they all admired, are entranced, or envious of Dr. Harrison Laneâs various physical attributes and persona over and over.
The story loses momentum by chapter three with telling narration. The reader is buried in descriptions of the police station, duties, staffing, and DCI Barkerâs office and her attempts to keep it tidy. A seven-year-old boy is dead and the reader doesnât need an elaborate description of what hangs on the walls in Dr. Laneâs apartment. Â
Halfway through the story the killer is revealed but not caught. At this point the story becomes more of a suspense than a mystery. Near the end the pace picks up and the climax is nicely done. This is where Gwyn GBâs skill of description adds depth and pulls the reader into the action. The stakes are high, and the tension has risen enough to drive the story to a satisfying conclusion.
If you are looking for a fascinating mystery it is not here, if you want a taunt suspense story that also is not exactly realized, but there are moments of suspense that pull the reader forward.
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I wavered on this one, couldnât quite decide until near the end. Despite all my doubts this story came together to a conclusion that worked for me. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.
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