The Hammer by R.J. Mitchell

I’m so happy to be part of Love Book Tours spotlight for the sixth book in the DS Throughgood series. Feel free to check out the other stops on the tour to gain other reader’s insights into the book. For today, I have an excerpt to give you a preview into this wonderful book!

Blurb

After escaping the clutches of a Glasgow drug lord nicknamed ‘The Widowmaker’, the newly promoted Detective Constable Thoroughgood heads for Manchester. The northern powerhouse is home to two rival gangs: ‘The Maine Men’ and ‘The Devils.  When a drug deal goes wrong and Thoroughgood fails to stop it, a full-scale turf war is ready to take over Manchester — a city split into red and blue halves.

Seconded into an undercover Greater Manchester Police unit under the command of the legendary DCI Marty Ferguson, Thoroughgood soon finds that the drugs war is not the only battle being fought in the city. 

‘The Hammer’ takes Thoroughgood out of the character’s typical Scottish stomping grounds, with 1990s Manchester and a nightmare at the Theatre of Dreams forming the perfect backdrop for Mitchell’s brand of gritty, high-octane crime writing. 

Excerpt

FOR A MOMENT Thoroughgood shut his eyes, and the only sounds that he could hear were the gurgling of the burn and the foliage rustling in a growing breeze.

His back against the cold stone of the dyke, he was soon brought back to their grim reality by Emma tugging on his arm. He opened his eyes to find hers gazing back, brimming with tears.

‘The sniper is… McGrain?’ she asked, trying to impose some self-control on her quivering voice.

Thoroughgood nodded. ‘McGrain or his number two, Spider; it matters not, they’re both former French Foreign Legionnaires. I’m sorry, Em, I should never have brought you here, never have got you involved in this… this bloody mess,’ he said, shaking his head bitterly.

She smiled half-heartedly. ‘Well, what are you going to do to get us out of it?’

Thoroughgood’s right hand reached out and stroked the side of her face, wiping away the moisture trails. ‘There is no way out of this for me, Em, but there is for you. As you know, I left messages for the Unit and I can only hope they have picked them up and are on the way but… it isn’t looking good. I want you to make your way back to the car, and I will go and meet McGrain. He is tooled up with a sniper rifle and obviously a crack shot, so this is it for me… but it may be I will be enough for him.’ And with that he eased the keys to his MG into her reluctant fingers.

Then, as Emma’s lips began to move, he stilled them with a finger. ‘It’s the only way, Em. I need you to try and get hold of Detective Constable Dennis Numan and Sergeant Malcolm at the Unit in Pitt Street and whatever reinforcements you can muster, and I need it pronto. Whatever happens, remember that I love you; now please go.’