Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour to celebrate the release of Blood Symmetry, a Crime Thriller by Kate Rhodes (12 July 2016, Witness Impulse, 353 pages). This is the fifth book in the Alice Quentin series.
Don't miss our interview with author Kate Rhodes.PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first two chapters with Amazon Look Inside.
Blood Symmetry is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.
Author Kate Rhodes will be awarding a digital copy of Blood Symmetry to five randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).
Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops
Synopsis
Clare Riordan and her son, Mikey, are abducted from Clapham Common early one morning. Hours later, the boy is found wandering disorientated. Soon after, a container of Clare's blood is left on a doorstep in the heart of London.Psychologist Alice Quentin is brought in to help the traumatized child uncover his memories, with the hope that it might lead the authorities to his mother's captors. But Alice swiftly realizes Clare is not the first victim... nor will she be the last.
The killers are desperate for revenge... and in the end, it will all come down to blood.
Teaser: Excerpt
Chapter 1
Saturday 11 October
The trees on Clapham Common are aflame with autumn colour. A couple are holding hands on a park bench, watching the leaves turn from red to gold in the early sunlight. They’re sitting in a deserted copse, the path ahead shrouded by thickets of hazel.
‘Maybe they won’t come,’ the man says, the chill already sapping his strength.
‘Give them time. Not panicking, are you?’
‘Of course not. It was my idea, remember?’
She leans over to kiss him, face shadowed by the collar of her black woollen coat, but the moment of intimacy soon passes. The man strains forward as he hears footsteps crunching on gravel – someone racing towards them through the trees.
‘Now,’ he whispers. ‘Let’s put it right.’
The first jogger is a slim brunette in a blue tracksuit. A young boy drifts in her wake, his smile wide and unquestioning, frame so slight that his sweatshirt flails in the breeze. The man steps out from the shadows and grabs the jogger from behind; she fights hard, a look of stunned recognition on her face. Her elbows gouge his ribs as she yells at the boy to run, but the woman has already caught him. The child goes down fighting, thin form collapsing as he inhales the anaesthetic, a blindfold covering his eyes. A chloroform pad is pressed to his mother’s mouth, before she’s dragged into the bracken.
The couple lift the victims’ inert bodies on to the back seat, their car camouflaged by thick foliage.The man’s hands fumble as he covers them with blankets, morning traffic thickening as the woman slips into the driver’s seat. The most dangerous stage is over; all they have to do now is deliver mother and son to the laboratory. When the man peers under the blanket, Clare Riordan’s face is pale as candle wax, the child’s body curled behind the driving seat. His gaze shifts to the road ahead.
‘Not far now, almost there.’ He repeats the words like a mantra.
Close to their destination they pause on a side street, a delivery van blocking their way. But when he looks back there’s a flicker of movement.Through the rear window he sees the boy sprinting across the tarmac.
‘Jesus,’ the woman hisses. ’I thought the doors were locked.’
Blood Symmetry
Available NOW!
The Series: Alice Quentin
|| [1] || [2] || [3] || [4] ||Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.
Crossbones Yard [1]
Ray and Marie Benson killed 13 women before they were caught, tried and imprisoned. Five of their victims were never found.
Six years later, psychologist Alice Quentin discovers a woman's body on the waste ground at Crossbones Yard. The wounds are horrifyingly similar to the Bensons' signature style. But who would want to copy their crimes?
When Alice is called in to consult, her first instinct is to say no. She wants to focus on treating her patients, not analysing the mind of a murderer.
But the body at Crossbones Yard is just the start, and the killer may already be closer than Alice knows.
[Published 7 June 2012, 321 pages]
A Killing of Angels [2]
At the height of a summer heatwave, a killer stalks the City of London.
The avenging angel leaves behind a scattering of feathers with each body - but why these victims? What were their sins?
Psychologist Alice Quentin only agrees to help out on the case because she owes Detective Don Burns a favour. But soon she finds herself deep in the toxic heart of the Square Mile - a place where money means more than life, and no one can be counted innocent.
With fascinating characters and a page-turning plot, Kate Rhodes's novels are perfect for fans of Nicci French and Val McDermid.
[Published 4 July 2013, 336 pages]
The Winter Foundlings [3]
Ella Williams is ten years old. She loves her granddad and her sister and her shiny new red shoes.
She's just been abducted by a killer - someone who kidnaps young girls, holds them for a few weeks then returns their bodies clothed in white foundling dresses.
The crimes are clearly linked to notorious child murderer Louis Kinsella, locked away in a high-security hospital. Is it a copycat? Or is he giving someone direct orders from behind bars?
To save Ella's life, psychologist Alice Quentin must form a relationship with Kinsella. But he is slow to give up his secrets, and all the while, time is running out...
[Published 14 August 2014, 351 pages]
River of Souls [4]
Jude Shelley, the daughter of a prominent cabinet minister, was assaulted and left for dead in the river Thames. Her attacker was never caught. A year later, forensic psychologist Alice Quentin is asked to re-examine the case.
Then another body is found: an elderly priest, washed up at Westminster Pier. An ancient glass bead is tied to his wrist.
Alice is certain that the Shelleys are hiding something - and that there will be more victims unless she can persuade them to share what they know. The Thames has always been a site of violent sacrifice. And Alice is about to learn that some people still believe in its power...
[Published 18 June 2015, 336 pages]
About the Author
Kate Rhodes is the author of four previous Alice Quentin novels, Crossbones Yard, A Killing of Angels, and The Winter Foundlings. She is also the author of two collections of poetry, Reversal and The Alice Trap. She writes full-time now, and lives in Cambridge with her husband, a writer and film-maker.
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Giveaway and Tour Stops
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