Front Page Fridays Week-29
Front Page Fridays Week-29
Welcome to Front Page Fridays Week-29. On Fridays I highlight a recently published book by showcasing the first page.
My Front Page Fridays Week-29 guest is Julie Anderson and her new historical mystery, A Death in the Afternoon.
Here’s the opening:
Prologue
‘Wake up at the back there!’
A gust of laughter and applause was masked by the jaunty theme tune, which was overlaid, in turn, by the BBC announcer reading out the names of the programme’s cast and crew. Chuckling, Winnie levered herself out of the armchair and switched off the wireless.
She took her empty teacup through to the tiny kitchen and she began to think about supper. The growling rumble of traffic on the road outside signalled the start of the rush hour. How people got the petrol, she couldn’t fathom. Winnie shook her head – black market, probably.
Joe would be home soon.
There was Spam and a fresh egg in the pantry; he’d never taken to the powered sort. She could dig up a potato or two for chips, to fill him up. And a bottle of pale ale too, for good cheer. Joe wouldn’t be going to the pub, he had to be up early for work tomorrow and she reckoned he deserved the beer. She rummaged in the drawer for the potato peeler, gazing out of the window.
What?
Something… someone was falling from one of the higher floors in the flats over the road. And there was a noise.
Oh my! Oh no! How dreadful! Awful!
Clutching her tea towel, Winnie hurried outside and down the garden path. There was a body… a person… a woman… lying on her back on the concrete of the parking area, hair splayed out. Or was that…?
The loud blast of a horn made her leap for the protection of the bollards on the central traffic island. She glared at the driver of the departing car, then turned back to look at the flats.
People were out on the balconies, shouting and pointing, but she didn’t recognize the faces. Folk had come and gone since the war, moving in and out; they weren’t from around here. Some had dark skin; those West Indians who had arrived a couple of months ago. For a moment a high-sided van obscured her view. When it passed, she saw people running from the building towards the prone woman. As she waited, anxious, for a gap in the traffic, the fallen body was encircled.
Winnie knew from her time in the WVS that it was surprising what people could survive, including falls from high places. That woman might be alive.
She considered.
If she was, the woman needed an ambulance and quickly. Ten to one those flats didn’t have telephones, but there was a box on the corner of Culvert Road, which wasn’t far. Winnie retraced her steps and scurried along the pavement, tea towel flapping, as she ran towards Culvert Road.
About the Book
Summer 1948
London swelters amid post-war reconstruction, while continued rationing and the black-market fuel the rising crime wave. The empires of gangland bosses grow and thrive, protected by corruption and bribery.
During a party in Clapham a student nurse from the South London Hospital for Women and Children dies in a fall from a balcony. Is it an unfortunate accident as the local police believe? Or something more sinister?
The nurse’s friends ask a newly qualified female detective constable to investigate, a woman who is facing difficulties of her own. Before long all are drawn into the criminals’ deadly games, as gangsters jostle for territory and power. With the solution almost within grasp, their lives are threatened and one of them faces a dreadful fate.
Can the others find her before it’s too late?
And what is the truth about
A Death in the Afternoon?
Purchase Links
A Death in the Afternoon by Julie Anderson | Hobeck Books
A Death in the Afternoon: 2 (The Clapham Trilogy) : Anderson, Julie: Amazon.co.uk: Books
Amazon.com: A Death in the Afternoon: 9781915817761: Anderson, Julie: Books
About the Author
Julie Anderson is the CWA Dagger long-listed author of three Whitehall thrillers and a short series of historical adventure stories for young adults. Before becoming a crime fiction writer, she was a senior civil servant, working across a variety of departments and agencies, including the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Unlike her protagonists, however, she doesn’t know where (all) the bodies are buried. She writes crime fiction reviews for Time and Leisure Magazine and is a co-founder and Trustee of the Clapham Book Festival. Julie lives in south London where her latest crime fiction series is set, returning to her first love of writing historical fiction with The Midnight Man, the first in the Clapham Trilogy, followed by A Death in the Afternoon, both published by Hobeck.
Social Media
Twitter/X: @julieandersonwriter (@jjulieanderson) / X (twitter.com)
Facebook: Facebook
Instagram: Julie Anderson (@julieandersonwriter) • Instagram photos and videos
Website: Julie Anderson – Writer and author
I hope you enjoyed reading Front Page Fridays Week-29. Please come back next time when I’ll be featuring a different author and the first page of their book.
And please take a look at books already featured on Front Page Fridays:
1. Blood Ribbons by Lin Le Versha – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-1/
2. Fatal Blow by Brian Price – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-2/
3. Can I Trust You? by Rob Gittins – Front Page Fridays Week-3 – Rachel Sargeant
4. The Last Bird of Paradise by AJ Aberford – Front Page Fridays Week-4 – Rachel Sargeant
5. Never Forgive You by Hilly Barmby – Front Page Fridays Week-5 – Rachel Sargeant
6. The Mists of Pencarrack Moor by Terri Nixon – Front Page Fridays Week-6 - Rachel Sargeant
7. The Thief of Joy by Stacey Murray – Front Page Fridays Week-7 - Rachel Sargeant
8. Edge of the Land by Malcolm Hollingdrake – Front Page Fridays Week-8 - Rachel Sargeant
9. The Mind of a Murderer by Michael Wood - https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-9/
10. The Midnight Man by Julie Anderson – Front Page Fridays Week-10 - Rachel Sargeant
11. Dark Road Home by Sheila Bugler – Front Page Fridays Week-11 - Rachel Sargeant
12. Her Charming Man by Rachel Sargeant – Front Page Fridays Week-12 - Rachel Sargeant
13. Wedding Bells at the Lakeside Hotel by Linda Huber – Front Page Fridays Week-13 - Rachel Sargeant
14. Dark Island by Daniel Aubrey – Front Page Fridays Week-14 - Rachel Sargeant
15. The Shame by Maureen Myant – Front Page Fridays Week-15 - Rachel Sargeant
16. Dead Mile by Jo Furniss – Front Page Fridays Week-16 — Rachel Sargeant
17. The Violin and Candlestick by David Jarvis – Front Page Fridays Week-17 — Rachel Sargeant
18. New Memories by S.E. Shepherd – Front Page Fridays Week-18 — Rachel Sargeant
19. Young Blood by Victoria Gemmell – Front Page Fridays Week-19 — Rachel Sargeant
20. Private Investigations by Rob Gittins – Front Page Fridays Week-20 — Rachel Sargeant
21. The Car Horn revolution by A.J. Aberford – Front Page Fridays Week-21 — Rachel Sargeant
22. What Lies Beneath by Maureen Myant – Front Page Fridays Week-22 — Rachel Sargeant
23. A Safe Place by Stephanie Carty – Front Page Fridays Week-23 — Rachel Sargeant
24. Fatal Image by Brian Price – Front Page Fridays Week-24 — Rachel Sargeant
25. Run For Your Lies by A.A. Abbott – Front Page Fridays Week-25 — Rachel Sargeant
26. A Walk in the Park by Natalie Kleinman – Front Page Fridays Week-26 — Rachel Sargeant
27. A Storm in a Teacup by Rachael Gray – Front Page Fridays Week-27 — Rachel Sargeant
28. The Midnight Bookshop by Amanda James – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/blog/front-page-fridays-week-28