When the body of a farmworker is found during a turkey cull, the incident falls to DCI Greg Geldard to investigate. Newly promoted and newly transferred from North Yorkshire to Norfolk, he is about to face the most challenging case of his career. As he uncovers evidence of organised crime and modern slavery, the body count rises, a friend is threatened and he struggles to bring the murderer to justice.
Glass Arrows is about loss and exploitation. Loss of belonging and certainty. Exploitation of labour, of people and of the environment. And one man's fight to rise above his own problems to do what he believes is right.
Prey, predator or protector - which are you? Glass Arrows is the second book in the DCI Greg Geldard thriller series.
Glass Arrows by Heather Peck was published on 22 July 2021 by Silverwood Books and is book two in the DCI Greg Geldard series. As part of this #RandomThingsTours blog tour, I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today.
Extract from Glass Arrows by Heather Peck
farmers. Although it has to be admitted that the Norfolk Broads and coast also feature.
Cambridgeshire, Sunday 1 April 2018
The call came Sunday evening. Emma and her husband Sam had been halfway through the traditional BBC ‘bodices and bonks’ drama, when the phone rang. Sam hit the pause button and picked up the receiver.
‘It’s for you,’ he said, and de-reclined his side of the sofa in order to fetch a fresh glass of wine from the kitchen while Emma took the call. On the big screen were two maidens with bosoms frozen in mid heave and a generously hirsute horseman leaning down from the saddle.
‘Hi, it’s Emma.’
‘And this is Kate, with the call you didn’t want to get.’
'Oh Lord. Tell me it’s not foot and mouth. Or pheasants again.’
‘No, not foot and mouth nor Newcastle disease in pheasants again.’
‘Swine fever? Equine flu in Newmarket?’
‘How about I tell you what it is, rather than we go through the list of what it’s not? It’s bird flu in turkeys and possibly ducks. In Norfolk. We’ll be managing it from the Vet Office in Bury St Edmunds. Can you get yourself there by 8am tomorrow?
The Regional Chief Vet will be expecting you and I’ll let your Director General know you’ve been taken off your usual beat.’
‘I was due to see the Minister of State about genetically modified maize on Tuesday. The DG’ll need to deputise someone to do that.’
‘I’ll let him know when we speak. Don’t you worry about that. It’s not your problem now. We’ll speak tomorrow when you get to Bury. There’s a bird table meeting scheduled for 11am.
Do you know the vets at Bury?’
‘Not well. Anything I need to be aware of?’
‘No. Easy chaps to get on with. Speak tomorrow.
Thanks, Emma,’ and Kate rang off.
Sam came back with his brimming glass of red and sat down again.
‘I assume you’d better not be drinking any more this evening if you’re off early tomorrow.’
‘At least I’ll be able to stay home for this emergency. It’s bird flu and I’m to be based in Bury. I will need to be off early though, so let’s watch the rest of this and then I’ll go and get everything sorted for the morning.’
‘Ok. Although I must say I’m beginning to lose interest. It’s all a bit predictable, isn’t it? There’ll be more heaving of bosoms that would fall out altogether if they weren’t fastened in with gaffer tape, followed by a nude male torso doing something energetic with bales of straw, and we’ll both sit here wondering how they’re going to cover the ensuing rash with make-up. Then all parties will run gaily through a field, ruining someone’s hay crop, before a lot of rumpy pumpy that flattens more grass than a band of rampaging badgers.’
‘You’re right,’ said Emma. ‘Working in agriculture does tend to ruin period drama, especially when you sit there pointing out the tramlines in fields supposedly sown by hand.
Perhaps I’ll just go and look out my things for tomorrow.’
Heather Peck is the author of the Greg Geldard series of murder mysteries, set in rural North
Yorkshire and Norfolk. Her long career in both the policy and muddy-boots practice of agriculture is immediately apparent in the books, which are firmly and colourfully set in the world of farming and
Born in Stoke-on-Trent, she blames their many family holidays on farms for the interests that led her to work in the Ministry of Agriculture / Defra (her farmer husband was regularly described as sleeping with the enemy) and also to the commercial breeding of both sheep and alpacas.
Alongside her writing, in which she is ably supported by two canine assistants, she is Chair of Lantra UK, a Trustee of Norfolk Citizens Advice and volunteers as a Citizens Advice adviser and in the Witness Service. She has recently put her name forward to train as a Covid vaccinator. As she says, 'all that experience of vaccinating sheep and alpacas should come in handy - provided I remember not to turn anyone upside down and don't mark the backs of their necks with wax crayon when dosed.'
She hopes to grow up to be Granny Weatherwax - or a Lady who Lunches - either will do.
You can sign up free for Heather's monthly newsletter at www.heatherpeckauthor.com for sneak peaks into new books, short stories etc
Twitter @HeatherLydia1
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