We are joined today by someone long-time DSD fans will recall -- Mike Knowles. Mike was our original Sunday voice, back in 2009. His new Wilson novel, ROCKS BEAT PAPER, is out this week.
A phone call brought Wilson and
nine other men to a job in New York. At first, he couldn’t see a way to make
the heist work, but the score — millions of dollars in diamonds — kept him
looking. Wilson came up with a plan he knew would work . . . until the inside
man got killed and took the job with him.
With no
way inside, the crew walks away without the diamonds. Alone, Wilson is free to
execute the job his way. Wilson sets a con in motion that should run as
predictably as a trail of dominoes — except the con doesn’t rely on inanimate
tiles, it relies on people.
Wilson
pushes all of the pieces across the board only to find out that there are other
players making their own moves against him. Everyone is playing to win and no
one is willing to walk away because the job is about more than money, the job
is about diamonds. And in this game, rocks beat paper every time.
Today, we've got the fourth excerpt from the opening chapter. You can catch up and follow along, by starting at Liz Loves Books for the first Q&A and Crime Book Junkie for the first excerpt.
Today, we've got the fourth excerpt from the opening chapter. You can catch up and follow along, by starting at Liz Loves Books for the first Q&A and Crime Book Junkie for the first excerpt.
Excerpt
4
Rocks Beat Paper: A Wilson Mystery
By
Mike Knowles
From
Chapter 1
When
it was just the two of us, I looked Miles in the eye. “Why are you here?”
“Same
reason as you.”
“I’m
here to work,” I said.
“Same
goes for me.”
“That
what you’re doing?”
“What?
Those guys are assholes.”
“Those
guys are here for the job.”
“So?”
“So
the job is only the job if it gets done. That can’t happen if you get murdered
with a pool cue in the middle of a rumpus room.”
Miles
clapped me on the shoulder. “So you do think this is a rumpus room.”
“Don’t
know. That makes two things I don’t know.”
“If
this is the only job you’re working,” I said.
Miles
went a beat without saying anything. It was long enough for me to let a bit of
a grin form on my face and for him to rebound.
“You
really comfortable with guys like that watching your back?”
I
looked over the group of men as I considered my response. Alvin had gotten to
his feet and was giving the room a once-over of his own. He worked hard to
catch my eye, but I gave his stare the slip. “You want to work with upstanding
citizens, go be a bank teller. The background checks weed out most of the
riff-raff. Right now, you’re not in a bank, you’re in a basement with nine criminals.
We’re all riff-raff. You’re sitting around hassling two guys because you think
they’re not decent human beings. Your only concern should be if they can do
what they say they can do. If they can do that, everything else they say gets a
pass.”
“So
you want me to give them a pass?”
“I
want you to shut your mouth and keep your feelings to yourself because every
time you piss them off you take their minds off the job and put the rest of us
in a bit more shit.”
“You
really sticking up for that white-power asshole?”
I
nodded. “You want a noble thief, get a library card.”
Alvin
gave up on being subtle and spoke loud enough to be heard over the rest of the
conversations going on. “We ready to get started?”
Miles
ignored the question; he had one of his own for me. “Do you really think you
can trust those two to watch your back?”
I
looked over at Johnny and Tony and found them staring at me. I stared back
until I got bored. It happened fast. “My back doesn’t need watching. I just
need them to do what they say they’ll do.”
“And
you think they can?”
I
looked back at the two thugs. “I’m going to find out.”
Follow the tour:
Excerpt adapted
from Rocks Beat Paper by Mike Knowles. © 2017 by Mike Knowles. All
rights reserved. Published by ECW Press Ltd. www.ecwpress.com
1 comment:
Welcome back. Book looks nice,
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