About
the book:
Retired
detective T.J. Peterson is working the table scraps that his former
partner, Danny Little, sometimes throws his way. One of them has
Peterson hearing from a snitch about a body buried 30 years ago, the
same time a drug kingpin went MIA. Peterson is also ducking an ex-con
with a grudge, a hitman who likes playing jack-in-the-box with a 12
gauge. Then a former lover re-enters Peterson’s life and begs him
to find her daughter, an addict who knows too much about the local
drug trade for her own safety. The search for the girl and the truth
about the 30-year-old corpse takes Peterson down into the hell of it
all, deep into the underworld of crack houses, contract killing,
money laundering, and crooked professionals doubling down on their
investments of black money.
About
the author:
Bob Kroll
has been a professional writer for more than 35 years. His work
includes books, stage plays, radio dramas, TV documentaries, and
historical docu-dramas for museums. The
Hell of It All
is the second novel in a projected trilogy featuring T.J. Peterson.
Kroll lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Visit Bob Kroll’s website
to learn more about him.
Available: March
14.
EXERPT
Chapter
One (cont’d)
Continued
from March 9 on Do Some Damage
“You
think I’m an errand boy?” Peterson said. “You thought wrong.
You’re holding both ends of the same stick. Wrong word whispered in
the wrong place, and someone opens you like a Ziploc. You’re no
undercover hero. You’re a goddamn snitch!”
Turtle’s
mouth moved, but no words came out.
“So
what’s your bargaining chip?” Peterson pressed. “Otherwise I’m
out of here, and your name gets scratched off the list. And you know
what that means — you get no calls, no favours, and no insurance
when the time comes and you need a good word for whatever charge
comes your way. And if that’s not enough, try this on for size: The
nice-guy call to child services about your old lady, the call Danny
was going to make, it doesn’t happen.”
Turtle
swallowed his first few words, then tried again. “I overhear
things, bits and pieces. I take what I get, you understand? I don’t
ask questions.”
“What
are you not asking questions about?”
“About
rag asses jumping drug deals, you hear what I’m saying? Wearing
masks and shit. Heavy duty. They’re muscling hand to hand. Strictly
petty cash. Pissing off a lot of people.”
“Like
who?”
“Like
Sammy O.”
“You
brought me out here to talk about Sammy O pissed off at someone
ripping off drug dealers? You got to be kidding, right?” Peterson
knew Sammy O as a six-foot overweight slob who swaggered around the
north end. Sammy and his boys casing the neighbourhood meant bad news
for anyone getting in their way.
“There’s
a body too.”
“What
body?”
“Buried
in Laurie Park, like thirty years ago.”
“Whose
body?”
“They
didn’t say.”
“Who
didn’t say?”
“That’s
something I ain’t giving right now.”
“And
when are you giving it?”
“After
you find the body, and I get what I want.”
“Where
in the park?”
“In
the campground.”
“It
must be forty acres under six inches of snow. You got a campsite
number?”
Turtle
shook his head.
“We’re
talking holes again, Turtle. The last time, you had us digging holes
like we were gophers.”
“The
last time was on someone else’s say-so,” Turtle said. “This one
I heard myself. And what are you griping about? The last time, you
found the body.”
“But
not where you said it was.”
“You
never knew Jonah was missing. It was my heads-up that got the cops
looking for Jonah. Same thing with what’s buried in the park. So I
put something on the table, and now it’s your turn to put something
up.”
“For
rag asses and a thirty-year-old body buried someplace you don’t
know.”
“A
campsite.”
“But
you don’t know the number. There could be thirty, forty, maybe a
hundred campsites in the park. You want us to dig up every one on
your say-so?”
Excerpt to be continued on March 12 on Books,
Life & Everything
Excerpted
from The Hell of It All by
Bob Kroll. © 2017 by
Bob Kroll. All rights reserved. Published by ECW Press Ltd.
www.ecwpress.com
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