Trace and Eliminate - free sample

Following the re-release of the critically-acclaimed One Oblique One, book two of the Inspector Stark series, - 'Trace and Eliminate' is available for the first time on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Amazon Paperback, remastered twenty-seven years after it was first released with new scenes and new characters. To celebrate the new release, read the first three chapters for free at Keithwrightauthor.co.uk.

Trace and Eliminate by Keith Wright

September 1987

The internet is yet to be born and the iphone is over twenty years from its inception. A packet of cigarettes costs £1.60 and a loaf of bread is 40p. Margaret Thatcher has just won a record third term as Prime Minister and ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley is number 1 in the Charts.

Some things don’t change however; greed, love, jealousy, and a knife sliding through a carotid artery tend to have the same impact on people’s lives as they ever did.

In the second of The Inspector Stark series, DI Stark and his team battle to solve a murder which appears to be without motive. DI Stark also battles with his anxiety; DC Charlie Carter battles his haemorrhoids and DPW Steph Dawson battles with her Sergeants advances.

An up and coming solicitor lies on a mortuary slab. He is a hard-working family man who appears to have everything. Who could possibly want to kill him? The ruthless and savage killer, who knows precisely why; remains at large.

Detective Inspector Stark and the team have scarcely begun their investigation when a second death occurs: another horrific and motiveless murder, or so it seems. Are the two linked in some way? Are more going to die? How can they be stopped? A group of suspects emerge, one is the killer, and one the next to die.

Stark’s investigation eventually lays bare a sinister sequence of events, a motive where the past returns to haunt the present – a roller coaster ride of hate, fuelled by revenge.

Stark stages a most original eavesdrop on a solemn occasion, and the police net closes in on an unexpected killer.

Trace and Eliminate ‘combines the virtues of an insider’s knowledge with the dramatic power of a true storyteller’.

'Trace and Eliminate': 'Authentic...He plots and paces well and the climax is a genuine shock....commendable' - The Times.