Welcome to the second in my mini-series as I give a bit of well-deserved love to one of my favourite writing devices – prologues (and I love reading them, too!).
The extract I have for you today is from That Killer Image, one of my Darker Minds Crime & Suspense books. I have a particular love of prologues that show the reader something that happened in the past life of one of the characters, and which directly influences the life of the clear ‘villain’ of the book. It allows the reader to keep this event in mind as they watch the villain build up to their darkest deed of all, or maybe change over the course of the story and come to terms with this event of the past. The reader has an opportunity to question the behaviour, knowing what they do about the character. It may even make the reader complicit in the dark deeds, or at best, unable to do anything but watch and shout, ‘No, don’t do it!’ But, imprisoned in the book as he/she is, the villain can’t hear you…
I’m not giving away spoilers by telling you that this prologue is all about Anthony, and if you’ve read the novel you’ll know how quickly it’s obvious that he’s going to be the bad boy of the book. We first meet him when he a small boy. Anthony loves and adores his mother, and in particular, certain features about her. A specific event that occurred in his childhood has a massive impact on his psychology – and on his dreadful motivations for what he does (which I’m definitely not giving away!) in That Killer Image. I hope you enjoy it. Or that it creeps you out, just a bit, by the end. Either way, it means the prologue did one of its jobs!
Please note that, as my extracts are crime-related books or dark fiction of some kind, they are suitable for an adult readership. Please read responsibly.
Happy reading!
Claire
P.S. I’ve replaced any swear words in the novel with ****, for the purposes of this extract. Please also be aware that this scene contains domestic abuse and death/murder and in no way condones either. If this is likely to upset or trigger you in any way, please skip this extract.
Edited 10th March 2023
Unfortunately, this extract is no longer available to read. If you’d like to read the prologue (and the rest of the book!), you can buy it on Amazon, or read with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.
Also available as a digital boxset
If you prefer e-book boxsets, then you can find all three of these Darker Minds Crime & Suspense books collected together. The boxset includes:
- Show Me Dead
- That Killer Image
- No Deadlier Time
Sign up for my Readers’ Club and get a FREE suspense book as a welcome gift.
[…] impact of those letters at the beginning is fully and tragically clear until much later on. In the extract from That Killer Image, an event in the villain’s past leads to his atrocity later in life – and here I also […]