Author T.A. Moore returns with a new blog tour for new criminal romantic suspense, Dirty Work (Dirty Deeds #1)! Not only does the author share new book info on today's tour stop, but also an excerpt from an exclusive short story, 'Clean Hands'! Plus, there's a giveaway! Don't miss it!
Title: Dirty Work (Book One of the Dirty Deeds series)
Publisher: Rogue Firebird Press
Release: March 4
Blurb:
People always say ‘you can’t go home again’. It turns out that doesn’t count as a guarantee…especially not during a global pandemic.
After the jobs in LA started to dry up, crime scene cleaner Grade Pulaski was forced to pack up and move home. He loves his family, but the last thing he ever wanted was to face the ghosts he’d left back in Sweeny, Kentucky.
Also, the place just sucks.
He certainly isn’t going to stay any longer than necessary. The plan is to save up enough money to move back to LA and give his business a kick-start. The problem is that, as previously mentioned, Sweeny’s a hole and the locals are anything but professional.
Now a body has gone missing, Grade’s reputation is being held hostage, and people keep asking whether his Dad really did run off with 100 grand of meth in the back of Dodge. Plus, even though you shouldn’t sleep with your employers, crime lord Clay Traynor is exactly the sort of bad idea that Grade can’t resist. Tattooed, bad news, and dangerous.
…oh, yeah. Grade’s job is to clean up the crime scene before the cops know someone’s dead. That’s why he needs to sort this out before he gets a bad review on dark net Yelp.
Tour:
4th March - mmromancereviewed
7th March - Reading Reality
9th March - Two Chicks Obsessed
10th March - Boy Meets Boy
11th March - Love Bytes Reviews
Author Visit
Thanks for letting me pop in to talk about my latest book, Dirty Work, which comes out on March 4. This is the first book in the Dirty Deeds trilogy and I had a lot of fun with it! It’s available online - https://books2read.com/Dirty-Work-Dirty-Deeds-Book-1 - and I hope you like it! I had a lot of fun writing it!
I also hope you enjoy ‘Clean Hands’ a short story prequel to the series.
Clean Hands - Chapter Four
Grade wished that Shannon had called him an hour earlier. When he could have stuck some of the protective gear from work into his bag on the way home. Instead he stripped down to his briefs and pulled on a cheap boiler suit.
The cold air made goosebumps prickle his arms as he turned to look at the car and the dead man. He scrubbed his palms over them and glanced at Harrison behind the wheel of Suzuki. He’d sullenly agreed to come down and help as long as he didn’t have to touch the body.
That was fine. As long as they were all implicated.
“Just roll back,” he said. “Just enough for us to get the body out.”
Harrison grimaced with the half of his face still working and hunched over to fumble with the keys.
“I’m fucking traumatized,” he complained, his voice thick as it shouldered its way out through swollen lips. “I’m injured. It’s not right to make me come down here. I don’t want to see this.”
Grade slapped his hand against the car door on his way past. “Then you shouldn’t have killed him,” he said flatly. “When I give you the signal, just edge back.”
He straddled the sticky pool of blood that had oozed out from under the car. The dead man smelt of BO and just the first hint of decomposition up close. Grade grabbed his arm--clammy and flaccid, but still warmer than the woman in the funeral home--and glanced over the crumpled hood at Shannon. They had on their own boiler suit, but so far they’d not come close enough to take the weight on their half of the corpse.
“Ready?” he asked.
Shannon screwed their face up in distress, took a deep breath, and took a very reluctant few steps forward. When they touched the dead man’s arm they audibly retched, mouth puckered up tight and cheeks distended.
“Don’t puke on him,” Grade warned them. “OK--”
Harrison started the engine and the jeep jolted forward against the fleshy buffer of the dead man. Blood splattered from the impact.
“Fuck!” Grade yelped as he jumped back, his heart in his throat and gore over the crisp fabric on his chest.
Shannon just stood where they were, clots of red squirted up over their face and into their hair. For a second it looked like they were going to handle it unexpectedly well. Then they blanched a greasy white and their throat worked.
“Not on the body!” Grade said urgently.
Shannon’s chest hitched and they lurched backward into the corner of the garage. They gripped the shelves with one hand and retched noisily onto the boxes stacked there. Booze and fried rice leftovers splattered over the odds and ends that the flat-mate who’d preceded Grade had left behind. Those were some old porn DVDs and plates that weren’t going to be the same anytime soon.
“Fuck. Holy shit,” Shannon spluttered as they gagged and spat. “It went in my mouth. What the fuck? What the fuck?!”
Harrison opened the door of the car and half-fell out, one arm clutching his chest. “It’s a stick!” he said. “I left it in gear. Fuck, I can’t breathe.”
He sagged down onto the floor, sweaty and pallid as he wheezed. Grade rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist and resisted the urge to take a deep breath. Maybe this whole bloody mess really had been an accident.
“Just get out of my way,” he said grimly. “It’ll be quicker if I do it myself.”
Harrison gave him a sour look out of his one good eye. “I told you that.”
“I never liked you,” Grade said.
“Like I care?” Harrison said. He grabbed a shelf and pulled himself up to his feet. “I killed someone and they are looking at me. I don’t give a fuck what you think.” He limped back up the steps into the house, his weight braced heavily against the railing. The door slammed behind him, and Shannon cleared their throat.
“He’s just scared,” they said. “Freaked out. Fuck, so am I. How are you not?”
“I don’t know,” Grade said. He looked at the dead body and shrugged. “It’s not like I killed him, is it?”
That had been the wrong thing to say. Shannon stared at him for a second with a flat, unhappy look on their face, then they wiped their hand over their mouth.
“I’m going to go and gargle some whiskey,” they said. “Get changed. Then I’ll come back and help, I guess.”
Grade doubted it. He nodded anyhow and waited for Shannon to follow Harrison out of the garage. Then he wiped his exposed skin down fastidiously with baby wipes to get rid of any blood, before he climbed into the car. The fake leather seat was still sweaty warm from Harrison’s body.
It was still in first gear. Grade bumped it into neutral, started the engine, and backed it up a couple of inches. The dead body slid slowly down the wall as the pressure was taken off it. For a second the head lolled back and Grade got a good look at the guy’s face.
That made his throat tighten uncomfortably and he had to resist the urge to avoid the blind stare of still brown eyes. Guilt was hardly useful under the circumstances, but Grade couldn’t deny it was a bit reassuring. He’d always been a bit odd, even if he’d learned to hide it well, but it was comforting to know that he still had a soul.
Funny, really.
Grade turned the engine off and got out of the car.
One more body for the client list. That was all.
Author Bio:
TA MOORE
TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide. As her grandmother always said, ‘she’d laugh at a bad thing that one’, mind you, that was the pot calling the kettle black. TA Moore studied History, Irish mythology, English at University, mostly because she has always loved a good story. She has worked as a journalist, a finance manager, and in the arts sectors before she finally gave in to a lifelong desire to write.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
Website: www.tamoorewrites.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TAMoorewrites/
Twitter: @tamoorewrites
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Giveaway:
