My Darkest Prayer

Kurzbeschreibung Whether it's working at his cousin's funeral home or tossing around the local riff raff at his favorite bar, Nathan Waymaker is a man who knows how to handle the bodies. A former Marine and Sheriff's deputy, Nathan has built a reputation in his small Southern town as a man who can help when all other avenues have been exhausted. When a local minister with grandiose ambitions is found dead, Nathan is approached by his parishioners who feel the local police are dragging their feet with the investigation. What starts out as an easy payday soon descends into a maze of mayhem filled with wannabe gangsters, vicious crime lords, porn stars, crooked police officers and a particularly treacherous preacher and his mysterious wife. Nathan must use all his varied skills and some of his wit to navigate the murky waters of small town corruption even as dark secrets of his own threaten to come to the surface. Pressestimmen "A brilliant and bracing slice of post-modern crime noir, spiced with a ton of action. S. A. Crosby has created a dark hero two parts Jack Reacher, one part Travis Magee. Your prayers for a great thriller have been answered!" --Jon Land, thriller reviewer for the Providence Journal, USA Today; bestselling author of the Murder, She Wrote series and the Caitlin Strong series "A compelling character, a tangled mystery and crisp writing make this southern-fried investigation a hit. Rarely have I read a debut so self-assured. On nearly every page was a line I wish I'd written. S.A. Cosby has arrived fully formed." --Eric Beetner, author of Rumrunners and Leadfoot "With his debut novel My Darkest Prayer, author S.A. Cosby enters the crime fiction arena shoulder first, splintering open the door, and announcing his presence with a resounding crash. Consider yourself warned: his presence has been announced." --Eryk Pruitt, award-winning screenwriter, author, and filmmaker "A natural born storyteller, Cosby answers our prayer for a down and dirty mystery with this damn fine debut full of unforgettable people, where a sleazy preacher uproots a down county southern community when he lands on the mortuary slab. A great read, hopefully the first of many." --Thomas Pluck, author of Bad Boy Boogie Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende S.A. Cosby is a writer whose work has been published in numerous magazine and anthologies. His story "Slant-Six" received an honorable mention in Best Mystery Stories of 2016. He lives in Gloucester, Virginia. Leseprobe. Abdruck erfolgt mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. My Darkest Prayer By S.A. Cosby Intrigue Publishing, LLC Copyright © 2019 S.A. Cosby All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-940758-86-2 CHAPTER 1 I handle the bodies. That's what I say when people ask me what I do for a living. I find that gets one of two responses. They drift away to the other side of the room and give me a sideways glance the rest of the night or they let out a nervous laugh and move the conversation in another, less macabre direction. I could always say I work at a funeral home, but where's the fun in that? Every once in a while, when I was in the Corps, someone would see me at Starbucks or that modern mecca Wal-Mart in my utility uniform. Sometimes they'd catch me in my dress blues after a military ball just trying to grab something before heading back to the base. They would walk up to me and say, "Thank you for your service." I'd mumble something like "No, thank you for your support" or some other pithy rejoinder, and they would wander away with a nice satisfied look on their faces. Sometimes what I wanted to say was, "I took care of the bodies. The bodies with the legs blown off or the hands shredded. The bodies full of ball bearings and nails and whatever some kid could find to build his IED. I loaded the bodies up and dragged them back to the base, then went back out on another patrol and prayed to a God that s