We are so excited to be a part of a 2-part tour for the release
of best selling author Carla Neggers’ latest, Thief’s Mark!
Follow along the excerpt tour beginning in August, with
long excerpts in consecutive order at each tour stop, followed by a review tour
beginning on 8/29, release day!
Author: Carla Neggers
Publisher: Mira (Harlequin)
Date of publication: August 29, 2017
As a young boy, Oliver York witnessed the murder of his
wealthy parents in their London apartment. The killers kidnapped him and held
him in an isolated Scottish ruin, but he escaped, thwarting their plans for
ransom. Now, after thirty years on the run, one of the two men Oliver
identified as his tormentors may have surfaced.
Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan are enjoying the final day of
their Irish honeymoon when a break-in at the home of Emma’s grandfather,
private art detective Wendell Sharpe, points to Oliver. The Sharpes have a
complicated relationship with the likable, reclusive Englishman, an expert in
Celtic mythology and international art thief who taunted Wendell for years.
Emma and Colin postpone meetings in London with their elite FBI team and head
straight to Oliver. But when they arrive at York’s country home, a man is dead
and Oliver has vanished.
As the danger mounts, new questions arise about Oliver’s
account of his boyhood trauma. Do Emma and Colin dare trust him? With the trail
leading beyond Oliver’s small village to Ireland, Scotland and their own turf
in the United States, the stakes are high, and Emma and Colin must unravel the
decades-old tangle of secrets and lies before a killer strikes again.
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Excerpt from Thief's Mark:
How far would Oliver get in his Rolls-Royce? It
wasn’t an inconspicuous vehicle.
Henrietta shook off the intrusive thought but she
couldn’t ignore a tug of emotion. She’d felt it before—this unexpected,
unwilling attraction to Oliver. They’d known each other since childhood and she
hadn’t felt anything remotely romantic toward him until Christmas. She’d tried
to blame winter for her sudden, uncomfortable feelings—the short days, the
gray, the damp—and when that hadn’t worked, she’d tried to blame grief and
nostalgia given Posey's recent death. She’d looked Oliver up in London after
the new year and joined him for a drink at Claridge’s, his favorite spot,
thinking that would do the trick. He’d be back to being the Oliver who'd always
been there—dashing, good-looking, solitary, a man coping with unspeakable
tragedy, but not anyone she could imagine sleeping with.
But that hadn’t happened.
Henrietta wasn’t sure what to call how she felt.
She’d been out of touch with anything resembling a romantic life or romantic
feelings for so long, how was she supposed to know? She wasn’t in love with
him, she kept telling herself. Oliver was irresistibly fascinating, with his
knowledge of mythology, folklore and legends, and his unusual lifestyle. Given
his expertise in karate and tai chi, he was fit and capable.
Sexy, in fact. That was the truth of it.
Maybe what she felt was simple lust. Maybe she
just wanted to sleep with him and once she did, that'd be that.
“The man’s a bloody thief,” she said aloud,
getting the teapot off an open shelf. It was hers, although Posey had left a
half-dozen teapots. She needed a few things of her own in her new life.
In a way, learning Oliver was a serial art thief
had somehow permitted her to indulge in these fantasies about him. His eccentricities
and solitary ways kept people at bay. They didn’t ask questions about the true
nature of his hobbies and travels.
Henrietta envisioned him slipping past security
guards, disabling alarms, carrying off valuable works of art without breaking
into a nervous sweat. Each of his heists had required detailed planning and
careful execution. The man was brazen, brilliant, wily.
She sniffed. “He’s still a thief.”
One of his covers was his occasional work as a
film-and-television mythology consultant, under his assumed identity of frumpy
Oliver Fairbairn. He’d fly off to Hollywood and chat with writers, producers,
actors.
Not an easy man to figure out, her one-time
childhood playmate.
Henrietta couldn’t let her fascination with him
lead her astray, but perhaps it was too late and it already had. She’d just
come upon a dead body at his door, hadn’t she?
Her unsettling attraction to him wasn’t the only
factor in her departure from MI5, but coupled with recent frustrations on the
job, it had helped her to understand that twelve years in domestic intelligence
had been enough. She wanted more from her life, or at least something else,
even if she wasn't sure what that was. Right now she needed to get a grip on
herself. Oliver York was a thief, if a charming and sexy thief, who’d shown no
interest in her whatever beyond their childhood bond, and he'd just taken off
from the scene of a suspected homicide.
Any thought of a relationship with him was
delusional.
For all his quirks and misdeeds, however,
Henrietta couldn’t see Oliver as a murderer.
She rummaged in a near-empty bag for two slices of
bread. Tea and a cheese-and-pickle sandwich weren’t a pint but they were what
she needed right now. She’d reorganized the kitchen a few weeks ago to suit
her. Slowly but surely, she was making the house her own. It needed remodeling
but that would come in due course. She’d been focused on establishing her
garden-design business.
She was slathering on Branston pickles when her
phone vibrated on the table. She swooped it up and sighed when she saw it was
Martin Hambly. She’d wanted it to be…who? Oliver? MI5? It didn’t bear
considering.
She answered. “Hello, Martin,” she said.
“How are you doing?”
It wasn’t why he’d called. She could hear it in
his voice. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“Good.”
She frowned, on her feet, silent phone at her ear.
“Has something happened?” she asked finally.
“No, no—sorry. I’m distracted. Two FBI agents are
on the way. The police want us to talk to them.”
Now this was interesting. “Are these Oliver’s
FBI-agent friends?”
“Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan, yes, but ‘friends’
is perhaps too strong. I didn’t realize you knew about them.”
“Everyone in the village knows about them, Martin.”
“I see.” He sounded resolved to the fact, if not
pleased. “They might be able to help us find Oliver. They arrived at Heathrow
this morning.”
“Excellent. I can show them our vintage flowerpot.”
“Henrietta?”
“Sorry. No problem. I’ll have a bite and be along.”
“Thank you. I’ll let them know when they arrive.”
She rang off, finding herself torn between wanting
to meddle in the death investigation and wanting to grab sheers and prune
something—anything—in Aunt Posey’s garden.
Classic fight-or-flight.
She finished making her lunch and took it outside
to the terrace. She settled at a metal table and chairs. They’d been Posey’s.
Henrietta hadn’t had a garden in London. There were cushions, but she was
always forgetting to take them in when it rained, or out when it didn’t rain.
The seat wasn’t as cold as it had been that morning, when she’d had breakfast
outdoors, before leaving for the York farm.
She tried to focus on a clump of cheerful Shasta
daisies. Posey had been a master gardener and might have raised her eyebrows at
Henrietta calling herself a garden designer. On her many visits since
childhood, she’d soaked up her great-aunt’s gardening wisdom and expertise. On
all matters, not just her house, Posey had preferred to consider only her own
opinions. She’d inherited enough money from her parents to get by if she lived
frugally—which came naturally to her—and had supplemented her income with the
occasional magazine and newspaper article on gardening. As opinionated as she
was, Posey had been relatively open-minded when it came to gardening. She had a
simple philosophy: “Plant what you like where it will grow.” Everything else,
she said, would follow and sort itself.
Henrietta ate her sandwich, hardly noticing its
taste. Her plans for the day had been thoroughly messed up. She was in no hurry
to meet with the FBI agents. Would they know she was ex-MI5? She
was certain Martin suspected that she’d been sent by MI5, perhaps, to keep an
eye on Oliver. The truth was considerably more complicated.
Well, not that much more complicated. She’d quit MI5 in March, moved to the Cotswolds
and put out her shingle as a garden designer. Half her former colleagues
believed she’d been sacked, but it wasn’t true, at least technically. One day
she’d realized she’d had her fill and put in her papers. The “one day” had
followed a bad run-in with a senior intelligence officer and a seriously
inexplicable longing to call Oliver and talk to him about it. She’d realized
she needed to move on.
About the author:
Carla Neggers is the New York Times bestselling author of
more than 60 novels, including her popular Sharpe and Donovan and Swift River
Valley series. Her books have been translated into 24 languages and sold in
over 35 countries. A frequent traveler to Ireland, Carla lives with her family
in New England. To learn more and to sign up for her newsletter, visit
CarlaNeggers.com.
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Connect with Carla
EXCERPT TOUR for Thief’s Mark:
REVIEW TOUR for Thief’s Mark:
The Hot One: I was really hoping for a good true crime book. Unfortunately, I didn't get it. I made it a little over half way through before I gave up. I know that the author was childhood friends with the deceased, but I had to really question her motivation for writing this book. The trial isn't even over and she publishes a book on it. It came across as a money grab to me. It was also rather unexciting.
