The Shadow Author. 1

You can find the prologue here!

Chapter One

ALSO AVAILABLE BY L.J. DENHOLM

THE EARLY WORKS

HEAD – A NOVEL

ENTITLEMENT – SHORT STORY COLLECTION -

THE GERRY PRENTICE, PI SERIES

KILLER MORTICE

MR. THREADBARE

IN ACADIA

THE OUTTATOWNERS

A NEIGHBORHOOD OF WIRES

INJECTION POINT

THREE BLACK-EYED BEANS

MR. CHUNG’S ALLEYWAY

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

SURGERY AND THE HEART

Publisher's blurb: A native of West Virginia, LJ Denholm was raised among the state’s small-town backwaters, an hour’s drive from the University of West Virginia, which is also his alma mater. After graduating UWV with a degree in law, LJ promptly abandoned his plans to embark on a career as an attorney and instead moved to Boston, where he took a job researching—and occasionally reporting on—local crime for the Boston Globe.

Whilst living and working in Massachusetts, LJ built upon his lifelong infatuation with crime fiction and started writing his own prose, aided by his research into the very real crimes that comprised his working day. After penning dozens of notable short stories and articles for a number of nationwide publications, LJ published his acclaimed debut novel Head, a non-crime book. The lure of authoring his own take on crime fiction lingered, however, and in 1994, he released Killer Mortice, which introduced his enduring Gerry Prentice, PI series to the world.

With the release of Surgery and the Heart, LJ has now written ten Prentice novels, which have been translated into 33 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.

All of the Prentice books published thus far have been on the New York Times bestsellers list, and several have been optioned for the big screen, television or streaming services. He lives with his beloved Black Labrador, Wilder, in upstate Massachusetts.

*

IT’S THE LAST SUNDAY of November in upstate Massachusetts. Winter has begun to freeze the fall’s dead leaves as they bustle and gather around the front gates of 1089 Arundel Street, Oakington. The white-wood gates’ ageing paintwork is peeling in tongue-shaped licks and decay has started an attritional invasion of the lowest parts of the wooden struts. Far beyond these cancerous gates, LJ Denholm, author of the best-selling Gerry Prentice, PI books, sits, unengrossed, in his research for The Press Machinery, the new Prentice book and the eleventh in the series. Installed in a gift from his publishers - a $3,000 Bone Simple Ltd chair, at a desk made by the same company and retailing at twice the chair’s value – LJ is fighting to keep his attention adhered to the subject matter for The Press Machinery.

But today, like several other recent days, poring through online articles and piles of aged, tattered books featuring passages concerning organised crime in the East Coast newspaper publishing industry, has failed to get underneath his skin.

Denholm is up on the third-floor study of what he describes as, with its sprawling and uneven roof, the overhang of which casts a permanent shadow upon the tip of the highest windows, his ‘upstate, spooky writer’s house’. Despite a number of macabre suggestions from his large readership, and many of his fellow crime writers, the house remains as nameless as the day he bought it, the surprising and needless anonymity jarring pleasingly with LJ.

LJ looks away from the afternoon’s paltry notes for Prentice XI, turns to the study’s lone window and gazes around some of his seven acres, which he has had landscaped into a vast, verdant spot of beauty all of his own; with its small lake, scatterings of trees, including a junior sequoia grove, compressed into seven acres of lush, rolling meadows, patterned like the green stripes of watermelon skin, he has unofficially named it Denholm National Park.

At the last party that Denholm had thrown on its grounds, summer before last, his editor had suggested that it should actually be called Prentice State (“National Park is pushing it a bit, don’t you think, Larry…”) Park, for the detective whose book sales had actually bankrolled the gardens.

Not getting suckered into a row which, knowing his editor- Katie McCross a combustible woman who delighted in initiating feisty arguments for the least tangible reasons imaginable -would have eventually ended with her demanding that it be named McCross State Park, in lieu of the true genius behind the mega-selling Prentice books; her. Despite the knowing hubris with which she tackled life, McCross remained a loyal firebrand of an editor and the only human alive, since his mother passed, who deigned to refer to LJ as Larry.

The sweeping view fires a pleasant and fuzzy warmth through Denholm. If he scanned further, beyond the perimeter of his grounds, LJ would see the more garish roofs and embellishments of what local realtors describe as ‘Superior, modern dwellings’ – which Denholm translates as ‘Grotesque, hellish McMansions’ - homes of Oakington. These 6-bedroom messes of designer unbalanced architecture, - protuberant porticos, twee bell towers and all -are having a new heyday, and LJ has often ironically toasted a condolatory glass of red to the fact that their over-turreted return is in his neck of town.

Returning to the study, LJ’s eye turns to the Everyone’s a Critic! quadrant of the ancient cork noticeboard, which his mother had presented him with after he enrolled at the University of Virginia. Pinned upon the large rectangle of blackening cork, in the interest of staying appraised of his most recent novel’s reception, review clippings and printouts of comments for the latest Prentice book, Surgery and the Heart.

LJ’s really phoning it in now. His early work always had the subject research down pat; you could see how he’d really installed himself into the mind of Mr. Threadbare’s tailor, or the creepy handyman in A Neighborhood of Wires… And okay, botched surgery is a trite topic for crime fiends – perhaps he’d chanced upon an old episode of Murder, She Wrote or ER whilst he was counting his beans or arranging his next book tour – but it’s worth a shot. Sadly there’s little in here to say that his aim with this effort comprises of little more than continuing his newfound determination -that began with (Prentice VIII) Under Construction- to ape the cold violence of (Don)Winslow or Ellroy’s staccato prose, when he has so much more to explore in his – and, of course, Prentice’s – own style. – Jen Morie, crimefictionfiends.com

What’s with the stupid short sentences, where’s the BEATING heart of Gerry Prentice books – GERRY PRENTICE! This is not the REAL Prentice. Sorry, LJ. -MrGlenHutton1982, Twitter.

With Surgery for the Heart, the tenth in the Prentice series, the normally reliable American crimewriter LJ Denholm has eschewed his trademark thrills and twists and spun a somewhat anodyne tale of an operating room debacle, which is dogged by rumours of foul play. Unfortunately for Prentice fans, Denholm fails to make the most of an intriguing premise, reducing Prentice’s feisty dialogue, which was always afforded time to breathe and resonate with the reader, to the punchy, staccato style that suffers in comparison to the master proponents of such language: Ellroy, Pelecanos et al. Meanwhile, Denholm’s underuse of established, well-liked characters that have been pleasingly developed over the years have been relegated to the point of almost being plain forgotten in favour of an over-wrought and tediously solipsistic yarn. Once a beacon of off-kilter, inventive crime fiction, Denholm’s latest is instead drawn from the already-crowded pool of grim, misunderstood detectives blindly searching for catharsis in a sea teeming with mediocrity. I salute your aim, Mr Denholm, but if you’ve yet to see all those colourful and interesting fish that swim around the reef that you haven’t finished exploring, why risk drowning by sinking into the cold, black waters of uncertainty?

-Bill Rawlinson, the Guardian.

Denholm’s head sways slowly, taking in the reviews that have anchored their barbs under his skin. The critical reception had, if not battered, then certainly slapped him.

Positively, his high concept of murder in a surgical theatre had largely kept his readership and critics intrigued. What cut him was that it was his writing development - his adoption of a grittier tone, a more profane dialogue for Gerry, and his decision to somewhat push aside his profane Irish PI’s roll call of regular sidekicks and co-conspirators that met with a lukewarm response. Thousands of reader comments concurred that they preferred his Gerry to be feistily abrasive and full of menacing bonhomie, and his yarns to be spun with more colour and verve than the bleak slices of inner-city life, sparsely narrated by Prentice’s internal monologue, that swept throughout Surgery and the Heart and its last few predecessors.

For all his sales and reward, there stands a reason for LJ’s recent departure in style. He wants to be considered a master; to have written a definitive modern crime classic that transcends his own Denholm formula; the thrilling rollercoaster ride that twists and turns with his trademark misdirection, the story set to a theme which Prentice studies, challenges, then finally unravels into an outcome bathed in an extra-rich frisson of tension, emotion and the outwitting of a cunning, twisted villain.

Judging by his fans and critics recent say on his attempts to deliver a classic as revered as The Black Dahlia, Red Dragon or The Big Sleep, however, it would seem that in his efforts to become more than just a big-seller, LJ Denholm has twisted, turned, and ended up with widely-regarded mis-steps with his recent novels.

LJ sighs, flicks through his notepads and clicks back to page one of his first draft for Prentice 11.

GP XI – W/T THE PRESS MACHINERY

Gerry Prentice regards the mirror, which is setting himself up for a fall because Gerry Prentice don’t like mirrors. It’s the lighting. Okay, the right mirror with the right lighting can soften and flatter, but the yang to that yin is, the wrong mirror will point out and shout at the various imperfections that litter the poor sap’s face as he peeks back at himself, in the cold light of his cold bathroom.

That ever-ageing reflection. Evidence is Gerry’s forte, and a mirror has it in droves. Ageing is proof you’re alive, living and dying.

Which Gerry already knows.

Really, it’s the self-regard that bothers Gerry, so he likes to think. Anything more than checking that things ain’t straight, or that breakfast, lunch nor dinner are making a guest appearance around your lips or on your shirt and you’re just flirting with yourself in a partisan, self-congratulatory style.

But Gerry has stayed staring at the mirror all the while that these musings have flourished, glibly regarding that swept-back grey hair, well-shaved jowls and those murky, cold ocean-colored eyes, lurking under bushy, monochrome rainbow eyebrows and studded with penetrating irises of relentless black, still alert deep into Gerry’s sixth decade, despite the softening, subsiding flesh in which they reside.

And – fuckit- Gerry can’t help but kinda like what he sees.

The fuck is wrong with a little positivity and self-regard, anyway, Gerry thinks.

Gerry Prentice, Boston’s A1, go-to, undisputed king of private detectives, exits his bathroom, gathers his phone and keys. Good going, he thinks. I’ve already won my first argument of the day with myself.

Let’s get the fuck out of here and see what everyone else got.

Denholm contemplates his words, curling his upper lip somewhat at the use of ‘fuck’. Preferring, generally, to deal out the cuss words with a certain parsimony throughout his books, the trio of fucks at the end of page one invokes dissatisfaction, whilst the prose is a little too wiseguyish for his own, and his core readership’s taste, he feels. But he’s listening to his readership – whilst the sentences and feel may have retained some of the cold heart of Under Construction and Surgery and the Heart… the sentences are definitely longer.

Compromise. That better, Bill Rawlinson?

Starting with a little opening scene of his protagonist rather than a carefully crafted set-piece of the villain’s crimes, be they murder or mayhem, is also a departure. A method in which Denholm is trying to keep his star shining, and his Amazon stars as high as possible. Surgery for the Heart had an average of 2.9, by far the lowest, although his critical decline had been steady since peaking with the release of book 4, ‘the Outtatowners,’ which remains his biggest-selling, best-reviewed, and highest Amazon-starred- 4.2!- Prentice novel to date. The broadcast rights of the Outtatowners were sold to Lionsgate Studios getting on for a decade ago, however, the proposed film adaptation remained unmade. Lionsgate had had a script written, honed and rewritten by a number of preposterously overpaid screenwriters. Attached big-name directors had, for various reasons, detached. The last Denholm had heard, Netflix was contemplating teaming up with the studio and making a six-part series from his book.

LJ has a gnawing shame that it remains for him to see Prentice on the big screen, but the money earned from selling the rights had kept him in first-class flights all the same.

Already beginning to feel defeated for the day, Denholm recedes deep into his Bone Simple, reclines, closes his eyes and slowly tunes it all out; the critics, his doubts, his neighbourhood’s new crop of McMansions, until there’s only the steeping October wind swaying the grasses of his little state/national park of a garden that occupies his mind.

A writer needs dedicated thinking time.

After a peaceful while, he is decided. He will continue to develop and hone his writing style. But whatever he does, he won’t go far back to basics that he’s merely plundering his own early books and re-writing the same story, again and again.

LJ raises his arms in mock celebration, raises himself from the plush depths of his too comfortable chair, and fires up the $700 DeLonghi coffee machine – another gift, this time from the machine’s manufacturer, after sustained name-checking by Denholm throughout the Prentice books.

As the machine whirrs and hums into life, LJ returns to the hypnotic view of his land. The lake – also known only as ‘the lake’, sits a few hundred yards from Denholm’s window, and is pockmarked with small waves roused by the stern, chilled winds of the season, whilst a few Canadian geese are lazing on its far shore. LJ watches the geese, their inertia proving hypnotic for a while, until the DeLonghi announces the completion of its brewing duties with a deep electronic hum.

As he turns to fetch his coffee, Denholm spots a movement in his land, a flash of white, by the perimeter wall- parallel with the lake, but more or less straight ahead of his viewpoint. He has often spotted white-tailed deer and foxes ambling and prowling around the groves and inclines of the acres, and his first thought is that a pale stag has emerged from one of the tangles of scrub that line the wall.

The stag takes a step forward, intensifying LJ’s scrutiny when he realises the form is in fact human. Denholm gasps, more in excitement than any kind of fear, and whispers who’s that, boy? to Wilder, before, with an overfamiliar gulp of pain, he remembers that Wilder is no longer around. Alone, LJ leans close to the window until his nose is pressed up against the cool glass, his breath fogging it.

The figure seems to be dressed entirely in white, apart from the shoes, which are a putty-like colour, and his face, which has the curious, curved shape of a spade, and is oil-black in colour. LJ feels his heart skip a beat and continues to stare at the figure, daring not to turn away in case he loses sight of them. The intruder seems reluctant to move further out into the open, but nor does it seem to be taking particular care in staying out of sight. Denholm is taken by the face’s abruptly black colour and spade shape and realises it must be a mask. He splutters a surprised laugh and wonders if a lost beekeeper – or a very lost fencing enthusiast - has somehow stumbled onto his grounds.

During a few further minutes of observation, the man does little more than dally at the edge of the scrub, although occasionally LJ gets the impression the man is staring straight at him. Curious. He is afraid that if he moved to another window or went outside then he would lose sight of this unexpected visitor, whilst the lack of movement or purpose the figure is displaying is puzzling, hypnotic almost. A sudden throaty gurgle from the coffee machine snaps Denholm out of his reverie. Refocused, LJ mutters right then and heads out of the study to investigate why this person is standing almost motionless on his grounds.

Although a small, sensible part of his mind had decided that the situation’s reality is, as ever, rather boring and that the man has managed to lose himself from a nearby hiking trail, and ended up stumbling through the small corner of unfenced, dense forest at the edge of his property.

Denholm jogs downstairs, humming the theme music from the Indiana Jones movies, laces on his hiking shoes and exits his house, determined to enjoy this rare piece of real, outdoors and three-dimensional piece of interaction on such an otherwise unproductive day. The lay of the land prevents him from seeing the figure as he strides across his land, and the bite of the wind makes him wish he’d donned a jumper for his little mission. As the targeted scrub finally falls into view, he is not too surprised – and almost disappointed - to see that the figure has disappeared.

LJ strides on and has soon reached the part of scrub he believes that Spadeface – always the thriller author, he has named this character already- had emerged from. After exploring the patch of scrub for a few minutes, LJ finds no such figure present and scans his land, his disappointment turning to unease as his lost hiker - or misplaced beekeeper, that possibility was still on the table- refuses to appear. The surface of the lake remains dimpled, the geese contentedly idle. As he contemplates his next course of action, a slow and pendulous movement in the scrub steals another beat from his heart as he turns to face it.

A dark – black, even – mask, is tangled in the thorny twists of bramble, fluttering in an autumn wind which has chilled savagely since Denholm embarked upon his inv`estigation.

LJ attempts to remove the spade-shaped mask, but it is lodged so deep in the brambles that he is unable to get a hold of the damned garment. However, he can see from this closer inspection that the mask appears to be made from synthetic material; possibly polyester with a gauze-like wove in lieu of eyeholes. Denholm cannot help but chuckle at his predicament; the famed crime writer embroiled in a creepy game of find-the-masked-trespasser in the wildest reaches of his own property. After spending a few seconds failing miserably to find a suitably-sized stick from the piles of autumnal debris with which to fish the mask from the scrub, he admits defeat and turns his attention back to locating his intruder.

As Denholm scans the horizon, one hand shielding the intense light streaming in from the low sun and pondering which piece of equipment he can call upon from his garage to aid his retrieval of the mask in the morning – the overworked, telescopic leaf catcher from his outdoor hot tub and splash pool coming to mind - an angry series of honks harmonise flatly from the direction of the lake. Perturbed, LJ gulps and launches into a wary trot towards the water. His heart leaps as a sudden, collective whirl of energy created by the previously lethargic gaggle of geese takes flight, honking angrily. Denholm gasps and breaks into a jog.

He stops dead when he gets to the lake.

About one hundred metres over the water, through the afternoon mist, LJ can see that a figure is standing, mannequin still, on the dark wet sand of the lake’s only beach. The visibility is such that he can only see a silhouette of the figure, but as Denholm’s vision acclimatises to the gloom he is able to pick out the outline of something hanging from the figure’s left hand. The item’s shape is familiar; a spade-shaped mask, however, this one is ice white in colour. A sudden beam of sunlight smashes through the scuffing of cloud cover, leading Denholm to hold his hand up to his brow to prevent being dazzled. Squinting underneath his hand, he focuses once more, seeing that the figure has not only removed the mask, but also its white clothing, and is now clad entirely in black, although the shoes are still the same, nothingy putty colour. The mask dangles from his fingers as the man – it is definitely a man, he sees– stares at Denholm somewhat blankly, as if he is more curious about the author than attempting to appease or intimidate him.

As his focus sharpens, more details click into view. The man’s face is pale, and he sports a shock of red hair, while his slight figure has athleticism and youthfulness to it which places him in his early twenties. He is not particularly tall. From this distance, Denholm remains unable to be sure of an expression, but he wagers that it is as unassuming and blank as the man’s stance had seemed when he first spotted him, in front of the copse. Disconcerted by the figure’s cool stillness, LJ returns the man’s vacant gaze for a few seconds before the sheer indignancy of the man’s inert calmness has him opening his mouth, ready to shout at the man. But before Denholm can find his voice, the figure has donned the white mask, turned and briskly strode the fifty-metre distance to his property’s eight-foot-high stone wall, which he scales in seconds.

And then he is gone.

You can catch Chapter Two right here!