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Hot Lights, Cold Steel (Dub Walker Series)
by D. P. Lyle

Published: 2011-06-01
Hardcover : 448 pages
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Forensic criminalist Dub Walker is once again called upon when an old friend enlists his help in finding her 19-year-old daughter. When the bodies of two young women show up in a shallow grave, one of whom is the daughter, Dub is back to work and hard at it. Soon other bodies start ...
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Introduction

Forensic criminalist Dub Walker is once again called upon when an old friend enlists his help in finding her 19-year-old daughter. When the bodies of two young women show up in a shallow grave, one of whom is the daughter, Dub is back to work and hard at it. Soon other bodies start turning up in similar graves, and each victim has undergone multiple, highly technical surgical procedures requiring extremely sophisticated equipment. Who would have access to such state-of-the-art instruments and the skill to perform the complex surgeries? The ensuing trail of terror and bodies that leads Dub to Talbert Biomedical?a surgical instrument manufacturing company operated by a business tycoon and a surgeon?is a horrifying breech of ethics and human decency. It's too gruesome to even contemplate what was done to the victims before they died. To catch a killer, Dub has to put himself in their place.

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Excerpt

This was going to be totally cool. Dead bodies. Carmelita had never seen one, much less two. Would they be gross? Smell bad? She’d heard that they smelled like rotting eggs. What if she threw up? How embarrassing. Still, she’d have a great story to tell. And a ring to show off.

She had been scheduled to work until 1:00 a.m., but this was definitely worth dumping a couple of hours. Besides, it wasn’t that busy, and the tips had been lousy. Some nights were just that way. Maybe if this had been a payday Friday, she’d have stayed, but a dead Wednesday? No contest.

Before leaving the club, she changed into jeans and a red T-shirt with a yellow Ferrari logo on the front and told her friend Madison where she was going. Tried to recruit her to come along. Do a double. Both make some cash. But, as usual, Madison balked. She never joined Carmelita on her escapades. Madison called them “sexcapades.” Whatever. Of course, she always wanted to hear all the dirty details the next day.

Now Carmelita sat in the cab of a pickup between Eddie and his friend Alejandro, who drove. She had seen Alejandro at the club before. Usually with Eddie. Where Eddie was young and soft, Alejandro looked hard and tough. Didn’t smile, didn’t say a word when Eddie introduced them. Just looked at her with contempt in his eyes.

She wished Madison was here. Maybe she could’ve warmed the dude up.

First stop, a liquor store. She and Eddie picked up two six-packs of beer and a pint of Jack Daniel’s. In the well-lit store, she saw Eddie clearly for the first time. He was even more handsome than he had seemed in the dark club. Dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and a pleasant smile. She’d screwed worse. A lot worse. For a lot less. Best of all, he was naïve, and if she worked it right, she could double the two hundred he had promised.

Back in the truck, Carmelita swigged her beer and giggled as Eddie ran his hand up her thigh, squeezing firmly. “How far is it?” she asked.

“Just a few miles to my place.” He dropped an empty beer bottle in the bag and pulled out a fresh one, twisting off the cap.

“Your place? What about the bodies?” She pushed his hand away. “You promised.”

Eddie smiled. “We’re going. After Alejandro drops us off, we’ll take my truck.”

She stared at Alejandro. His dark eyes and set jaw made her uncomfortable. Vein-roped arms and scarred knuckles gripped the steering wheel. “You’re not coming with us?”

“No.” He gulped a shot from the whiskey bottle.

Eddie laughed. “Alejandro’s seen enough bodies, haven’t you?”

Alejandro didn’t respond. He pulled a Marlboro from the pack in his shirt pocket and lit it with a Zippo. He clicked the lighter closed and tossed it on the dash as he turned off University on to Jeff Road and headed north. They quickly left civilization behind and were now on a country road, passing only an occasional farmhouse.

She looked at Alejandro. “You a hit man, too?”

Alejandro’s eyes narrowed, but his gaze never left the road. “You ask too many questions.”

Carmelita inched toward Eddie, breaking the contact of her leg with Alejandro’s. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to be friendly.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Eddie said. “Alejandro don’t talk much.”

Alejandro offered a faint grunt and took another swig of whiskey. He wedged the open pint between his legs and flicked ashes out the window. They swirled like fireflies before fading into the darkness.

She glanced out the window and then over her shoulder. Nothing. Not a single car light. No sign of anyone.

They turned onto a rutted road, the truck’s headlamps gyrating wildly as they bounced along. They passed a faded sign that read Sunnyvale Trailer Park and wound through a collection of thirty to forty weather-beaten mobile homes that were arrayed along the dusty, serpentine loop. She saw that most had been permanently embedded in the soil while others balanced on dry-rotted tires.

Televisions flickered through the windows of a couple of the trailers near the entrance, but near the rear of the park everything was dark and quiet. As if no one lived back here. Beyond the park? Nothing.

Carmelita had been so busy drinking beer and talking with Eddie that she hadn’t noticed just how far into the country they had driven. Or what roads they had taken. She began to feel alone and vulnerable. Her heart thumped harder, and her palms moistened.

“Doesn’t look like anyone lives here,” she said.

“I do,” Eddie said. “Just ahead.”

What have I gotten myself into? These men were killers. Eddie told her so. What was to stop them from raping her, killing her, dumping her out where no one would ever find her? Her throat felt dry. She tried to swallow, couldn’t, and took a drink of beer. It seemed bitter now. “I should go back.”

“What are you talking about?” Eddie asked.

“I’m tired. I don’t feel well.”

She noticed Alejandro cock his head toward her before she looked into Eddie’s face. He smiled. Seemed so innocent. Was he?

“Relax. We’ll have some fun, you’ll see the bodies, and then I’ll take you back.” Eddie squeezed her thigh. “You’ll see.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the publisher:

What is your writing process? Do you outline?

Where do you get ideas and how do you develop them?

How and why did you begin writing?

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to aspiring writers?

What’s next? Any projects upcoming?

Who do you read and what authors have inspired you?

Notes From the Author to the Bookclub

Note from author D.P. Lyle:

I grew up in the South where storytelling is a tradition. In fact, if you can’t tell a story they won’t feed you. Even simple dinner table stories have plots, subplots, settings, themes, and dialogue, the things that make a good yarn.

For the past 30 years I have practiced medicine in the field of cardiology. It has been a time of incredible technological progress. Medical technology and its uses and abuses have always been of interest to me and it is this that led to the writing of Hot Lights, Cold Steel.

Every story begins with a What If? What if this happened? What if that person was placed in this situation? What would this character do to resolve this mystery? For Hot Lights, Cold Steel the What If? would be: What if a forensic and criminal behavior expert is confronted with a series of murders that appeared to have been perpetrated by a killer with not only medical expertise but also the latest technology?

These are the questions that Dub Walker, in this the second novel in this medical thriller series, must unravel. I hope readers will find Dub’s adventures fun, educational, and insomnia-provoking.

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