A Turbulent Peace by Paul Walker Read an Excerpt

Publication Date: July 2022
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Page Length: 305 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

January 1919.  

Following the armistice, Mary Kiten, a volunteer nurse in northern France, is ready to return home to England when she receives a surprise telegram requesting that she report to Paris. The call comes from her Uncle Arthur, a security chief at the Peace Conference.

Within minutes of arriving at the Majestic Hotel in Paris, Mary hears a commotion in the street outside. A man has been shot and killed. She is horrified to earn that the victim is her uncle. The police report the attack as a chance robbery by a known thief, who is tracked down and killed resisting arrest.

Mary is not convinced. Circumstances and the gunshot wound do not indicate theft as a motive. A scribbled address on Arthur’s notepad leads to her discovery of another body, a Russian Bolshevik. She suspects her uncle, and the Russian, were murdered by the same hand.

To investigate further, Mary takes a position working for the British Treasury, headed by J M Keynes.

But Mary soon finds herself in the backstreets of Paris and the criminal underworld. What she discovers will threaten the foundations of the congress.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt 7:

I hauled myself out of bed early the following day with a pounding head and limbs of jelly. I doubt if I had managed more than a few minutes of genuine sleep. My thoughts were filled with troubling images of Estelle, her routine abuse at the hands of strangers and the possibility that my enquiries and seeking her out may have prompted steps to ensure her silence. Given her occupation, it would be easy to arrange a throat cut, a strangling or suffocation with blame placed on a wayward client. Police like Roussel would simply shrug and put the case of her murder on a pile of the undeserving and unsolved.

But worry about Estelle was not the primary cause of my lack of sleep. I simply couldn’t position my body for any comfort. I was tired, but the ache deep in my bones was more than a match for exhaustion. I was also forever on the point of vomiting but unable to complete the action and therefore caught in a cycle of rest, cramp, prepare to retch, fail and rest again. I put it down to a bout of food poisoning. What had I eaten and when? It was unlikely to be the two poached eggs I had for yesterday’s dinner, preceded by a ham sandwich for lunch and toast with blackcurrant preserve for breakfast. Initially, I dismissed the previous dinner at the restaurant as too far removed, then eventually concluded it must have been the cause. Adam also had the mussels, so, I assumed, he was probably suffering too.

I went to the washroom, splashed cold water over my face, scrubbed my body with a brush covered in a wet flannel before finishing with a vigorous rubbing dry with a towel. I returned to my bedroom and, despite a splitting headache and wheezing chest, convinced myself I was feeling well enough to prepare for work and make an appearance at breakfast. I dressed and made my way down to the corridor leading to the dining room, where I hovered for a few seconds before a hurried escape to the powder room. The odours of cooked sausage meat, bacon and kippers brought the lurching in my belly to a long-awaited and, ultimately, satisfying conclusion. I took that as a good sign and the beginning of a recovery from a temporary upset.

It was early; the cloak of night had barely lifted, with lights from horse carriages and motor taxis reflecting brittle yellow shards in the wet surface of the streets as I walked to our workplace in Rue Leo Delibes. I stopped mid-way, short of breath and uncertain whether to proceed or to take the safe and sensible option, to go back and retire to my bed. I forced myself to continue, persuaded I would improve by lunchtime.

Pinchin was the only one who had beaten me to work. His response to my greeting was a grunt of acknowledgement without lifting his head from the papers on his desk. I retreated to the large walk-in cupboard, modified to act as a makeshift kitchen, put a match to the small gas stove and waited for the kettle to boil. My legs buckled, and I grabbed a shelf for support.

‘Are you alright, Mary?’

It was Derek. He was with Jack. I hadn’t heard either of them enter. ‘Yes, thank you, Derek, just a little peaky. I think it’s something I ate.’

‘Fancy French grub with all those herbs and spices, no doubt,’ said Jack. ‘You should stick to the good, wholesome British fare from the Majestic dining rooms.’

He expected me to disagree and initiate a conversation about food in general – his favourite topic. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk; a noncommittal murmur my only response. I turned away and kept my sight firmly on the kettle, hoping they would take this as a sign I wasn’t feeling sociable. I could hear them behind me and imagined an exchange of disappointed and knowing looks as they hesitated briefly then shuffled off to their desks. I didn’t want to, but I was there, tending the kettle and teapot, so felt obliged to offer a cuppa to all the early starters.

The tea was brewed, four steaming cups and saucers were on the tray. I picked it up and took a few steps into the office when it suddenly became so heavy; I could barely hold it. I stopped; a low moan escaped my mouth; the effort was too much. The tray rattled. My whole body sagged under an oppressive weight, and I crumpled to the floor. I heard the shattering of crockery as a distant but sharp sound and felt heat in my legs as I slid down into a spinning grey mist. I could have shouted for help, but a gentle, dark descent seemed so natural and inevitable that I welcomed the coming oblivion. Black came, then - nothing.

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Meet the Author

Paul lives in a village 30 miles north of London where he is a full-time writer of fiction and part-time director of an education trust. His writing in a posh garden shed is regularly disrupted by children, a growing number of grandchildren and several dogs.

Paul writes historical fiction. The William Constable series of historical thrillers is based around real characters and events in the late sixteenth century. The first two books in the series – “State of Treason” and “A Necessary Killing”, were published in 2019. The third book, titled “The Queen’s Devil”, was published in the summer of 2020.

Travel forward a few hundred years from Tudor England to January 1919 in Paris and the setting for Paul’s latest book, “A Turbulent Peace”. The focus of the World is on the Peace Conference after WW1 armistice. Add a dash of Spanish Flu, the fallout from the Russian Revolution, and you have a background primed for intrigue as nations strive for territory, power and money.

Connect with Paul:
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