Read Online Evil in Return by Elena Forbes - Free Book Online Page A

really gave little away. I’m afraid I simply put that down to his being a man.’
    Tartaglia smiled. ‘How did you discover him? Did he approach you?’
    ‘No. We don’t look at unsolicited work. Like most publishers these days, we just haven’t got the people or the time. We use agents as filters. A draft of the novel came in via someone I’ve known for a long time, whose judgement I respect. She said I just had to read it, that it was right up my street. Even so, things were hectic as usual and it took me almost a week to get around to it. I remember she’d been chasing me, saying that others were interested, and I ended up reading it in the car driving down to Wiltshire to watch my son play in a rugby match. My partner was driving, I should add. Anyway, I was hooked from the first page. I just couldn’t put it down and I sat in the school’s car park, with the heater on, trying to finish it. In the end, I missed the whole match and the tea afterwards. What was even worse, my son scored two tries and his school won. He practically killed me, although he knows what I’m like.’
    She smiled wistfully, looking down at the table for a moment, then back at Tartaglia. ‘You know, Joe’s novel was the most exciting thing I’d read in a long time. We may not have seen eye to eye over everything, but I’m very sorry indeed he’s dead. He had real talent.’
    ‘We’ll need his agent’s name and number.’
    She nodded. ‘She’s in the US at the moment. I spoke to her on the phone only yesterday when I couldn’t get hold of Joe. After I heard what had happened, I rang this morning and left a voicemail. She’ll be devastated. I’m sure she’ll be in touch as soon as she wakes up and gets the message.’
    ‘What’s the book about?’ Donovan asked.
    ‘It’s about a group of men who were buddies at university. Fifteen years later they’re brought together again when one of them dies. Basically, his death opens a can of worms. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot because you should read it, but it’s about the destructive power of guilt and envy, about being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the choices we make.’
    ‘Is the novel autobiographical in any way?’ Tartaglia asked, thinking that it didn’t sound like his cup of tea.
    Ryan put her head to one side and made a moue. ‘Most first novels have some autobiographical element, and in some superficial ways Joe was quite a lot like Jonah, the main character.’ She paused for a moment, as though thinking it all over, before adding: ‘But Jonah commits suicide at the end of the book, or so it seems. He’s a deeply unhappy, dissatisfied man. I certainly never saw Joe as someone standing on the edge of a precipice, either metaphorically or in reality.’
    ‘Do you think the book could have a bearing on Mr Logan’s murder?’
    Ryan looked surprised. ‘I don’t see how. I mean, it’s hardly news.’
    ‘I understand he’d started another book.’
    ‘Yes. He mentioned it when we had lunch, but he didn’t tell me a great deal about it.’
    ‘Could the second book have anything to do with what happened to him? It may seem silly but we need to explore every angle.’
    Ryan pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know what to say. He didn’t give me the impression the idea was hot in any way. If anything, he seemed a little woolly about the story line, as though he hadn’t really worked it out just yet. We hadn’t even talked about a contract and he was a long way from having anything he wanted to show me, from what I could tell.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Tartaglia unfolded a copy of the email found amongst Logan’s papers and slid it across to her. ‘Do you recognise this paragraph?’
    She read the text, then passed it back, frowning. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’
    ‘So it’s not from Indian Summer ?’
    ‘Absolutely not.’
    ‘What about his next book?’ Donovan asked.
    Ryan shook her head. ‘I doubt it. It’s not