Pretty Poly: Mickey Starts, #11

By Mike Scantlebury

Mickey is a Secret Agent and used to living a 'double life'. For his new assignment, he's working 'triple'. He's pretending to be a lecturer in a prestigious college in Manchester, England, but the story he tells his superiors - which allows him to work 'undercover' - is that he is helping them solve some finanical irregularities. In fact, it's far more serious than that. He's hunting a foreign agitator and possible terorrist. After several weeks, Mickey is getting nowhere on either front, but then things turn really nasty, when the suspect is found dead. Who could have caused that? And why? Are there other forces at work in this remote, academic institution - tensions that could cause murder and arson? It doesn't seem possible, and Mickey is reluctant to believe it, even when he sees the evidence with his own eyes. He has to learn a valuable lesson - something that he could share with his students. If you see it with yourself, then no matter how unbelievable, it's the sad and horrifying truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mickey Starts
• Release date: Jul 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386275541

Mike Scantlebury

Mike Scantlebury is my author name, which I chose once I'd decided to use my real name on the outside of books. I was born in the South West of England, but after a lot of roaming, found a new billet in the North West, across the river from Manchester (England). I've written dozens of books and you can find them on the shelves of online bookstores everywhere. They're mostly in the world of Romance and the smaller world of Crime Fiction and Mysteries. Mostly, the novels are like the great Colossus and straddle both sides of the stream. The thing that makes me interesting is that I also sing and write songs and you can find them on social media and the corners of The Web. Which is pretty good. I'm a bit old for the internet, really. Happier with an abacus

Book preview

CHAPTER  O N E

The girl was still a teenager, but only just. And she was nearly crying. But only just.

I'm saying this to you for your own good, Terry, I told her again. You cheat in the exam and where is it going to get you?

Expelled, that's what. Thrown out. And I'll be damned if I wasn't going to see to it myself, personally, even if nobody else cared.

She turned her doe-like eyes on me. I saw the water forming in the corners and stood up abruptly. I decided it was time to take a walk around the office. It wasn't very big for an office, quite big for a shoe box, so it wouldn't take long.

On the opposite wall was a small mirror; I found myself looking into it. The figure that stared back had to be the unlikeliest Polytechnic lecturer in the whole of North West England. Broad shoulders, 195 lbs in socks, square face, grizzled chin and broken nose. I was the kind of academic that Mike Tyson might have turned into - IF he'd ever finished that first class at Community College. I wondered how long they'd go on believing it, the students, that is; my story was that I was a Temporary Replacement, here for a term only. Of course, it would be shorter if I finished my investigation sooner.

Another reason for finishing early might be that this young woman had developed an ongoing crush on me.

You've broken my heart, she bleated mournfully.

And if I ever catch you copying again, I told her briskly, I'll break your arm. After that, I'll crack your fingers, one by one. Where do you live?

Whalley Range, she said, a puzzled frown interrupting the unrequited look of misery she had been concentrating on for the last ten minutes.

By the park, she said. Past the roundabout.

I knew it. It had been my part of town too, once upon a time. I'd lived for a short while in one of the vast halls of residence owned by the University - the proper one, not this jumped-up little college that the government was going to let call itself a 'University'