Dead Reckoning: When Trouble Finds You Collection, #1

By Jinx James

The phone call that threatens to destroy their world… four lives changed forever.

In this electrifying crime thriller involving a terrible moral dilemma and a shocking climax, who is really on the side of justice?

Gavin is proud to be a highly regarded law court judge, but in just one day his well-ordered life is demolished by a single phone call. A kidnapper is threatening to kill his daughter. He must act against everything he believes in. Painfully, for the first time in his life Gavin realises that he's prepared to break the law if he necessary. Now he must act against everything he believes. But can he save his daughter in time? Can a tragedy be prevented?

The When Trouble Finds You Collection depicts different lives with one thing in common ­– a moment of crisis. It's a gripping collection of short stories about moments of crisis, past and present, that change lives forever. Read each compelling story in a single sitting.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jinx James Books, Kit James Publishing
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645632323

Jinx James

Crime fiction author Jinx James was born in the UK, and lives in Australia. He has worked in music, advertising, and TV comedy. He has always been fascinated by charisma, satire, and what makes people laugh. That’s his usual way of looking at the world, but he is also intrigued by how his characters react when confronted by a terrifying dilemma, or a moment of confrontation. As he always says, it’s the characters that write the stories. They insist that their voices are heard. Today Jinx lives in a wine-growing area in regional Australia with his wife and two dogs. As Kit James, he also writes a humorous dog book series, Mutt to Megastar, starring Elliott, a wisecracking dog.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Walking out from the Judge’s dressing room and into the office in Chambers, while he adjusts his tie, Gavin finds himself humming. It’s the theme music from the French movie he and his wife had watched on TV the night before. When he’d seen from the credits it had been Ravel’s Trio for piano, violin, and cello, he’d kicked himself for not having picked it. He’s always secretly taken some pride in being a bit of a music buff.

Gavin is a tallish, neat, and willowy man in his middle fifties. He’s blessed with a thick head of naturally blond hair, which he wears pushed up and back. In another galaxy, it could almost be described as an old rocker’s quiff –although Gavin would undoubtedly find that offensive. He’s always viewed himself as a small ‘l’ liberal, a touch artistic, but genuinely concerned and socially aware.

Despite this generous, private self-assessment, there is something about Gavin’s appearance and demeanor that seems to undermine that notion. There is a certain fastidiousness about him. Today, for instance, he’s wearing a beautifully cut, sober grey suit, a light blue shirt with silver cufflinks and an antique Girard-Perregaux watch. All this plus an upper-crust old money accent, oozing with self-confidence and privilege –and there you have Gavin.

Right down to his immaculately clean and shiny black, lace-up Russell & Bromley shoes, nothing about him ever seems to be out of place. However, is it possible that he could come across as a touch more elitist and establishment than he might have liked? Possibly, but then again, Gavin’s entire demeanor still always manages to suggest that everything in his world is exactly the way he wants it.

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After they’d turned off the TV the previous evening, he and his wife had begun discussing Ravel. They’d drifted into a silly mock argument concerning the existence of the word ‘ravel’ that would presumably have been the opposite of ‘unravel’. But then, of course, as she pointed out, the stress would be on the ‘a’ as opposed to the way it was with Ravel, the composer.

Gavin had wondered whether there was such a word as ravel in English.

His wife Kate had been certain that it existed. But then Gavin had claimed, with some justification, that as he personally had never heard anybody say ‘ravel’ in his entire life, it probably didn’t.

At this point, his wife had been forced to admit that she hadn’t either, but she still insisted there was one. And