Dirty Geese (Kanha And Colbey Book One) by Lou Gilmond (Extract)

 

Dirty Geese (Kanha and Colbey Book One) by Lou Gilmond.

Published 6th July 2023 by Armillary Books.

From the cover of the book:

WHAT CAN SEE WATCHES, WHAT CAN HEAR LISTENS - the gripping first instalment of the Kanha and Colbey Thriller series.

When Chief Whip Esme Kanha learns of the sudden death of the Minister for Personal Information, she bitterly regrets missing his desperate calls the previous evening. Unconvinced by the verdict of suicide, and suspicious that corrupt colleagues played some part in the man's death, she decides to investigate - but she must tread carefully in a near-future world dominated by technology, where 'what can see watches, what can hear listens, and what can be followed is tracked'.

Meanwhile, Big Tech executive Henri Lauvaux arrives in London. His mission: to ensure the new minister, Harry Colbey, will not prove as problematic as the last. As the West inexorably slides towards an Orwellian 'Big Brother' future, Harry Colbey and Esme Kanha join forces in a deadly cat-and-mouse game against political corruption - at great cost to themselves.

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As part of the blog tour for Dirty Geese it is my pleasure to bring you an extract from the book.

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Back in the Houses of Parliament, the long whips’ office was dark and silent, its senior members having taken themselves off to their clubs in St James’s, while their various assistants, researchers and spads had scurried off to engage in the political sport of Whitehall in more down-to-earth establishments: the likes of the Westminster Arms, the Red Lion, the Marquis of Granby.

Only at the far end of the room was there some light, where Esme Kanha sat bathed in the glow of her monitor, her ghostly reflection looking back at her from the glass partition. She was keeping to one corner of her desk to avoid catching the room’s motion detector and being plunged into the harsh reality of the fluorescent lighting.

The box of Dvořáček’s personal effects was gone, and in its place was a message on a Post-it note confirming it had been delivered into the hands of the widow. Beside that was a draft of the bill that Dvořáček had tried to sneak through parliament, which Kanha had pulled out of the recycling bin in their little lobby office.

Carefully, Kanha opened her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of wine, drained her tea mug of its residue into a nearby plant pot, and after swilling the mug out, poured herself a good measure.

Dvořáček’s bill looked like a copy of the official privacy bill that was due for its first reading in a week or so. So why try to push it through early? Had Dvořáček been afraid his official government bill might get talked out by an opposition member before the House rose and not become legislation this session? But it didn’t make sense. The other side of the House had signalled their support, it was popular with voters, particularly the extremely vocal privacy nutters that were beginning to get momentum behind their campaigns. It wouldn’t do any party any good to be seen to be blocking it. Was he worried the Whigges might gain in number and block it? There were rumours of coming defections, but that couldn’t be the case; with such a majority, the government had no difficulty getting its business through the House at the moment.

But perhaps Dvořáček wasn’t thinking straight, and who would be during a four-day drinking binge that was to end in suicide? Kanha reached for the mug and took a few mouthfuls of wine. She waited for the blur to come and soften the edges of her anxiety, flood those neural pathways and break thoughts loose from their moorings. She let them come at her sideways, backwards, in a weaving random fashion. During the day she knew she could be too rigid; logic assailed her and forced her into straight lines. Only at night when she fell to the wine could she think outside the grooves she had worn down during the day.

She went once more over Dvořáček’s bill, thoroughly this time, but this was not her area of expertise and there were pages and pages of thick incomprehensible passages. Kanha was better at people than bills. She lifted the handset of her phone and tabbed through to the second message saved on its ancient system.

Esme. It’s me again. Percy Dvořáček. Do you know what I think, mmm? I think we’re all just stupid old geese. Greedy. Waddling around pushing our stupid fat chests out, squawking across the House at one another, as if we mattered. As if we were important, but we’re not. None of us are. We’re too far behind. And we’re all dirty, aren’t we, hmm? Even you. Even clever Kanha. So what are we, eh? Just stupid, useless, dirty fucking geese. We don’t know anything, but they’re watching us, listening to us. And they’re inside my head, I tell you. And I don’t want them there...

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Dirty Geese is available to buy now in paperback and ebook formats.

Thank you to Armillary Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review - review to follow.

About the author:

Lou Gilmond is a writer of fiction and non-fiction based in Oxford, UK.