*Blog Tour* A Game for Assassins by James Quinn

Title: A Game for Assassins
Series: The Redaction Chronicles, Book 1
Author: James Quinn
Length: novel (528 pages)
Genre: mystery, thriller, spy thriller, espionage

Synopsis

The assassination of a Caribbean dictator….The “hit” on a traitor in Beirut……The brutal murder of a young CIA officer behind the Iron Curtain…..So begins the game……
It is 1964, the height of the Cold War, and British Intelligence is riding high with its top double agent network: Constellation.
But in the secret war fought across Europe the enemy is never far away and soon the agents of Constellation are targeted by an unknown team of assassins. In desperation British Intelligence sends in their best agent to protect the network and hunt down the killers.

Jack “Gorilla” Grant isn’t your typical Cold War secret agent. Short, tough, uncompromising, rough edged. He doesn’t fit in with the elitist spies and debonair intelligence agents. He prefers working at the rough end of British covert operations.
But “Gorilla” is one of the best “Redactors” in the business. He’s an expert at close quarter shooting: quick to the draw and deadly accurate when it comes to the elimination of traitors and extremists on behalf of the British Secret Service (SIS). He is soon drawn into a game of cross and double cross where nothing is as it seems and even the most perfect spy can die in a wilderness of mirrors.
“A Game for Assassins” is an action packed edge of your seat thrill ride played out across the global stage of the Cold War.

A short scene from the new spy thriller – A Game For Assassins – that introduces the anti-hero/spy Jack “Gorilla” Grant.  

Thirty minutes later, Marquez was washing his hands in the bathroom sink.  Amazing how that oil got everywhere and lingered.  In that respect it was very much like blood.

It had been twenty minutes since he had garrotted the Englishman, the spy.

The whole operation had gone smoothly.  An easy pick up of the target at the Club and an unobserved exit from the bar.  No witnesses had seen them leave and no one had seen them enter Cowan’s apartment.  

He had waited until the man was in a relaxed state following their love making and then when the Englishman was at his most vulnerable Marquez had quickly removed the home made garrotte that he had secreted underneath the mattress.  Marquez far outweighed the slimmer man and he dropped his knees down onto Cowan’s upper arms, pinning him face downwards to the bed.  Cowan yelped, more out of surprise than pain.  Perhaps he thought I was going to fuck him again, thought Marquez.

The rest was the simple mechanics of murder. The garrotte, a piece of thin piano wire connected by two dowel handles, was slipped expertly under the prone man’s chin, pulled back and then twisted so that Marquez’s forearms crossed.  Then he pulled and pulled....

It was then that Cowan began to realise that this was no sex-game, this was something else entirely, and began to panic.  His body, trying to fight gravity, began to jerk and buck.  But Marquez was an experienced murderer and had accounted for his victim’s reaction.  He shifted his weight to his left side and thrust his right knee into the small of the man’s back, pressing him further down into the bed.

Marquez imagined that he looked like a rider trying to control a wild horse, the garrotte his reigns as he stretched back making the wire as taut as possible.  He could see Cowan’s face turning a bright red as his brain searched for oxygen, a croaking sound came somewhere from deep within his throat...and still he pulled the wire, pulled it so hard that the sweat was pouring from Marquez with the sheer physicality of the act.

He had no idea how long it had been since he slipped the garrotte around the man’s neck, it seemed like hours, but still he pulled and still he held the weight of the body down.  He gave a final surge of effort and was rewarded with an arterial fountain of blood leaping free from the side of Cowan’s neck.

The wire had cut so deeply that it had severed the man’s main artery, the blood pumping onto the bed covering the once white sheets with crimson.  Marquez had felt the man beneath him lose strength and watched as his body slumped forward like a balloon that has had the air slowly released from it.  He worked the garrotte now almost like a saw moving it from side to side, feeling the wire cutting through the tissue and the sinew until moments later it eventually reached the bone of his neck.

He let go of the blood soaked garrotte’s toggles, his hand aching with pain from the exertion, and let them fall onto the man’s naked back.  Then he reached forward and grabbed Cowan’s hair tightly with two hands and ripped the head backwards.

The head swivelled around, as if on a one-sided hinge, so that it was almost turned backwards looking accusingly at Marquez.  He looked down at the piece of butchered meat on the bed and wrinkled his nose in disgust.  Now that the killing was over he could allow himself to feel emotions.  Not at the time, though, during the midst of a kill he was too focused and motivated to do what was necessary.

A garrotting was a first for him.  Knife, gun, poison and explosions, he had caused many times in the past, but thus far never had he used the Italian rope.  He reflected that the method of execution for this wretch of an Englishman was intimately plausible in the context of his death.  What could be more personal than murdering with your own hands someone that you had just had sex with?  It was quite fitting in Marquez’s opinion.

Buy Links

Free with Kindle Unlimited
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VQORC0K/
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VQORC0K/
Amazon AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00VQORC0K/
Amazon DE: http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00VQORC0K/

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About the author

James Quinn spent 15 years in the secret world of covert operations, undercover investigations and international security before turning his hand to writing.
He is trained in hand to hand combat and in the use of a variety of weaponry including small edged weapons, Japanese Swords and Hunting Bows. He is also a crack pistol shot for CQB (Close Quarter Battle) and many of his experiences he has incorporated into his works of fiction.
He lives in the United Kingdom and travels extensively around the globe.
Website: http://jamesquinn.webs.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Quinn/1558765681046413
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ape101Quinn