Book Title: The Grocers’ Son
Author: Garrick Jones
Publisher: MoshPit Publishing
Cover Artist: Garrick Jones
Release Date: September 21, 2022
Genres: Crime Fiction; Detective; Thriller
Tropes: Lost lovers reunited
Themes: The strength of relationships over time; What one will do for love
Heat Rating: 2 flames
Length: 138 629 words/ 422 pages (paperback)
It is a standalone book and the third book in the Clyde Smith Mystery series.
It does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links
Amazon AU | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Smashwords
Blurb
“I swear to God it was Willoughby. My brother stood not two feet away from me, called me Lina to my face, and pulled Harley into his arms, saying he was sorry, sobbing, and calling him his boy.”
An apparition in Sydney’s fruit and vegetable market leaves the mother of one of Clyde’s best friends believing that her brother, hanged for murder twenty-four years beforehand, has somehow risen from the grave and confronted her.
She is adamant that the visitation was real and visits Clyde asking him to investigate the mass murder her brother was supposed to have committed. She believes he was either set up or was covering for someone else’s crime.
Could this vision have been a folie à deux, a delusional vision shared by both mother and son? As Clyde investigates, clues lead him to one of Australia’s most famous silent screen actors, a man who, together with his murdered father, becomes intrinsically linked to the mass murder, known as The Killing at Candal Creek.
Wheels within wheels, lies, extortion, and coverups lead Clyde to a bloody confrontation on a deserted beach in the tropics. This time, it’s not only his own life at risk but also that of one of his most valued and closest friends.
The following morning, before going into the dining room for breakfast, I placed a call to Harry, aware I was on a country exchange, and asked how things were progressing.
He told me about his training session last night and that Baxter missed me. I took that as a euphemism. I told him to tell Baxter that I missed him too, and that after breakfast Luka and I were heading to Gulgong and would be home early on Saturday afternoon.
All was well at work and he’d told me that the world continued to turn even though I wasn’t in the office. I’d laughed, of course, and said I’d call on Friday morning to see if there were any problems. He told me not to bother, and that Steve would fill me in on his visit to the Melville brothers when I got back. I nearly bit my tongue with the effort not to enquire more about the fraternal twins who’d stood guard outside Willoughby Purchase’s cell the night before he’d been hanged.
“How are you coping with the food, Clyde?” Harry had asked, having teased me about surviving on endless roasts and overcooked green vegetables. He’d sensed my curiosity and unwillingness to discuss important things over the phone.
I’d replied by telling him that the next time he took a group of young people to Capertee, he should abandon them to their campfire baked beans and take the hour drive to Mudgee where he’d have the best Italian and Chinese food he’d ever be likely to eat outside a capital city.
He’d suggested a weekend away together, exploring the area, and I’d happily agreed.
“You’re looking tired, Luka,” I said, five minutes later, joining my companion at our table in the hotel dining room. We seemed to be the only guests.
“Didn’t get much sleep,” he replied.
“Too much food in your tummy?” He shook his head. I got it. “You had a visitor?”
“Indeed I did.”
“Not Terry?”
“No, he went home yesterday afternoon. You told me yourself.”
He didn’t need to say who it was. I’d noticed the interaction with the passing of the cigarette case.
“How did he know where you were? Oh, don’t answer that, I remember him saying that everyone knew the colour of everyone else’s knickers.”
He smiled. “I sensed him outside … something like that anyway. So went out onto the balcony outside my room and there he was on the opposite side of the street having a smoke with his brother. He looked up and caught my eye, so I held up eight fingers, the number of my room. They’re not blood brothers, you know.”
“What? You had both of them?”
“I wish,” he replied with a chuckle. “No, Clyde, just Oscar. His brother drove back to Dunedoo last night and Oscar left at six this morning. We talked for ages, it wasn’t just non-stop rumpty-tump. He told me about how they’d been left at the front door of the Soo’s when the local orphanage closed down during the Spanish flu epidemic. Lots of locals fostered kids until homes could be found for them, but they were lucky that Mrs. Soo had always wanted children but had never been able to have any of her own and had brought them up herself.”
“And earlier, when you were holding his cigarette case?”
“Nothing I didn’t learn from the man afterward, Clyde. He’s simply another bloke just like you and me. Loves, losses, nothing hidden. A few secrets like all of us, but otherwise merely interested in looking after his brother and running his business.”
“I thought you said he was making a pass at me?”
“Jealous?”
“Not in the least. It’s just that I’ve never had any idea. It’s a wonder I ever managed to get into bed with anyone at all, to be honest. Harry was the first man I’ve ever made a bee-line for. Sam and Harley both made their moves first, and as for Craig? Well, we discovered it together when we were teenagers.”
“What about Billy, Ray Wilson, and Augusto?”
“The war made people do crazy things. Billy orchestrated our little group of four in North Africa, and with Ray it was only once. With Augusto? Well, it was mostly the desperate need to be close to someone else, to have their arms around you and to cling to in terrible times …”
“Clyde, I told you I don’t judge,” Luka said.
“I know, but when it’s spelled out like that, it makes it sound like I’ve slept with a lot of guys.”
“For a thirty-seven-year-old, I’d say you were well behind in the numbers race, Clyde. Nine or ten different men since you were how old … fourteen, fifteen? That averages out at less than one a year. A lot of men would have that many guys every month. You don’t know what it’s like to be a queer man who hasn’t found that special person. All most of us have is a series of nice fellas who we’ll probably never see again. As for Oscar? Well, he’s a great bloke, and …”
“And?”
“And there’s one thing I can tell you, he doesn’t throw it around much. Terry’s an occasional partner, as we suspected, and there used to be someone for a while after the war, but that person left a void in his heart. I think there may be one or two regulars at the washhouse, but he didn’t let on, so I didn’t ask. He feels a bit lonely inside, but then again so do many of the guys I used to meet down in the parks at night, too.”
“So my invitation for an interview?”
“Is just that, Clyde. I can assure you.”
From the outback to the opera.
After a thirty-year career as a professional opera singer, performing as a soloist in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, I took up a position as lecturer in music in Australia in 1999, at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, which is now part of CQUniversity.
Brought up in Australia, between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, I retired in 2015 and now live in the tropics, writing, gardening, and finally finding time to enjoy life and to re-establish a connection with who I am after a very busy career on the stage and as an academic.
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