The Killer Within

About the Book

Two men sit in a car, parked outside a bar on an east-side street. Joey Glass looks carefully at photos of his wife having sex with another man, flipping through slowly, torn by conflicting emotions: rage, passion, betrayal, but mostly the pain of disappointment. He steps into the bar for a strong drink and a simple answer in the ice at the bottom of a glass. But there are no simple answers, there is nothing but the ringing in his ears of unspoken voices making him the brunt of heartless jokes. He´ll have to keep to his emotions to himself and wear a brave face – the unwritten rules of macho decorum can allow his features to portray only one emotion; anger. With a expansive thumping of fists on the bar a threat is tossed to prove his anger; "If it wasn´t for the shortage of good honest killers around here, I´d have this guy whacked, right now! Two in the head!."

But he is in the presence of one particular fool as he says this. It´s this man Pauli, otherwise known as ´Bullshit´ Pauli who overhears it, a man waiting for just this type of opportunity to gain respect. To him it´s a challenge to undertake, to prove to everyone, but especially himself, that he is capable of completing such a horrendous task. "I´ll do it." he says to Joey and all present. Those three words start it, and his plan is conceived with unusual cunning and daring, and succeeds exactly as planned. The idle threat Joey put forth becomes reality within two weeks in the form of a body lying with a shattered skull on the sidewalk.

It´s up to the police detective, Daryll Rhodes, to catch this man before he feels so good about himself he does it again. The tangle of characters involved include an old man of the street set up to take the fall, a mistreated wife who has plans of her own, a union leader seeking to use the troublesome ´Bullshit´ Pauli as an example to the rest of the union brotherhood, and the real killer Joey hires to stop Bullshit Pauli from telling the world of his victory.

It´s the rise and fall of the man called ´Bullshit´. There´s a pack of wolves snapping at his heels but his new-found narcissism won´t allow their notice. His eyes in the mirror reflect what his heart feels, but he blinks it away, the life he had is over and he´s not going back alive.

About the Author

R.D. Tkachuk was born in Edmonton, Canada, in 1956. He currently lives in West Vancouver. This is his first novel.