by Mark Dawson
It was more blood. His ledger was already dripping with it. The pages were drenched.
He thought of the tattoo on his back. It had been done in Guatemala. He only remembered fragments of that night: the woozy heat, the humidity, palm trees, dive bars and strip joints. He remembered the squalid tattoo parlour he had found. He had been drunk, out of his mind on Quetzalteca Especial and mescaline. He had slept through most of it.
He had tried to fool himself when he awoke the next day. He saw the tattoo in the bathroom mirror, remembered the night before, and pretended that it was of Michael, the Angel of Mercy.
Who was he kidding?
The tattoo was of Samael.
The Angel of Death.
He had been in Guatemala to put a bullet into the head of a businessman who had refused to cancel an oil exploration contract he was negotiating. He had received some very firm anonymous advice that he should withdraw. He had been told that the business was against British interests and that it wouldn’t be allowed to continue.
He had ignored the advice.
Control passed Milton his file.
The man had been Milton’s fiftieth victim.
Milton felt the dry blast of recycled air on his face. He kept his eyes closed, put the glass to his lips again, and drank.
The flight would take three hours.
Milton was going to get good and drunk.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Dawson is the author of the breakout John Milton, Beatrix Rose and Soho Noir series. He makes his online home at www.markjdawson.com. You can connect with Mark on Twitter at @pbackwriter, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/markdawsonauthor and you should send him an email at [email protected] if the mood strikes you.
ALSO BY MARK DAWSON
Have you read them all?
In the Soho Noir Series
Gaslight
When Harry and his brother Frank are blackmailed into paying off a local hood they decide to take care of the problem themselves. But when all of London’s underworld is in thrall to the man’s boss, was their plan audacious or the most foolish thing that they could possibly have done?
Free to download: US UK
The Black Mile
London, 1940: the Luftwaffe blitzes London every night for fifty-seven nights. Houses, shops and entire streets are wiped from the map. The underworld is in flux: the Italian criminals who dominated the West End have been interned and now their rivals are fighting to replace them. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, the Black-Out Ripper sharpens his knife and sets to his grisly work.
Buy it: US UK
The Imposter
War hero Edward Fabian finds himself drawn into a criminal family’s web of vice and soon he is an accomplice to their scheming. But he’s not the man they think he is - he’s far more dangerous than they could possibly imagine.
Buy it: US UK
In the John Milton Series
One Thousand Yards
In this dip into his case files, John Milton is sent into North Korea. With nothing but a sniper rifle, bad intentions and a very particular target, will Milton be able to take on the secret police of the most dangerous failed state on the planet?
Free to download: US UK
The Cleaner
Sharon Warriner is a single mother in the East End of London, fearful that she’s lost her young son to a life in the gangs. After John Milton saves her life, he promises to help. But the gang, and the charismatic rapper who leads it, is not about to cooperate with him.
Buy it: US UK
Saint Death
John Milton has been off the grid for six months. He surfaces in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and immediately finds himself drawn into a vicious battle with the narco-gangs that control the borderlands.
Buy it: US UK
The Driver
When a girl he drives to a party goes missing, John Milton is worried. Especially when two dead bodies are discovered and the police start treating him as their prime suspect.
Buy it: US UK
Ghosts
John Milton is blackmailed into finding his predecessor as Number One. But she’s a ghost, too, and just as dangerous as him. He finds himself in deep trouble, playing the Russians against the British in a desperate attempt to save the life of his oldest friend.
Buy it: US UK
The Sword of God
On the run from his own demons, John Milton treks through the Michigan wilderness into the town of Truth. He’s not looking for trouble, but trouble's looking for him. He finds himself up against a small-town cop who has no idea with whom he is dealing, and no idea how dangerous he is.
Buy it: US UK
Salvation Row
Milton finds himself in New Orleans, returning a favour that saved his life during Katrina. When a lethal adversary from his past takes an interest in his business, there’s going to be hell to pay.
Buy it: US UK
Headhunters
Milton barely escaped from Avi Bachman with his life. But when the Mossad’s most dangerous renegade agent breaks out of a maximum security prison, their second fight will be to the finish.
Buy it: US UK
The Ninth Step
Milton’s attempted good deed becomes a quest to unveil corruption at the highest levels of government and murder at the dark heart of the criminal underworld. Milton is pulled back into the game, and that’s going to have serious consequences for everyone who crosses his path.
Buy it: US UK
In the Beatrix Rose Series
In Cold Blood
Beatrix Rose was the most dangerous assassin in an off-the-books government kill squad until her former boss betrayed her. A decade later, she emerges from the Hong Kong underworld with payback on her mind. They gunned down her husband and kidnapped her daughter, and now the debt needs to be repaid. It’s a blood feud she didn’t start but she is going to finish.
Buy it: US UK
Blood Moon Rising
There were six names on Beatrix’s Death List and now there are four. She’s going to account for the others, one by one, even if it kills her. She has returned from Somalia with another target in her sights. Bryan Duffy is in Iraq, surrounded by mercenaries, with no easy way to get to him and no easy way to get out. And Beatrix has other issues that need to be addressed. Will Duffy prove to be one kill too far?
Buy it: US UK
Blood and Roses
Beatrix Rose has worked her way through her Kill List. Four are dead, just two are left. But now her foes know she has them in her sights and the hunter has become the hunted.
Buy it: US UK
Hong Kong Stories, Vol. 1
Beatrix Ro
se flees to Hong Kong after the murder of her husband and the kidnapping of her child. She needs money. The local triads have it. What could possibly go wrong?
Buy it: US UK
In the Isabella Rose Series
The Angel
Isabella Rose is recruited by British intelligence after a terrorist attack on Westminster.
Buy it: US UK
Standalone Novels
The Art of Falling Apart
A story of greed, duplicity and death in the flamboyant, super-ego world of rock and roll. Dystopia have rocketed up the charts in Europe, so now it’s time to crack America. The opening concert in Las Vegas is a sell-out success, but secret envy and open animosity have begun to tear the group apart.
Buy it: US UK
Subpoena Colada
Daniel Tate looks like he has it all. A lucrative job as a lawyer and a host of famous names who want him to work for them. But his girlfriend has deserted him for an American film star and his main client has just been implicated in a sensational murder. Can he hold it all together?
Buy it: US UK
DEDICATION
To Mrs D, FD and SD.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks, as usual, to my wife for her support (especially with regard to one very important decision). Thanks to my editors, Martha Hayes and Pauline Nolet, and the members of Team Milton who stomped on typos and checked facts until this book is as shiny and pristine as we can make it. You know who you are, and you all rock.
COPYRIGHT
AN UNPUTDOWNABLE ebook.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by UNPUTDOWNABLE LIMITED
Copyright © UNPUTDOWNABLE LIMITED 2013-2014
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
The moral right of Mark Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.