Within Spitting Distance

by Alan Burridge, Jane Burridge (Editor)

Just three weeks away from retirement, the last thing that Detective Inspector Raymond Cake needed was a murder. But it was a murder with a difference, as the only clue that he had was a severed penis, found on a local beach in Hamworthy, near Poole, Dorset.A young Thai-bride named Phailin Robinson reported finding the body-part whist out walking her dog. Cake finds that he is attracted to this petite oriental woman, but her husband, Anthony, a would-be but failed marine who still dresses the part in camouflage clothing, is a control freak, and Cake’s emotions become even more inflamed and entangled when he finds out that Robinson is insanely jealous, and regularly beats Phai. Certain that the severed penis belongs to an over-zealous male who had been seeking his wife’s affections; Cake believes that his suspicions are confirmed when he has the Robinson’s home searched, and finds an arsenal of guns and knives hidden in the cellar.The mutilated body is later found buried in shoreline mud by cockle-pickers, and Cake, along with his colleague, DS Boyle, two uniformed PC’s, and the Winfrith CSI team of Lacy Hickman and Adele Brock, begin unravelling the clues. But another severed penis is found, and then another. Is it indeed the jealous Anthony Robinson at the root of these murders, or are they a bizarre spin-off from the new underworld sex-game of Dogging? Can DI Raymond Cake solve this sexually motivated murder mystery, and hold his feelings in-check for the Thai-bride before he retires?

169 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 18, 2011