Cold Dawn
By James Ellson
The second crime novel in the critically acclaimed DCI Rick Castle series
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Against the rules, Manchester DCI Rick Castle removes a prisoner from Strangeways and returns to Nepal.
His aim is to bring to justice his nemesis, Hant Khetan, rumoured to be the next Osama Bin Laden.
A week into the trail, the prisoner escapes.
Rick and his small team search for their escaped prisoner along the trekking paths of the Everest foothills. Backdropped by snow-capped mountains, and through earthquake-flattened villages, he becomes increasingly desperate.
If they can’t find him, Rick can’t even begin . . .
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James Ellson
James Ellson was a police officer for 15 years, starting in London and finishing as a Detective Inspector at Moss Side in Manchester. He now wears two hats, smallholder and writer.
He lives in the Peak District with his wife, and manages their smallholding, which includes bees and an orchard.
Cold Dawn is the sequel to his debut novel The Trail published in 2020. He is now working on the third book in the DCI Castle series.
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1.
After a month in Strangeways, Calix Coniston changed cells. Flanked by guards, he stood on the metal catwalk, holding his cardboard crate. The three men waited, Calix staring at the crate. There were air-holes in the sides, and in a former life it had held apples for a supermarket. Pink Lady. He’d never heard of them.
The cell door jerked into life and rattled from right to left.
Third time lucky?
The first had been a drink-driver who’d killed an old man on a pedestrian crossing. A prison epiphany meant Kerry was constantly praying and quoting the bible. To be woken every day to Psalm 118-24: ‘This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice’ had driven Calix nuts. Two weeks of that and then for a reason never explained, Calix had been moved to a different cell. Havel was a Slovakian lorry driver who’d been stopped at Dover with 38 kilos of heroin hidden behind a false compartment. Didn’t speak a word of English. Hummed to himself at night and always on the bog.
The door juddered to a halt and Calix walked in with the crate. The cell smelt of pot noodle and cigarettes.
As the door rattled shut a man stared down from the top bunk. He was mid-twenties, ginger-haired and freckly. His torso was bare and the tattoo of a lion’s head bulged on his tricep. Thick red headphones angled back on his head. He held a comic. Calix nodded a greeting, then glanced around. A cabbage-green plastic table and two matching chairs. On the table sat a small TV with the sound down low. Above it was a shelf and the bog was in the corner. There wasn’t a mirror because it could be smashed and the shards used to wound – or kill.
- 1st April 2021 We're off!
Dear Supporters
The BH weekend is upon us. Lockdown is easing, we’ve had a couple of days of warm weather, and our ducks have laid their first egg in six months!
A HUGE thank you for supporting Cold Dawn. The book has reached 19% funding in the first ten days which is a great start.
I chose the title for two reasons:
Firstly, Nepal has some of the most beautiful dawns I…
These people are helping to fund Cold Dawn.
Geoff Norris
R McCoy
Alissa Boardley
Madeleine Blenkinsop
Sarah Walker
Matt Wright
Frank Wigley
Kurt Gengenbacher
Jayne Plummer
Jonathan Hill
Peter Gray
Dan Rawstorne
John Davies
Olivia Newbery
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Deirdre Ezzell Stables
Helen and Philip Ellson
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