Read an extract from Lost Voyage the third in Pauline Rowson's Art Marvik mystery series

Lost Voyage, number three in the series featuring former Royal Commando, Art Marvik, now an undercover investigator with the UK's National Intelligence Marine Squad, is published by Severn House and is available in hardcover and as an ebook.

"Plenty of action, I didn't want to put the book down. A good read for mystery/ thriller fans." Net Galley

Read an extract from Lost Voyage below:





Marvik once again went over his boat. All was secure. No one had entered it. He swallowed a couple of strong painkillers, then froze as he felt a movement on the pontoon. He steeled himself in readiness. His cabin lights were on. He couldn’t see who it was, only an outline of a dark-clothed figure. There was nowhere to hide. Besides, he wouldn’t hide anyway. This was what he had anticipated. He knew who his visitor was. Had he come alone, though? Had he come with the intention of killing him?

Marvik’s senses were on full alert for the smell of petrol, the placing of an explosive or the thud of an incendiary device which could be lobbed on to his boat, resulting in a massive fire. He might just have time to leap off the side into the sea.

His heart was beating fast, the adrenaline pumping. He’d left the cabin door open but he didn’t go outside. Instead he climbed silently and swiftly on to the fly bridge, keeping low. Here he had a good view of the pontoon. There were two of them. The bulkier one wore a peaked sailing cap rammed low down over his forehead, dark trousers and a sailing jacket. He nodded to the leaner, bare-headed man beside him, also dressed in dark clothes. The lean man climbed carefully on to the rear of Marvik’s boat and stealthily made his way around to the cabin door while the other man stayed on the pontoon. Marvik saw him glance rather nervously in both directions and back at the pontoon from where he’d come, towards the car park.

The boat rocked gently as the man entered the helm. Marvik could hear him breathing and sensed him searching it. Was he armed? Then he heard the soft footfall on the steps that led to the upper helm where Marvik crouched. As the head appeared, then the upper torso, Marvik launched himself on it and within a second had the man’s neck in a tight armlock before the bastard could blink or cry out. The heavy-duty torch in the man’s right hand – not brought for illumination, Marvik thought, but for striking – clattered to the deck.

‘You really should get some practice in,’ Marvik growled in the man’s ear as he gripped his arm and wrenched it up his back. ‘Now, do you want me to break your neck or your arm, or shall we go down and invite your mate to come on board?’

Marvik’s grip tightened. The man’s eyes bulged in a face which was rapidly turning blue as the oxygen was being severed. He managed to blink acceptance of the offer and Marvik picked up the heavy torch then thrust the man down the stairs ahead of him on to the deck, still holding him by the neck and in an armlock. Marvik called out to the bulkier man on the pontoon who had already seen them and had started nervously. ‘You’d better come on board, Royden, or would you rather I break your mate’s neck?’
‘No. I’m coming,’ Royden hastily replied and scrambled on board.

 

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Also available as an ebook and on Amazon Kindle, Kobo and for loan from UK, USA, Irish and Commonwealth libraries


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