Book Extract: The Automobile Assassination by MJ Porter

I am pleased to be welcoming MJ Porter back to Novel Kicks. 

A 1940s mystery

Erdington, September 1944

As events in Europe begin to turn in favour of the Allies, Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is once more prevailed upon to solve a seemingly impossible case.

Called to the local mortuary where a man’s body lies, shockingly bent double and lacking any form of identification, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves at Castle Bromwich aerodrome seeking answers that seem out of reach to them. The men and women of the royal air force stationed there are their prime suspects. Or are they? Was the man a spy, killed on the orders of some higher authority, or is the place his body was found irrelevant? And why do none of the men and women at the aerodrome recognise the dead man?

Mason, fearing a repeat of the cold case that dogged his career for two decades and that he’s only just solved, is determined to do all he can to uncover the identity of the dead man, and to find out why he was killed and abandoned in such a bizarre way, even as Smythe demands he spends his time solving the counterfeiting case that is leaving local shopkeepers out of pocket.

Join Mason and O’Rourke as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.

MJ Porter has shared an extract from The Automobile Assassination. Enjoy! 

*****beginning of extract*****

In which Detective Inspector Mason and Sergeant O’Rourke encounter one of the Automobile Association’s sentry boxes.

In front of them, Mason could see old Watling Street coming into view as they travelled along Sutton Road. He caught a first glimpse of the unmistakable Automobile Association telephone box. Even it had been repainted in less lurid colours than usual because of the war effort. All the same, the road sign placed above the box was a monstrous thing as it sat atop the sentry box, decked out in camouflage green and black stripes. It drew the eye easily enough.

To the bottom, the set of double signs directed the motorcar driver, bus or motorcycle rider towards Fazeley or Hints. The higher-up signs led the traveller towards Tamworth or Lichfield, depending on which way you wanted to travel.

The signs were the same green as the telephone box was edged in, with the writing in black on them and the distance given in miles. He smirked on seeing it. He well remembered when he was a much younger man, and the signs had been more simplistic, simply highlighting the ancient milestones used for so many decades, if not centuries, and often written on what was little more than lumps of handy stone.

That had been changing before the war. Now everything had been set back until the bloody war was over.

If they ever ended petrol rationing, he could see a growth in the use of motorcars. And not just for the men. Women had been driving lorries and ambulances as well, just as O’Rourke drove the Wolseley. The future, when it arrived, promised a great many changes, and he welcomed it.

He had to admit that the patrolmen had done an excellent job of maintaining the small building. He’d never needed to access one of the telephone boxes before. He doubted few did, not here. The route the patrols took each day took them routinely past this place. He knew that because he’d seen them often enough. Before the war, most of the patrols had ridden bicycles. The change to motorbikes had been welcome but slow. The routes, he appreciated, could be longer ones when the patrols had motorbikes and not just peddle power.

If anyone happened to break down between Mile Oak and Erdington, and the breakdown wasn’t caused by lack of petrol, they would get found soon enough. Still, the cables above the telephone box showed that the telephone was connected to the switchboard run by the Automobile Association from their head office.

It would be strange, he thought, to pick up the handset and have it answered by someone in faraway Leicester Square, London, when the person who called had broken down here, in Mile Oak, over a hundred miles away. Still, the switchboard operator would ensure help came soon enough.

Mason wasn’t expecting to see the collection of roses and geraniums surrounding the Automobile Association box, the colours bright; the roses an array of reds and whites, the geraniums a darker red.

“Have they always been there?” he thought to ask.

O’Rourke nodded. “Oh yes. They’re very proud of their flowers and the good condition they keep their little box in.”

Mason didn’t know what to say. Bad enough the camouflage green without the flowers as well. They were going to extraordinary lengths to showcase the Automobile Association. And then he groaned because there were two roadside patrolmen, with their motorbikes pulled up on the side of the road, standing, one on either side of the road, watching the traffic flow.

“I wonder if the Tamworth police have a speed trap out today?” Mason asked O’Rourke. He couldn’t think of another reason why two of the patrolmen would be stood in such an odd arrangement.

“I can’t see one,” O’Rourke replied quickly.

“Then what are they doing?”

Mason eyed the two men as O’Rourke pulled the Wolseley over to the side of the crossroads. They were dressed nattily in their uniforms. They looked as though they were in the army or the navy. The trousers and jacket were near-identical in colour as well as cut. Mason was always surprised how people tasked with fixing motor engines could keep themselves looking so smart. Surely, he thought, they should have oily hands and oil stains on their trousers? But, of course, they no doubt had overalls to ensure such didn’t happen.

Instead, they wore their brown trousers and smart long socks, trousers tucked into them, and beneath, he didn’t doubt that their knee-high boots were buffed so that they shone just as brightly as the angular Automobile Association badges on their jackets. He noted that they wore steel helmets and not the usual flat caps they’d worn before the war. The motorcycles had also been painted the same shade as the sentry boxes to stop them from being so easily identifiable.

*****end of extract*****

About MJ Porter:

MJ Porter is the author of many historical novels set predominantly in Seventh to Eleventh-Century England, as well as three twentieth-century mysteries.

Raised in the shadow of a building that was believed to house the bones of long-dead Kings of Mercia, meant that the author’s writing destiny was set.

Say hello to MJ Porter via mjporterauthor.com, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Bookbub, Amazon, Goodreads and Linker.ee. 

Click here to buy The Automobile Assassination. 

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.