We are delighted to welcome author Dan Newman to Omnimystery News today.
Dan's new suspense thriller is The Clearing (Diversion Books; April 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to it with an excerpt.
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THE MAN WITH THE BLUE T-SHIRT and sunglasses was standing at the top of the pathway, newspaper held loosely at his side, watching Nate. The sight fully stopped Nate, and the two men stared at each other until at last the man in the sunglasses casually dropped the newspaper, turned, and walked out of view. A car door slammed, an engine revved, and somewhere around the corner a vehicle moved off down the street.
Finally Nate moved. He trotted up to the boulevard, and saw that whatever car had been there was now gone, as was the man in the sunglasses. By his feet, the newspaper fluttered on the ground. Despite the breeze it remained anchored to its spot on the carefully mown and perfectly green grass. It had been weighed down by a black chicken. It was clearly dead, and its feet were bound tightly with course string in coils like a hangman's noose. Its feathers seemed slick and oily, and as Nate stooped to look closer he could tell it was blood. He nudged the carcass with an outstretched foot, rolled it over on one side and then kneeled down beside it. The dead bird had apparently been gutted, and something had been stuffed into the cavity. It looked like a small bottle wrapped in leaves and shoots of some kind, and from what he could see there appeared to be more blood inside the small vial.
With his eyes locked on the bird, Nate stood and became suddenly aware that he was grimacing unabashedly at the thing on the ground. He looked around and realized he was drawing curious glances, so he dropped his head and walked quickly to the car. Whatever this was, whatever it meant, whatever it was somehow supposed to convey, Nate was convinced of one thing without reservation: the message was for him.
It was as if a door in a long-sealed and airless room had been forced open — and Nate knew without question where that door could be found. It was part of an old and decaying house on the far side of the island, where its rusting tin roof and dark archways were slowly being suffocated by a tangle of vines and wild thickets. He couldn't leave the island without doing what he'd come to do, even if it killed him. The thought calmed him some and as he focused on it, he realized that this momentary weakness was just a small matter of a failure to remember. He cast his mind back, immersed himself in the memory, in the horror of his past. Moments later, the courage — or at least a sense of grim determination — came flooding back. He was here for a reason, and with that focus once more set, Nate was able to pull himself together and get moving.
Back in Smiley's car, he reached over the seat to his hastily packed case and unzipped it. It felt rigid and latently powerful in his hand, as it always had, even through the folds of the worn brown paper bag. And with that sensation came others — a swell of emotions so complex that Nate had to pull his hand from the bag to calm himself. He took an even, steady breath. He was here to fix it all. He would make it right.
Nate started the car and looked in the rear-view mirror. Across the street, a police Jeep sat in the deep shade of a broad almond tree. He couldn't see for sure, but it looked like there was someone in it, and if he let himself, he could quickly be convinced they were watching him, too. Nate shook his head, refused to be drawn into the conspiracy.
His path was clear. He would drive away, find a place to spend the night, and in the morning he would make his way back into the past, back to Ti Fenwe Estate, back to the hollow in the forest where his life had been so clearly and regrettably defined.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Dan Newman
Dan Newman is an Englishman by birth, a Canadian by immigration, and amalgam of several wonderful places in Southern Africa by virtue of the time he spent there growing up. He's a citizen of the beach thanks to his formative years spent in the Caribbean, and is a self-described Australian enviator, which means he envies all that someone else has, thanks to the time he spent there at Grad school, and the hours and days he spent trying desperately to look like he knew what he was doing on a surfboard.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at DanNewmanBooks.com or find him on Twitter.
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The Clearing by Dan Newman
A Novel of Suspense
Publisher: Diversion Books
Some moments linger forever. Some curses can't be broken. Some crimes refuse to stay buried …
A young man returns to St. Lucia, where he grew up, and where his guilt for the part he played in a murder continues to haunt.
Now, thirty years later, Nate responds to his father's suicide with a trip back to St. Lucia, the land where he was raised as an outsider, tolerated but not accepted. As a boy he ventured out to the plantation of Ti Fenwe with three others — weak-willed Pip, and cousins Richard and Tristan. Surrounded on all sides by dense jungle, the boys explore, their only rule to be back in the house before nightfall. Because at Ti Fenwe, something ancient stalks the jungle, its reputation more horrifying than any of the boys can comprehend.
But it's a very real enemy who changes the boys forever, and snuffs out a life. Decades later, Nate comes back to finally gain a measure of peace over his role in the killing, and to uncover the deadly secrets of St. Lucia once and for all.
— The Clearing by Dan Newman
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