The Kingfisher's Debt by Kura Carpenter

Release date: September 30, 2018

Subgenre: Urban fantasy

About The Kingfisher's Debt:

 

Magic isn’t real, right?

Within the small coastal city of Dunedin, local translator, Tamsin Fairchild has a reputation she hates. People think she’s psychic…

Always hovering around and interfering in Tamsin’s life, part father-figure, part thorn in her side, Detective Jackson, is an old-school cop. Childhood friend to her deceased mother, Tamsin wonders could her mother have let an outsider in on the truth?

Newcomer, rookie cop Scott Gale is forced to team-up with Tamsin when they investigate the disappearance of a newborn baby and a bizarre crime scene—satanic ritual or hoax?

More and more the blame starts to point towards Tamsin...

Tamsin must uncover who’s framing her, find the baby before it’s too late, unravel the mystery behind her elder brother’s disappearance, and stop Scott from entering a world not meant for human eyes.

But Scott has family secrets of his own and Tamsin doesn’t know who to trust.

But can you trust Tamsin? What if the person who saved your life is about to frame you for murder?

 

Excerpt:

 

Chapter One - Winter – Present Day

Don’t kill anyone.

Huh. Stupid thing to say. Like I always had a choice?

“Don’t kill anyone,” I repeated Fin’s last words, my breath visible in the cold twilight. “Telling me—me! Tamsin Fricking-Kills-People is my middle nameee—” I lurched, boot-heels skidding on the asphalt sparkled with evening frost, hugged a lamppost and regained my balance.

Huh. Wear boots they said. More stupid advice. “Stupid Black Sabbath.”

All hope of an imposing entrance gone, I edged down View Street’s steep incline to the parked patrol car. In the driver’s seat, a cop stared at a nearby Art Deco apartment building. Chinese script was painted on the roughcast in dripping red strokes.

Had the cop taken a close look? Goat’s blood red wasn’t a typical Valspar colour.

I knocked on the car window and lowered my gaze to his notebook propped against the steering wheel. He’d sketched a decent but imperfect copy of the pictogram. Good.

“You the translator?” he asked over the hum of the descending window.

“You the cop?” I tugged up the collar on my coat and hunkered down inside its warmth. “Don’t tell me,” I said, as he climbed from the vehicle, “you were expecting… Jes…sus…” His eyes. They were so blue. Was he one of us? I gaped up at him.

“Six foot six,” he said, face impassive. A twang in his accent suggested he was Canadian or American, “and a half.”

“Ahh,” I blathered, “you were probably expecting me to be Chinese.”

Who was this guy? I signalled a covert Devil’s horn. Middle fingers tucked down under my thumb, pinky and index fingers straight up. He didn’t even twitch.

“Officer Scott Gale.” He offered his hand.

That proved it. Definitely human. I kept my gloves on and shook his hand. “Tamsin Fairchild, uh, five foot three precisely.”

The officer hooked out a business card from a pocket on his stab-proof vest. His granite expression cracked with a brief smile. “This you?”

Tamsin Summer Rose Fairchild.

Who had given an outsider my card? Did he know it was an I.O.U?

“Yeah, my mum was a hippie—ah, mum, that’s mom in translation.”

“I see,” the officer said flatly. “No phone number, no business address.”

“Misprint…?” I reached out to relieve him of my Debt marker.

He tucked the I.O.U back into his pocket. “I contacted Comms after I was given your business card by the elderly Chinese lady who’s at the centre of the graffiti complaint,” he said, with a nod to the markings on the apartment wall, “and a Tamsin Fairchild was under the local translator services.”

“Ohhh…” Madame Wu had given him my card. Why? “You know how it is.” I shrugged. “Clients like to deal with the same translator.” I smiled openly, trying to convey I was likeable and above all entirely human.

 

 

Amazon eBook | Amazon Paperback | Book Depository | GoodReads

 

About Kura Carpenter:

Kura Carpenter is a Writer and Graphic Designer based in the small but perfectly formed coastal city of Dunedin, New Zealand. She volunteers her time for several organisations including a group who make and wear Victorian clothes to promote the city by entertaining the tourists and who also fund-raise books for children visiting the Dunedin Public Hospital.

Kura enjoys reading, practising calligraphy, doodling, designing fabric and constructing miniature furniture from ice-block sticks. A few years ago she was fortunate enough to adopt a retired racing greyhound and now wants everyone to experience the joy of sharing your house and heart with these gentle goofballs.

 

Website | Blog