id="u245c3f51-68d4-5d70-9da8-7a11cd52504a">
The 45% Hangover
Stuart MacBride
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2014
The Missing and the Dead extract © Stuart MacBride 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Cover photograph © Jorg Greuel/Getty Images.
Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008123277
Version: 2016-02-17
Contents
Read on for an extract from the new Logan McRae thriller
‘GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!’ The scream cut through the world like a rusty chainsaw.
It reverberated back from the walls, jerking Logan fully awake. Then making him wish he wasn’t. Something large and spiky was loose inside his head, scrabbling at the back of his eyes with long dirty claws. He screwed his eyes shut and lay there, till the echoes faded.
‘WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?’
He gritted his teeth and opened one eye. Then the other one. Wide. Then his mouth.
Oh dear Jesus, no …
They were lying in bed. No idea whose bed, but it was definitely a bed – metal framed, with a brass headboard. Floral-print duvet.
Him and Detective Chief Inspector Steel. In bed. Together.
Her hair was flat on one side, poking out in all directions on the other, her lined face pulled into a shape of utter disgust. Worse yet, it didn’t look as if she was wearing a top.
No, no, no, no …
One arm wouldn’t move, but he used the other one to grab the duvet and pull it up to his chin. ‘Why are we—’
‘IF YOU SO MUCH AS—’
‘STOP BLOODY SHOUTING!’ He screwed his eyes shut, teeth gritted. Every heartbeat made the spiky thing in his skull throb. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll shout if I want to! You try waking up naked, in bed, with a sodding man and see how you like it.’
‘Naked?’ Oh no, not this … He raised the edge of the duvet an inch.
‘If you so much as peek, I swear to God, Laz, I’ll rip your bits off and give them back to you as a suppository!’ She hit him. ‘Get out.’
‘Arm’s gone to sleep.’
She kicked him under the duvet.
‘Ow!’
‘Get out!’
‘I can’t.’ His right leg wouldn’t move either. He jerked it to the side, but it barely moved, something was keeping it where it was. Something solid. ‘Oh no.’
She glared at him. ‘You bloody men are all the same aren’t you? Sex, sex, sex. Well let me tell you something, you randy wee shite, if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, I’m going to