Book Synopsis:
Deirdre Cossette is the self appointed carer for the elderly on The Avenue and all of her friends have stories to tell. Margery, whose comfortable life was destroyed by a knock on the door. Stan, who made a mistake as a young footballer which cost him his friends and his self-respect. Marina, whose slim and stylish figure hides a terrible secret from the summer of Live Aid. And, Oliver and Archie, who have survived everything from post war homophobia to a family tragedy – and they have done it together. Deirdre believes that everyone should have a choice. If they want to live on a diet of cakes, drink the alcoholic equivalent of a small hydrotherapy pool, or take on a toy boy lover in spite of a dodgy heart, Deirdre believes it is their right to do so. If they remember her in their wills afterwards, that’s not her fault, is it? However, not everyone agrees with her. When disgruntled relatives from the present meet up with disgruntled ghosts from her past, Deirdre discovers the cost of being kind.
Killing Them With Kindness is available in ebook and paperback now. You can purchase your copy using the link below.
Extract:
Thank you so much for asking me to join you on your blog to talk about my latest novel Killing Them With Kindness. It is the story of a woman called Deirdre Cossette who believes that everyone has the right to live, and die, in the manner of their own choosing.
She has several friends who she ‘helps’. At this point in the novel one of those friends, Marina, has become distressed after Deirdre and herself walk into the aftermath of an accident as they are walking down The Avenue. After she has helped her inside, Deirdre encourages her to tell her story.
A young man stood on the door step. He was a couple of years older than Frankie, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He had a good-looking face, but it looked stretched and unattractive at this moment in time. Pinched and pale as it was.
He looked scared to death.
Unable to look Marina in the face, he launched into an indecipherable stream of words. By the time he had finished, she’d only gleaned two pieces of information that she fully understood.
His name was Clive, and he was responsible for Frankie’s death.
For a moment Marina was confused, Frankie had been killed when he lost control of his bicycle while travelling too fast down a steep hill. He had hit a wall at the road end, head first.
For one bizarre moment Marina thought Clive must have been the man who built the wall, and yet he looked far too young to be a brickie.
Perhaps encouraged by the calm, serene self that Marina was portraying – Clive began again.
It had been nearing the end of the school year, his first in sixth form, and all the exams were finished. He and his friends had too much time on their hands and were challenging each other to do stupid things. His mate Billy had been dared to go into the chemist and ask for a packet of condoms. He then had to open them and declare loudly that they were too large – it was an outrage they didn’t stock jonnies in super-skinny size for small-dicked losers like himself.
Another friend, Dave, had been challenged to go into the ladies’ department in Debenhams, take a set of bra and panties from the counter, go to the changing rooms, and try them on. He then had to reappear, wearing only the ladies’ lingerie which was far too skimpy to hide all his embarrassment, and ask his friends if his bum looked big.
Clive’s dare had been to visit three different phone boxes in ten minutes. On each occasion he had to ring the emergency services, and with his friends sniggering in the back ground, he was challenged to use a different voice to describe a different accident, and complete the task without laughing.
This had occurred on Monday 15 July.
When he had finished talking, he stood on the doorstep and seemed to be waiting for Marina to scream at him, swear at him, slap him. She did none of those things.
She invited him into the house for a glass of orange squash.
Once she’d poured him the drink and he’d sat at the breakfast bar sipping it, just like Frankie used to do, he continued his story.
Dave, Billy and he had been invited into the headmaster’s office the day afterwards and there had been a stern looking policeman with him. Clive had no idea how they’d been identified as the culprits, but when the head had challenged them about their behaviour of the day before, none of them even tried to deny it.
The policeman had lectured them all about the stupidity of wasting the time of the emergency services. He told them it was a criminal offence, and that they may well face charges against them.
He told them that a boy had died because the ambulances had been busy chasing their fake emergencies, which meant they’d arrived too late on the scene of a genuine tragedy.
Five minutes could have made all the difference.
Clive felt as if a hoover had been turned on and pushed into his mouth, sucking out the entire contents of his body. He felt empty and sick – and so bloody guilty.
For the last few weeks, he had barely left the house. He couldn’t bear to be with his friends, who had seemed to take the whole situation too casually for Clive’s guilty brain to handle. Basically, their only worry was the fact they might face criminal charges.
Yesterday, the stern policeman had visited again and told him, on this occasion, they’d decided not to take the matter any further. It would be noted on record and if he stepped out of line again, no matter how small and inconsequential the crime, he would know about it. His card had definitely been marked.
After his parents had added their own threats and disappointment, they’d left him alone.
He should have felt relieved that he hadn’t screwed up his whole future, and the horrible episode was over. But he didn’t.
He felt guiltier than ever.
He had known the lad who had died. He hadn’t been friends with him, he was in a different year group and their paths had never crossed socially. However, he had seen him playing tennis matches for the school and knew all too well the talent he had been responsible for snuffing out.
He had asked around, found out Frankie’s home address, and decided that if nothing else he needed to visit the family and apologise.
Marina hadn’t really commented. She hadn’t raged and she hadn’t forgiven. She simply changed the subject and they started talking about different topics entirely. They talked about his studies, the family trip to Cornwall, his interests and dreams for the future.
Before he left, Marina said that his visit had made her feel better than at any time since Frankie had died. Would he visit her again, please?
Clive had been so relieved, he nearly cried. He should have been all cried out after the last few weeks, but to see this lady behaving with such poise and style at a time when her world had crumbled in front of her made the tears well up once again.
He accepted without thinking, and they arranged for him to come to dinner the following Wednesday.
As she closed the door on his good-looking, relieved face, Marina knew exactly what she’d just set in motion.
She intended to murder him.
About The Author:
Andy Paulcroft grew up in Weston-super-Mare, and his love of books started when he borrowed his sister’s copy of Five Run Away Together and exaggerated a minor illness in order to finish reading it. He has since worked as a chef in France, Switzerland, Corsica and the North Highlands of Scotland before settling as a catering manager at a boarding school in Dorset. After many years of writing two to three chapters of a book before discarding it, he finally published his first novel Postcards From Another Life – in December 2017. The wonderful feeling of completing a novel was only surpassed by receiving a positive reaction from people who had read it. He retired from catering and recently published his second novel Killing Them With Kindness. He is now working on his third book.
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