En smakebit på søndag - Impostor

Den här veckan är det bloggen Flukten fra virkeligheten som håller i En smakebit på söndag. Poängen är att man ska bjuda på ett utdrag ur den bok man läser för tillfället.

Just nu läser jag Impostor av L.J. Ross, vilket är den första boken i serien om Alexander Gregory. Gregory är rättspsykolog, och har tidigare ingått i en elitgrupp som ägnade sig åt att skapa gärningsmannaprofiler, i syfte att hjälpa polisen att lösa allvarliga brott. Gruppen har dock stängts ned efter anklagelser om tjänstefel, och Gregory är den ende gruppmedlemmen som har klarat sig hyfsat undan den stora skandalen. När en mördare slår till på Irland ombeds han därför att hjälpa till.

In careful, neutral tones, they spoke of how his younger brother had died during the night and, with every passing word, the boy's pale, ghostly-white face became more shuttered.

    It had happened before, you see.

    Last year, his baby sister had died too, before she'd reached her first birthday.

    He remembered all the cards and flowers arriving at the house they used to live in; the endless stream of neighbours pouring into his mother's living room to condole and glean a little gossip about their misfortune. He remembered his mother's arm wrapped around his shoulder, cloying and immovable, like a band of steel.

    "These two are all I have left now," she'd said, tearfully, drawing Christopher tightly against her other side. "I can only pray that God doesn't take them, too."

    And, while the mourners tutted and wept and put 'a little something' in envelopes to help out, he'd watched his mother's eyes and wondered why she was so happy.