Prime Cut (33 page)

Prime Cut
was shortlisted in the 2010 Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award as a manuscript titled
Chinese Whispers.

I would like to thank the following. Jamie Steele – who makes the best coffee in Hopetoun and is a man of impeccable character. Georgia Richter and Wendy Jenkins for keeping me on the straight, narrow, grammatical, and correctly punctuated. In particular Georgia for those suggestions that helped me out of a few deep dark holes. Early readers Ron Elliott, Peter Pritchard, Tess McGinty (my mother-in-law) who said ‘it was very nice dear but maybe a few less F words’, and my brother Brian who put me straight on a few matters of Sunderland football history and local language and customs which I’d forgotten in my long years of exile. Many who remain nameless who shared their insights into small-town life, the universe and everything.

There are some divergences from the real Hopetoun in the text: the boomtown colour-code of orange and yellow fluoros is a figment of my imagination; there is no breakfast restaurant overlooking Murder HQ; and the prisoner lock-up arrangements are pure artistic licence.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.