Michael Marshall: The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels

MICHAEL

MARSHALL

THE STRAW MEN 3-BOOK THRILLER COLLECTION

This novel is entirely 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 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.

Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Michael Marshall 2015

Michael Marshall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780008135096

Version: 2015-04-10

Cover

Title Page MICHAEL MARSHALL THE STRAW MEN 3-BOOK THRILLER COLLECTION

Copyright Copyright Copyright The Straw Men The Lonely Dead Blood of Angels Keep Reading About the Author By Michael Marshall About the Publisher This novel is entirely 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 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. Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 Copyright © Michael Marshall 2015 Michael Marshall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780008135096 Version: 2015-04-10

The Straw Men

The Lonely Dead

Blood of Angels

Keep Reading

About the Author

By Michael Marshall

About the Publisher

The Straw Men The Lonely Dead Blood of Angels Keep Reading About the Author By Michael Marshall About the Publisher

MICHAEL

MARSHALL

THE

STRAW

MEN

HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition 2003

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2002

Copyright © Michael Marshall Smith 2002

The Author 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 novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780006499985

Ebook Edition © MAY 2009 ISBN: 9780007325344

Version: 2015-04-10

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

ForJane Johnson

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Part 2

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part 3

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Acknowledgements

We are too late for gods

and too early for Being.

Being’s poem,

Just begun, is man.

Martin Heidegger

Language, Truth, Thought Translated by Albert Hofstadter

Palmerston is not a big town, nor one that can convincingly be said to be at the top of its game. It’s just there, like a mark on the sidewalk. Like all towns, it has a past and once had a future, but in this case that future turned out to involve little but getting dustier and more sedate, nudged ever further from the through lines of history: a stiff old faucet at the end of an increasingly rusty pipe, that someday is going to leak so badly that no water makes it to the end at all.

The town sits on the Allegheny River, in the shade of muscular hills, and has more trees than you could shake a stick at unless you had a lot of time and were unusually demented. The railroad used to pass close by, just the other side of the river, but in the mid 70s the station was closed and most of the track lifted up.