BLOG TOUR, BOOK EXCERPT - Rat Island by John Steele

 

                                                                     BOOK SYNOPSIS

New York, 1995. Cop Callum Burke arrives in New York from Hong Kong, drafted in as part of an international investigation into organised crime. 

With the handover of Hong Kong to China only a couple of years away, gangsters are moving their operations out of the territory and into New York ahead of the looming deadline. 

Burke’s experiences with East Asian crime and the Triads’ links to the Irish Mob make him the perfect man to send in undercover. 

But as he infiltrates these vast and lethal criminal networks, bodies start to pile up in his wake and his conscience threatens to send him over the edge. 

And when Burke’s NYPD handlers push him to continue the investigation at all costs, he may have to cross the line from cop to criminal just to stay alive… 

Readers of Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, Steve Cavanagh, Richard Price and John Sandford will love this dark and morally complex novel which presents a searing portrait of mid-1990s New York as you’ve never seen it before.

In this extract from Rat Island set in 1995, Callum Burke, undercover in an Irish American mob in the city, is drinking and letting off steam in a park on the Upper east Side in Manhattan with his NYPD contact, Sergeant Mike O’Connell. Callum is a Hong Kong policeman from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They talk about the Triads, the Chinatown Tong group, and the Irish mob. 

A helicopter flew along the Queens shoreline across the river, a red light blinking on the nose cone. 

Callum threw his empty can, losing it in the gloom of the park before picking up the soft clatter of its landing on the paving somewhere to the right of the lawn. 

O’Connell shook his head. ‘I could bust you for that. Broken Windows policing, courtesy of the man in the big house over there.’ 

He cocked a thumb toward where Gracie Mansion, official residence of Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, sat near the northern boundary of the park. 

‘A slab of overtime in Central Booking downtown for me,’ said O’Connell , ‘and a couple hours for you in The Tombs. Might do your credibility some good with Walsh and his crew.’ 

Callum pulled the ring on another can. ‘So if I go right here, I’m pissing on the Mayor’s lawn?’

‘You need a leak, you hide behind a tree. Last thing we need is a cop walking by sees you. Then I gotta ’ explain things and suddenly the 23rd Precinct is gossiping about some Irish meat-head with an NYPD Fairy Godfather.’

‘I’ll spare you the indignity,’ said Callum. He took a swig on the beer. It was starting to taste like shit. ‘How powerful is the mayor?’ 

O’Connell shrugged. ‘I guess he’s the boss of the city. If this is the biggest and best city in the world, I guess Giuliani is the most important mayor out there. But let’s face it, New York is one big pain in the ass. I wouldn’t wanna’ be responsible for it.’

‘Is he the Mayor of Chinatown, too?’

‘What, you’re saying it’s Sammy Ong?’

‘Hong Kong’s got a Governor. Right now it’s a man called Patten. But in Tsim Sha Tsui or Mong Kok or Yuen Long, he’s nothing. There, it’s the Triad bosses. The Dragon Heads.’

‘Like Old Man Bamboo Zhao, right?’ 

Callum lit another smoke. He looked east as he spoke, jabbing the air with his cigarette like he was lecturing Queens. 

‘Stanley Bamboo Zhao. You know why that oul’ bastard had the nickname Bamboo? Ever been hit with a bamboo rod? It’s fucking agony.’ Callum took a long pull on the beer. ‘He ran the gamut of Triad crime: Protection money, drugs, prostitution, smuggling, stolen goods. His organization snatched young girls off the street in poor areas. Then they systematically raped them and called it stamping the merchandise, can you believe that?’ 

O’Connell’s eyes darkened as he leaned back in the shadow. 

Callum sniffed and took another swig from his can. 

‘Any girl is gonna’ feel like her world is over but the shame for a Chinese – you can’t imagine. So the Triad forced the girls to work as prostitutes. They sold them to brothels and the price became the girls’ debt. They had to work it off but only ten percent of what they earned went to the debt. It could take at least ten years to work that off – can you comprehend what ten years of hooking does to a teenage girl?’

The air had become colder and O’Connell hunkered down into his coat. Callum swung his can in the air, spilling beer. 

‘Boys, too. The Triads sold weak ones to Southeast Asia, or to the Yakuza. They recruited the tougher boys. I ask you, O’Connell, how do you bust a brothel and wrap a blanket around a shivering thirteen-year-old, then go home to your little girl and play dolls and tea parties?’ 

O’Connell said, ‘I dunno’.’ 

He looked at the dark lawn, awkward and self-conscious. Callum was crying. 

‘Still,’ said Callum, wiping his eyes, cigarette still wedged between his fingers, ‘there’s no difference in shoveling up what’s left of a child after a bomb back in Belfast. It’s the desecration of innocence.’ He laughed hard and bitter. ‘That’s a mouthful after a slew of beers.’ 

Someone yelled on the street behind and the keen of a siren came to them from Harlem like the wail of a grieving mother. ‘We should go,’ said O’Connell. ‘Go back to Doolan’s apartment and sleep this off.’ 

Callum turned, his eyes raw in the light from the city, his cheeks lined with shining tear tracks, and looked at the New York cop. He had dropped his cigarette without realizing. A frown furrowed his forehead and he spoke with deliberation, desperate to get his message through, or not trusting O’Connell to understand. 

‘I just want to do something good, Mike,’ he said. ‘Something to make me believe I deserve my little girl. To prove myself to Irene.’ 

O’Connell made to stand. Callum grabbed his shoulder. 

‘We’ll get Walsh and his crew. Then the Chinese. No more violence. No more drugs. No more kids. We’ll get them together, Mike. Like the NYPD motto says.’ 

He wiped a thread of snot from his nose. 

‘Faithful unto death.’

                                                                        AUTHOR BIO

John Steele was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1995, at the age of twenty-two he travelled to the United States and has since lived and worked on three continents, including a thirteen-year spell in Japan. 

Among past jobs he has been a drummer in a rock band, an illustrator, a truck driver and a teacher of English. He now lives in England with his wife and daughter. 

He began writing short stories, selling them to North American magazines and fiction digests. He has published three previous novels : RAVENHILL , SEVEN SKINS and DRY RIVER, the first of which was longlisted for a CWA Debut Dagger award. 

John’s books have been described as ‘Remarkable’ by the Sunday Times, ‘Dark and thrilling’ by Claire McGowan, and ‘Spectacular’ by Tony Parsons. The Irish Independent called John ‘a writer of huge promise’ and Gary Donnelly appointed him ‘the undisputed champion of the modern metropolitan thriller’. 

Social Media Links – 

Twitter: @ JohnSte_author 

Purchase Links 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rat-Island-Gripping-Gritty-Thriller-ebook/dp/B096W8W32T/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HXVIM4FKVEI1&dchild=1&keywords=rat+island&qid=1630970042&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Rat-Island-Gripping-Gritty-Thriller-ebook/dp/B096W8W32T/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=224F9ZH6AJND4&dchild=1&keywords=rat+island&qid=1630970145&sprefix=rat+is&sr=8-1

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