book cover of Asking For It
 

Asking For It

(2012)
(A book in the Jack Preston series)
A novel by

 
 
Criminals have rights under our system but what about the victims' rights? Isn't it time someone in the heart of the system balances things out a little? Detective Inspector Hugh Mason thinks so and he intends to use Professor Jack Preston as his instrument for dishing out a little rough justice.

Forensic pathologists are a breed apart and among them Jack Preston is a one-off. A tough childhood has given him an unusual slant on the idea of taking revenge for personal injuries. Preston is a brilliant pathologist recently awarded a professorship in charge of a state of the art forensic service at the University.

Embittered by the recent death of his wife and son at the hands of a drunken driver called Darren Darnell who is also a major local drug dealer and criminal he is easy meat for DI Mason, particularly when the justice system hands Darnell a lenient sentence for what he's done to Preston's family.

Mason is being pressed for results and Professor Jack Preston is the man who will provide them.

He cleverly supplies Preston with the information the professor needs to kill Darnell. .

Jack Preston kills Darnell in an undetectable way but then to his horror discovers that DI Mason knows all about his crime.

The two men develop an ambiguous relationship. Preston refuses to help Mason when it comes to falsifying forensic results which can save an evil copper from prison but when Mason reveals that a serial killer who escaped punishment for previous crimes on a technicality is in town to hunt down his next victim Preston becomes committed to preventing him in the only possible way.

Jack Preston never becomes a slave of the ambitious copper. When the serial killer is discovered dead in his room, having apparently hanged himself, Mason refuses to believe it was Jack Preston who orchestrated the killer's grisly death.

He still thinks Preston 'owes' him for being 'let off' for Darnell's killing. Then a paedophile ring start murdering little boys. Preston becomes directly involved when the son of a former girl friend disappears. Mason knows who is guilty but he can't do anything which might damage the killer's rights.

Preston can and does.


Genre: Mystery

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