Murder at the Grindhouse - a little sample to read...

My new novel "Murder at the Grindhouse" is coming out August 7th 2026, available worldwide on paperback and eBook via Amazon - so here's a little sample to read: the prologue that kicks things off.

 

Murder at the Grindhouse

Copyright 2026 Nick Thomson 

PROLOGUE

January 1982

Granted, I've never rode behind a hearse before, but I don't think they're supposed to ride that low to the ground. Aunt Teresa was a robust woman, and yeah, she's only been present in occasional letters since sixty-nine, but there's no way she's put on this much weight since then.

The black Caddy up ahead wallows along the freeway, its undulating rear bumper scraping against the patchwork tarmacadam as the winter sun, wreathed in freezing clouds, slithers across the soft curves and sharp details of its gleaming body.

Uncle Gene's up front. He hasn't said a word since this morning at JFK, his frosty silence imposed upon everyone else in the limousine.

“At least the sun came out for her,” I say, disregarding the verbal embargo.

In the middle row of seats, Dad's gaze refuses to peel away from the world passing by, as Mom turns her head an inch or two, that all-too-familiar blankness on her face. Neither utter a word. The same goes for Angela, head to toe in black and keeping her distance. Despite the veil, there's a hint of a smile under the brim of her hat. She must like folks stewing in their awkwardness...

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Dad whispers something to Uncle Gene, who turns on the radio with his clumsy, sausage-like fingers. A newsreader's voice forbids further conversation.

The towers of New York City shrink away. Uncle Gene's a lifer. So was Mom, until she met Dad and split the scene for Iowa and a scrub patch of farmland. How does he or anyone else do it? So many people, so many buildings, so much traffic and noise and movement. Friends back home say everyone who lives in New York has to be a millionaire or downright crazy to put up with it. “They've all got penthouse apartments,” Danny said the night before last, his butt planted on the tailgate of his Pop's truck with his ragged boots scuffing the dirt at the edge of the football field, legs kicking back and forth. “And all the men are porking their maids, and all their wives are screwing delivery boys. They don't have to do nothin' 'cos they've got plenty of cash to pay chumps from hick towns to do all the shit work. I don't know how they live with themselves,” Danny said, concluding his treatise against The Big Apple by launching a phlegmy wad through the air to hit the ten yard line. How do the elders of Blue Brook stop themselves from going insane? There's only so many tractor pulls or 'finest hog' competitions to attend.

Despite catching a glimpse of her turning her head away, Angela's barely moved or uttered a mumble since JFK when she was waxing lyrical to Uncle Gene about “the Bijou”. Instead of asking her a million questions, I pick at my fingernails.

The vibrations of the newsreader's worn voice run through the limo. A jet plane crashed within sight of the White House. Officials estimate dozens are dead. Uncle Gene kills the radio and crosses himself.

A popping sound tramples the gesture. The driver yells and swerves the limousine to avoid the airborne debris of a blown tire. Up ahead, the hearse lurches sharply to the right, hits the railing of the overpass and pirouettes into the air. The limo driver slams on the brakes. Everything lurches forward, every eye glued to the hearse – nose down, upright, and spinning in the air.

The other driver's hands pointlessly wrestle with the steering wheel. His scrunched-up face anticipates the big hit. The hearse seems to hang in the air disobediently, until it abruptly soars over the twisted overpass railing. Its uneven weight whips it about awkwardly, and it disappears from view. The limo halts and, finally, metal thunderously strikes concrete.

I leap out and charge across the freeway, vehicles squealing to a stop, and slam so hard into the undamaged part of the railing that I almost topple over it.

Below, in a muddy drainage ditch amidst the shopping carts, smashed-up TV sets, and rain-sodden armchairs, the hearse lies in a contorted mess. Twisted metal. Broken glass. Sizzling radiator steam.

The driver crawls through where the wind shield used to be, spluttering disjointed syllables, and flops onto the hard ground.

Someone yells my name, but before I know what's happening I'm sliding down the embankment as plumes of tire smoke follows on the breeze, and I slip, falling flat on my back like a giant jackass. Struggling to suck air, shirt and suit jacket bunched up around my shoulders – a long streak of mud and dead leaves for a spine – the fray eagerly presents itself to me.

“My Boss is so going to fire me for this,” coughs the dazed driver, clutching his ribs. He looks up at the overpass with a hangdog face and pleads. “The tire just blew. It wasn't my fault, I swear. Please don't sue. All my cards are maxed out!”

Uncle Gene, Angela, the limo driver, Mom and Dad, they all look down at him, but not quite – just beyond – in shock. The rear door of the hearse hangs open, loose on its hinges, and forty feet away in a pool of black, greasy water is the casket. Scraped and battered and busted open.

“Calvin, no! Don't!” shouts Uncle Gene, but my feet are already moving and suddenly there's Aunt Teresa in a blue dress and jacket combo with white lace detailing. The last time she wore this outfit Mom wouldn't talk to her for hours. “It's so inappropriate” she'd said over and over. “You don't wear something like that on a day like this”.

Despite honking horns and commuters yelling “What the hell's going on? Move yo' ass, I got places to be!”, Mom's saying much the same as the last time she saw Aunt Teresa in this outfit.

Teresa's body is slumped like a discarded Halloween decoration. Her head is craned back and burrowed into the cushioned lining from the top of her head down to the bridge of her nose, which has a new bump. Her jaw is gaped wide open and her arms are crossed, like she's wearing an invisible straight jacket. The middle finger of one manicured hand is inexplicably jammed up her nose to the first joint, and a third arm is draped across her body.

Large and hairy, the fingers appear unusually stumpy.

The tips are missing – all of them – snipped off like the ends of a fistful of cigars.

The breeze whips up, cold and stiff, and threatens Teresa's modesty. Her legs are disjointed, the left one jutting upwards and skewing at a right angle, the knee crossing her right leg. Her left shoe digs into an exposed, and exceptionally hairy, third thigh.

The silky white lining of the casket billows in the wind and the whole thing jerks down sharply, breaking apart.

There, right beside her, part of a second face emerges with one eye shut, the other mostly open – milky and askew – seemingly entranced by the finger lodged up Teresa's nose. Behind the lining is the full face of whoever has hitched a ride. It's covered with bruises, welts, and cuts and all the teeth are missing.

Mom screams “What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?!”

They've been plucked out, the teeth, leaving behind just gums and blood-encrusted craters.

Vomit douses my Sunday best shoes.

Dredging bile from my lips, I face everyone up on the overpass – all craning necks and squinting eyes – and just before he turns away, there's a curious kind of pain on Uncle Gene's face.

The preceding text is from the prologue to Murder at the Grindhouse (Copyright 2026 by Nick Thomson). The book is released August 7th 2026 worldwide via Amazon on paperback and eBook formats.