Balloon Juice

"Bubbles barked again, but she could not hear him. She screamed, but no scream was heard. What was emitted from her mouth was a tortured, strangled sound that resembled the croak of a creature dying of asphyxiation. It was as if the burrs that were affixed to her ankles had come loose, crept up the length of her body and found harbour in her throat. She gasped for air, and then screamed again. This time the scream pierced the forest canopy, startling pedestrians on Regent Street, nearly half a kilometre away."

Colm O'Brennan had fallen on hard times. An ex-homicide detective on disability, recently separated from his wife and child and barely able to make ends meet as a private detective, he assuages his feeling of failure and loss in drink. Colm's fortunes change when he secures a contract to find the missing teenage daughter of a prominent city lawyer. His search takes him down a twisted path marked by murder, blackmail, corruption and betrayal of a sacred trust that would exceed his worst fears for the young woman, and leave a city in shock.