FOUR DAYS (New Novel)

Deluxe Edition of my 2015 novel now available!

---

I’ve been working on this for years…

Back in 2015, Portland (US) press Broken River Books published my debut, Four Days. I don’t think it sold a lot of copies, but the thing absolutely put me on the map. The right people read it, and in Australia it got me shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award — Australia’s only crime fiction prize at the time.

Funnily enough, I almost immediately pivoted away from the book’s historical setting / James Ellroy-esque vibe. My follow-up novels were all crime books, but they weren’t about cops or police corruption.

None of those subsequent books worked. I like all of them, but I’d be shocked if I sold more than 2,000 copies of those novels combined.

Then, in the long, painful COVID lockdown in Melbourne (2020-2021), I kinda bottomed out. I lost my way with a novel, and thought, Fuck this, I’m scrapping this and I’m going to write one just for me.

Q: What did I want to write?

A: The sort of stuff that’s in Four Days. I wanted to go back to basics.

Back to 1980s Queensland and hardboiled noir.

The ensuing book ended being The Strip, which has been a bit of a sleeper hit in Australia. For whatever reason, my timing was better this time out, and people wanted to read about that stuff.

So with that in mind…

Here is the new deluxe edition of my debut.

This is a newly revised edition of Four Days (re-edited, hopefully a bit tighter and clearer), and it comes packaged with something called ‘Tropical Noir’ — a collection of 6 short stories, all set in the story world of Four Days. One of these shorts is ‘The Death Twins,’ something I wrote last year especially for the collection.

My only caveat is this: it’s still a fucking grimy book. I did not clean it up. If you found the spicier elements of The Strip to be on the cusp of your tolerance, do not proceed into Four Days without caution.

TW: everything.

(I was reading a lot of Derek Raymond at the time.)

That said, enjoy!

---

Here’s one of the short stories from ‘Tropical Noir’ in full. It’s called NEW ANCHOR:

Never take a job in summer—that’s rule one. Rule two is never trust anyone. They have that rule all over, but rule one, that’s my thing. No one thinks straight in summer; you can’t rely on anyone after November.

They called me because they needed someone with a boat. “You can’t just waltz on over there on the ferry,” the guy said. “One of our blokes tried that. The locals noticed.”

“And this woman? What’s she done?” 

They wanted me to watch her.

“We don’t know what she’s up to,” the guy said. “But Sammy doesn’t like her.” 

That was enough for me—Sammy didn’t like people who asked too many questions, either.

“Okay. How many days you want?”

“As many as it takes.”

He gave me half the money up front.

October had been quiet, but still. 

This was a big mistake.

I headed out before dawn and had the boat moored and my first drink in me before sunup. The boat wasn’t much, a twenty-foot hole in the water I’d inherited from my father. It was right for this. It had a cabin and a canopy. Dad loved the thing, would have died out here on the water if he had the chance.

As the day started, I got a read on the house. It was a nice place, a timber split-level, backed onto the ocean. The paperwork said the woman didn’t own it. It was on a long lease to someone else. She came out onto the balcony, and I took a long look at her through the telephoto. She was attractive enough, lean with a gym body. That one look was all I needed. She was a cop; they have a way about them. And when Sammy’s accountant—a manicured little fucker they called Petey K.—stepped out behind her, I didn’t need to wonder why I was here anymore.

For two days they didn’t do much other than eat, fuck, and smoke cigarettes. I slept in the cabin and washed myself in the ocean. The humidity came up and the breeze dropped like a stone. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the salt off me, so I sat there in my father’s boat, and it was just as bad as any car sit I’d been dumb enough to take on during summer.

On the third day the woman disappeared. Petey K. stuck to the bedroom and kitchen—something was up.

That night Petey dragged something wrapped in a blue tarpaulin down the interior stair. He didn’t look good, and he definitely wasn’t thinking straight. He had the lights on. The whole world could see him if they cared to.

I guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly, either. I went to shore and came up along the beach. The back door was wide open, and Petey was in the sauna when I came in. I peeked through the little window, and sure enough he was hard at it, covered in blood—her blood. It didn’t seem right to me, so when Petey came out, I took care of him right there and then, like I had some sort of personal stake in it. Petey didn’t even seem to notice. He had no idea how he died.

In the end I dropped them both out into the bay. It was a stupid, impulsive move, but that’s how it gets in summer. I had sweat in my eyes the whole time. The job was fucked, and I was going to need a new anchor.

Sammy called me himself.

“So, I had a problem,” he said. “And now I don’t.”

“Okay.”

“I like to fix my own problems. If I catch you anywhere near my problems again, you’re in trouble. You understand?”

He didn’t even mention the other half of my money.

Some mornings out on the bay, I think about Petey and the woman and how they’re lying on the sea floor somewhere below me. I don’t like to dwell on it, but it comes up. I can’t help it. As the boat skims through the water, I find myself standing at the wheel wondering about this one thing I had—the bay, this boat—and I wonder how even this got caught up in the rest of it.

Please consider buying the book! Or reading it via Kindle Unlimited.

— IAIN