A Shadow on the Lens – Sam Hurcom

This week Sam Hurcom gives a taster from his excellent debut novel – a gothic, wonderfully dark tale.

This extract has been taken from my first gothic crime novel, A Shadow on the Lens, published by Orion in 2019. The novel follows Metropolitan police special investigator and forensic photographer, Thomas Bexley. Bexley travels to the village of Dinas Powys in South Wales, (my hometown) to investigate the brutal murder of a young woman, Betsan Tilny. Upon arriving at the town, he finds villagers who are unwilling to co-operate with him, and a crime scene that has clearly been staged.

In this scene, Thomas arrives at the local church, where the Betsan’s body is being held in the cellar. At this stage in the novel, Thomas has begun to feel unwell, though the circumstances surrounding this remain a mystery.

Chapter 6

All Saint’s Church – June 18^th, 1904