Ascension Day

As well as being a novelist, John Matthews is an experienced journalist, editor and publishing consultant, though after the success of Past Imperfect, which became an international bestseller, he has devoted most of his time to writing books. In 2004,
The Times
compiled a list of top ten all-time-best legal thrillers which included Past Imperfect. John Matthews lives in
Surrey
with his wife and son.

Praise for John Matthews.
 

 
'A major talent has joined the ranks of thriller writers'.

-
Dublin
Evening Herald.

'A novelist of real accomplishment'.

-
Barry Forshaw, Amazon
UK
.

'Matthews certainly knows how to keep the reader hungry for the next revelation'.

- Kirkus UK.

Ascension Day.
 

Ascension Day is like a narcotic, laced with danger, and totally
addictive. Impossible to put down. This is what thrillers are meant to
be. Jac McElroy is a character I want to read more of.
- Jon Jordan. Crime
Spree
Magazine.

 'If John Grisham ever developed a sense of irony, or Scott Turow ever tried to write from the other side of the prison bars, they might come up with something  like John Matthews’s
Ascension Day.
This is a book that doesn’t sacrifice style for suspense, or character for plot. The legal thriller has needed a jolt of electricity for a few years now and Matthews may just be the man to throw the switch.' 

 
- Peter Blauner,

 Author of Slipping Into Darkness
and
The Intruder.

'Move over Grisham, your reign is over! Reminiscent of vintage Grisham, but Matthews has his own distinctive style. Strong, believable characters and a plot that grips from page one and won't let go, twisting and turning its way towards a nail-biting climax - they don't come much
better than this. One of the best and most memorable thrillers I've read in
years. A winner all the way.'

-
Bob Burke. Mystery Readers International.

'ASCENSION DAY is a fast-paced thriller set between
New Orleans
and an upstate
Louisiana
prison, and Matthews' strong descriptive prose brings the darkness at the heart of
Libreville
penitentiary alive. His chief protagonist, Jac McElroy, is particularly interesting with his Franco-Scottish heritage - and his ever-changing relationship with prisoner Larry Durrant sets the main pulse for this race-against-time thriller... with the stakes and tension racheted up throughout the book.'

-
Luke Croll, Reviewing the Evidence.

"Lock the doors and turn off the phone.  Once you start this compelling, thoughtful, edge-of-your-seat thriller, you won't have time for anything else. A riveting read that hits it just right - right on the knife-edge between psychological and action thriller."

- Chris Mooney,

Edgar-nominated author of ‘Remembering Sarah’.
 

Past Imperfect.
 

'Matthews maintains the suspense... an engrossing odyssey into the seamy side of a world that is so near, yet sometimes seems so far. Compulsive reading.'
- The Times
'Impressive... strong characterization and a relentless race against time to avert the worst carry the reader along the thick pages of this psychological and legal thriller with a difference.'
- Time Out
'One of the most compelling novels I've read... an ambitious and big novel which will keep you enthralled to its last page.'
-
Cork
Examiner
 

'A classy, well-written and unusual thriller.'
-
Yorkshire
Post
'Matthews delivers one of the best debut thrillers in years, brave, ambitious and remorselessly entertaining. Past Imperfect is a stormer.'
-
Dublin
Evening Herald
 

The Last Witness.
 

'Distinctively written...  all the forceful energy of the best thrillers.'

- Kirkus UK.

The Shadow Chaser (The Cure)

'A thumping great read and a terrific tale, terrifically told.'

-
Ireland
on Sunday.

1

October, 2004.
Libreville
,
Louisiana
.

At first, Larry wasn’t sure why the sound had awoken him.

He’d become familiar with all the usual night-time sounds: the clunk of the cell doors and the rattle of keys whenever anyone had to be let in or out unexpectedly after last shut-down; the steady, ominous clump of boots along the steel walkways with the regular cell patrols every hour, punctuated by the impromptu sliding back of two or three inspection hatches along the line; the mumble of the guards at the end and the occasional peal of laughter; the jibes and taunts of new prisoners or regulars who’d suddenly fallen from grace; the gentle sobbing of some of those same new inmates that might take up to a week to finally abate; and the klaxon blare of the Amtrak from Baton Rouge to Jackson seven miles away across the Bayou plain, a siren call to the prisoners from the world outside, elusive freedom – only one of eight attempted break-outs over the past thirty years had got even that far, and they’d all been rounded up within the week between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Over the past eleven long years, these sounds had been Lawrence Tyler Durrant’s nightly companions. But this sound was different.

He could recognize the voices of two of the guards, but they were fighting not to be heard: little more than muted whispers along with the soft sliding back of the bolts on a cell door. Normally, their boot-steps would be heavy and purposeful, cell-door bolts would be slammed back like gunshots, whatever the time of night, and the prisoner’s name shouted out, as if by some miracle the clamour of the guards’ approach might not have awoken him along with everyone else on the cell-block row.

This time they didn’t want anyone to hear them.

Larry kept his breathing low and shallow, trying to pick out more. But suddenly his heart was drumming fast and strong, threatening to drown everything out. And when he finally tuned in beyond his own heartbeat, everything was still and silent, as if they somehow knew he was listening in. Then a sudden flurry of shuffling footsteps from five or six cells along.

‘
What
?… What the ffffmmm!’

Even from that muffled exclamation, before a hand was clamped across to completely strangle it, Larry clearly recognized the clipped Latino intonation: Rodriguez. ‘Roddy’, who’d managed to make him smile and laugh on even the darkest of days; a rare spark of light and life in this pit of gloom he’d called home for over a decade, and one of the closest friends he’d ever had, inside or out. He couldn’t just close his mind and shut his eyes, as he had to so much over the years.

Maybe he could have turned away if he thought they were just going to give Roddy a beating, but he’d seen that look fired across the canteen earlier by Tally Shavell. It was only a fleeting stare, but in Libreville that was often all you got as warning. The last two on the end of that same look from Tally had both been killed; one with a shiv through the neck in the showers, the other garrotted with a guitar string. There was no reason to believe that with Roddy it would be any different, especially after the beating Tally had given him five months back. Tally didn’t issue second warnings.

Larry looked towards his cell’s makeshift altar with its array of photos for inspiration: his mother who’d died after a stroke on year five of his sentence, ten months after his appeal failed; his father who’d died when he was only fourteen, mercifully before he’d started to slip into bad ways; his wife, Francine, who hadn’t visited him for the first five years and after that only infrequently, depending on her current-partner-situation, though they still hadn’t divorced yet; his son, Joshua, now twelve, who, except for some recent e-mail contact, he’d seen at most half-a-dozen times over the years – occasional birthdays and at Christmas-time. The only one not represented from his family was his elder sister, who’d disowned him the day of his incarceration, told his mother – as if she didn’t already have enough heartbreak that day – that as far as she was concerned ‘he no longer exists’.