This is an excerpt from a short story where a detective has been chasing a criminal mastermind for years with no real evidence, but a gut-feeling that Mortimer Lantana is playing games, always one-step ahead, until now. The detective has cornered the mastermind and for once is winning the battles of will – or so he thinks.

A crime that is committed in plain sight and in the most public of scenes is the hardest to solve. Mortimer is the flaneur of every soirée.

The party guests have disbursed and leave the trail of their hedonism in their path, the world is quiet outside, but the noise is deafening in the detective’s mind, the clues and failures all start to slot into place and he confronts the one who always haunted the loudest and outrageously scandalous parties, never alone but always distant.

Who will win the battle that is already won? The war of deceit and charm is intoxicating.

Read this chilling short story excerpt of The Ice Cube Murder.