Free THE PAIN OF OTHERS by Blake Crouch

bouquet of ruby red roses.
    She smiled, turned the deadbolt, opened the door.
    “I have a delivery for
Karen
Prescott.”
    “That’s me.”
    The delivery man handed over the gigantic vase.
    “Wait here. I’ll get you your tip.” She slurred her words a little.
    “No ma’am, it’s been taken care of.” He gave her a small salute and left.
    She relocked the door and carried the roses over to the kitchen counter. They were magnificent and they burgeoned from the cut-glass vase. She plucked the small card taped to the glass and opened it. The note read simply:
    Look in the coat closet
    Karen
giggled. Scott was one hundred percent forgiven. Maybe she’d even do that thing he always asked for tonight.
    She buried her nose in a rose, inhaled the damp sweet perfume. Then she cinched the belt of her bathrobe and walked over to the closet behind the couch, pulling open the door with a big smile that instantly died.
    A naked man with black hair and a pale face peered down at her. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swallowed.
    The cartons of leftover Chinese food stood between his feet.
    She stared into his black eyes, a coldness spreading through her.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.
    The man grinned, his member rising.
    Karen
bolted for the front door, but as she reached to unhook the chain he snatched a handful of her wet hair and swung her back into a mirror that shattered on the adjacent wall.
    “Please,” she whimpered.
    He punched her in the face.
    Karen
sank down onto the floor in bits of glass, anesthetized by wine and fear. Watching his bare feet, she wondered where her body would be found and by whom and in what condition.
    He grabbed her hair into a ball with one hand and lifted her face out of the glass, the tiniest shards having already embedded themselves in her cheek.
    He swung down.
    She felt the dull thud of his knuckles crack her jaw, decided to feign unconsciousness.
    He hit her again.
    She didn’t have to.

ABANDON
    Published July 2009 by Minotaur Books
     
    DESCRIPTION: On Christmas Day in 1893, every man, woman and child in a remote mining town will disappear, belongings forsaken,  meals left to freeze in vacant cabins, and not a single bone will be found--not even the gold that was rumored to have been the pride of this town will be found either. One hundred and thirteen years later, two backcountry guides are hired by a leading history professor and his journalist daughter to lead them into the abandoned mining town to learn what happened. This has been done once before but the people that went in did not come out. With them is a psychic and a paranormal photographer--the town is rumored to be haunted. They’ve come to see a ghost town, but what they’re about to discover is that twenty miles from civilization, with a blizzard bearing down, they are not alone, and the past is very much alive....
     
    Crouch does a great job of pacing, going back and forth between the two stories and the two time periods. The characters are authentic and interesting. He keeps up the suspense until the very end. It’s a great book. Crouch is a great writer. Go and get it.
TORONTO SUN
     
    In Abandon , Crouch blends elements of modern-day Colorado with its violent and storied past to create a tapestry of love, greed and revenge…unforgettable.
JOHN HART
     
    Excerpt from Abandon…
     
    Thursday, December 28, 1893
     
    Wind rips through the crags a thousand feet above, nothing moving in this godforsaken town, and the muleskinner knows that something is wrong. Two miles south stands Bartholomew Packer’s mine, the Godsend, a twenty-stamp mill that should be filling this box canyon with the thudding racket of the rock-crushers pulverizing ore. The sound of the stamps in operation is the sound of money being made, and only two things will stop them—Christmas and tragedy.
    He dismounts his albino steed, the horse’s pinked nostrils flaring, dirty mane matted with ice. The single-rig