Fifty-four Pigs , livre ebook

Ecw Press - Philipp Schott

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

146 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

'For readers of The Thursday Murder Club comes a lighthearted mystery with an incredible sense of place A swine barn explodes near a lakeside town, putting veterinarian Dr. Peter Bannerman on a collision course with murder and a startling conspiracy. Peter is an odd duck, obsessed with logic and measurable facts, an obsession he puts to good use in his veterinary practice. When a murder is connected to the swine barn explosion and his friend Tom becomes the prime suspect, Peter feels compelled to put his reasoning skills, and his dog Pippin s remarkable nose, to use to help clear him. The situation darkens with a second murder and a series of break-ins, including at Peter s house and clinic, but Peter has a hard time knowing when he is out of his depth, despite warnings from his brother-in-law Kevin, an RCMP officer. Ultimately Peter finds himself out in the middle of a frozen lake during a blizzard, fighting for his life and co

Informations

Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	19 avril 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773059136
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Fifty-Four Pigs A Dr. Bannerman Vet Mystery
Philipp Schott

Table of Contents Praise for Philipp Schott The Accidental Veterinarian The Willow Wren How to Examine a Wolverine Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Sneak Preview of the Next Dr. Bannerman Vet Mystery: Six Ostriches Prologue Chapter One About the Author Copyright

Praise for Philipp Schott
The Accidental Veterinarian
“Few books . . . approach the combination of fine writing, radical honesty and endless optimism found in Winnipeg practitioner Schott’s . . . Laugh until you cry — and believe, as he says, that all that really matters is that the heart of the pet (and its owner) is pure.”
— Booklist , starred review
“Schott’s writing is engagingly conversational and showcases his colorful sense of humor . . . Educational, entertaining and compassionate, this confluence of happy accidents is a must-read for anyone who is, loves or works with a veterinarian.”
— Shelf Awareness
The Willow Wren
“Philipp Schott pulls off the considerable feat of creating empathy for his characters without ever resorting to easy excuses for their sometimes indefensible choices . . . a fine, nuanced storytelling achievement.”
— Frederick Taylor, historian and bestselling author of Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany
“This beautifully written tale alternates between displays of sardonic humour and setting some truly poignant and heart-wrenching scenes. Morally complex and nuanced, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand a difficult period in German history.”
— Dr. Perry Biddiscombe, historian and author of The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe 1944–1947
How to Examine a Wolverine
“An engaging study of the behaviors of pets and the people who care for them. Schott’s tone is warm, friendly and folksy in his storytelling and his conversations with pet owners; even in the most stressful times, he’s a compassionate and level-headed guide. How to Examine a Wolverine is an essay collection that celebrates the love of animals.”
— Foreword Reviews
“Schott’s writing style is conversational, which makes How to Examine a Wolverine an easy and enjoyable read.”
– Winnipeg Free Press
“While the stories here are blue-ribbon perfect for anyone who loves four-footed, furry creatures, author Philipp Schott takes this book a few dozen hoofprints past your everyday household fur-kids.”
— Goshen News

Dedication
For Lorraine

Prologue
They were unsettled. The routine had not changed — the lights came on at the same time and they were fed at the same time — but other people were here this morning. Yesterday as well. Visitors came from time to time, but rarely in the winter. And there was something different about these visitors. They could not see the visitors, but they could hear them and smell them. Something undefinable about the visitors caused anxiety to ripple through the barn like a wave. But they couldn’t act on these uneasy feelings. Instinct said flee. But the doors were closed. And besides, it was very cold outside, and there was no food out there when the world was white. They knew that. Here, inside, it was warm, and more food would come. More food always came. Yet they were still nervous, so they shuffled and jostled and made noise and sought comfort in each other. Then it was loud, so loud, and bright, so bright. Then dark. The world ended.

Chapter One
Peter heard it before he saw it. A deep, percussive thud from somewhere ahead and to the left. Beyond Baldurson’s woodlot. Loud enough to be heard over the rattle of the truck on the washboard gravel. Unexpected enough to startle him. His immediate thought was that it sounded like something massive had been dropped from a great height.
Whump.
Like a whale or a cement truck.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he glanced at the clock on his dashboard.
8:33 a.m.
Then he saw it. Pillows of smoke began vaulting one over the other, as if scrambling to get a better view, the rising column of battleship grey sharply contrasting the bright blue Manitoba January sky.
“Shit,” Peter said to himself as he brought the truck to a stop on a rise that afforded the clearest view. The smoke was definitely coming from the other side of Ed Baldurson’s place. Perhaps three kilometres away.
That would be Tom’s farm.
“Shit!” he said again.
He was due at Tom’s later that morning, but was expected at Bill Chernov’s first.
Forget that. One of Bill’s heifers had a cut on her leg, but that could wait.
Peter put the New Selfoss Veterinary Services truck in gear and spun the tires as he accelerated toward the intersection, turning left instead of right as planned. As he did so, he voice-activated his phone.
“Hey Google, dial 911.”
After a brief pause and two rings, an operator answered. “911. What is your emergency?”
“An explosion and fire at Tom Pearson’s farm nine kilometres south of New Selfoss, about two kilometres east of Provincial 59.”
There was a brief pause and the click-click-clack sound of rapid typing on a keyboard.
“I have your coordinates. Are you at the fire?”
“No, I’m about three kilometres southeast of it. New Selfoss volunteer fire department will know where Tom’s place is.” 911 calls in rural Manitoba were all routed through the Provincial Public Safety Answering Point in Brandon, almost 300 kilometres away. Their variable ability to accurately pinpoint the locations of emergencies was a perennial subject of coffee shop deliberation.
“Are there people in the building?”
“Well, I’m not there yet, so I don’t know for sure.” Peter tried not to sound irritated by what struck him as a silly question. “But I don’t think Tom would be home and he lives alone.”
“First responders will be on their way shortly.”
Peter took a deep breath to steady his nerves and then sped up as he neared Tom’s farm.
Peter was right. He could see the source of the smoke as soon as he turned the corner past the trees and arrived at the bridge over Yellowgrass Creek. Tom Pearson’s hog barn was on fire. The smoke was thick, too thick to get an immediate sense of how big the fire itself was. He knew that the amount of smoke did not necessarily indicate the size of the fire, but still, this looked like a big one. Barn fires were not uncommon, but why an explosion?
The manure pit.
There had been a massive hog barn explosion two years ago near Altona because of methane build-up in a manure pit combined with some poorly considered welding work. But Tom was careful and smart. And Tom would not be there doing any welding, or anything else that could generate a spark, because he was always at Rita’s Coffee Shop in New Selfoss by 7:45 at the latest, except on Saturdays and Sundays. And it wasn’t a Saturday or a Sunday. It was a Tuesday.
Peter skidded to a stop in the farmyard and yanked the truck’s door open.
The pigs! Those poor pigs!
There were no other vehicles in the yard. Tom’s might have been in the garage, but there’s no way he would have slept through the explosion. Tom must be at Rita’s, as Peter had assumed. It was up to Peter to save the pigs. He jogged a few steps toward the barn before he hit an invisible, pulsating wall of extreme heat. He couldn’t force his way through it. There was no way. He realized that he had probably parked the truck too close, so he jumped back into the cab and reversed 20 metres at high speed to the far side of the yard.
Then he got out and stared at the unfolding catastrophe.
Flames were now shooting out of all the barn windows. A door on the east side of the barn appeared to have been blown out by the force of the initial explosion, creating a cone-shaped blast pattern in the snow, toward an aspen bluff that the pigs were sometimes pastured in. Fortunately, this was away from the house and the other outbuildings, which were across the yard to the west.
Then, with a suddenness that made Peter jump, the roof collapsed in a deafening boom, sending fiery embers straight up into the air as if from a squat prairie volcano. Peter was glad that he had moved the truck. Tom’s hog barn wasn’t one of those modern, fully sealed, high-tech, steel-clad porkchop factories, but rather an old wooden one, repurposed for his pasture pig project. Only in January in Manitoba there is no pasture, so the pigs need a cozy straw-filled refuge out of the wind and the snowdrifts. Old wood plus dry straw equals tinderbox. This was going to be nothing but ash and char in a matter of minut