This excerpt is taken from Jake Arnott’s BLOOD RIVAL out on October 14th. BLOOD RIVAL is a neo-noir reimagining of Greek tragedy, a compulsive psychological thriller steeped in forbidden desire, family secrets, and fatal ambition.
It happened at a place where three roads meet. Junction 1A of the M25, heading east towards Gravesend.
There’s a killer on the road.
Just after dawn on a bright June Sunday morning, Lee Royle was driving his dark blue Land Rover Discovery home from a long night in Essex. He’d crossed the water at Dartford, idly dreaming of his ancient homeland. Kent, he mused as he changed down to ease into the slip road.
Then a red Mazda MX-5 roadster cut him up across the right-hand side, making his foot flinch sharply on the brake pedal. Lee raged and blared his horn. He flashed his headlamps full beam and gave chase, gaining on the impudent little sports car as they approached a roundabout at the foot of the slope.
As he overtook the MX-5, Lee glanced over to judge his tormentor. Just a kid. A boy racer. A baby driver. Royle caught the youth’s eye and gazed a gorgon glare. But the kid just smiled back and gave him the finger. Fucker, Royle thought, and swerved around to block him off broadsides. The kid braked hard, his grin gritting as his head jerked back against the headrest.
For a moment all was quiet but for the low drone of the motorway above and a light descant of birdsong from the embankment. Royle wondered if the dazed look on the kid’s features was enough. He could drive off now, before the little bastard could recover his senses. But some impulse made him linger. That face. Something familiar about it.
And he knew then that he needed more. To humiliate him properly, give the boy a slap if need be. Let baby driver know who was daddy. Just to make sure he reached down beneath the driver’s seat and pulled out the small sheath knife he kept there. He slipped it into the pocket of his zip-up jacket, opened the door and climbed out onto the road.
The kid was already out of his car and walking towards him. Again Lee wondered if he knew him from somewhere. As he thought of all his enemies, Royle was glad he’d brought the blade with him. He stroked its outline gently through the cloth of his jacket as he turned to face his opponent.
“Get that fucking thing out of my way!” the kid called to him.
“What’s your hurry, son?”
“Just move it!”
They closed in, circling each other in a lethal courtly dance. Shaping up for combat.
“You want to watch yourself, sonny.”
He said the words softly, and for a curious moment felt a caring tone in his heart. This was just a hot-headed young man, after all. Out of his depth.
“You don’t know who I am,” Lee warned him with a grim smile.
“Just fuck off out of my way,” the kid spat out the words. “Old man.”
Royle was in his late fifties but had kept himself in shape. His loose-limbed frame tensed at this taunt, his forearms raised slowly, instinctively. He stepped forward.
“Someone ought to teach you some manners,” he said.
The kid bared his young chest and opened his arms in a beckoning gesture.
“Yeah?’ he offered. ‘Come on then.”
Royle’s punch was intended to connect with the kid’s chin and floor him in one. But he wasn’t fast enough, age had softened him. The younger man saw it coming, ducked and parried with his left, then came back under his guard to deliver a sharp hook to the stomach. Royle doubled-up, winded, choking, desperately trying to find his footing. Then another fist smashed into his face, and he dropped down onto the tarmac.
He managed to roll away before the kid could give him a kicking and scrambled to his feet. Squatting low, Royle tasted blood and fumbled for the knife in his pocket. As the kid loomed over him, ready to strike once more, he showed him the blade.
“Want some of this?” he hissed, still out of breath.
Royle always relished that look of fear on an opponent’s face. He’d never spent too much time dealing with the brutal end of things. He’d survived by knowing the odds. When you might make a killing, when you might just have to walk away. And he’d prided himself of being utterly ruthless at business. Happy to let the others play at being the heavy. To cross the pavement, to do a bank or a security firm, while he’d be the one that managed the proceeds. Let the suckers take the risks and do the time, his eye was always on the profit. This was the key to his success with the Tunbridge Wells Cash Depot Robbery.
But there was business and there was personal. And when the odds were right he was never averse to taking somebody down. Especially if that somebody had tried to have him over.
And now this cocky little fucker was backing away, trying to hide the terror in his stupid face. Now was the moment. The moment that mattered.
Because he had proved he could do it, after all. He’d never been sure, until that night, nearly twenty years ago. Never been sure if he was a killer or not until that night he found a man in his garden. The undercover cop spying on his house.
He’d been upstairs making love to his wife, Jo. It had been so powerfully primal that night. When he came, his whole being seemed to implode into darkness. Then, as he held her trembling body and caught his breath, he had heard the noise outside.
He’d let the dog out and taken a knife from the kitchen. He hadn’t meant to kill the man. It was instinctive. He’d told the arresting officer: You ask Ray Spinks, he’ll tell you I’m not a cold-blooded killer. But when the blood was up, he’d proved he could do it. And now, looking at the kid, he knew he could do it again.
Copyright © 2025 Jake Arnott with permission from the publisher
BLOOD RIVAL by Jake Arnott
Lee Royal – the King of Kent – is dead. Killed on the M25 in a brutal act of road rage. But was this a random attack or something more premediated – something stemming from a dark and long-kept secret? With Lee’s death, so begins a cat and mouse game to discover the truth …
Jo Royal, Lee’s wife, has long been discontented in her marriage. A complicated relationship and a marriage fraught with secrets and betrayals has left a steady resentment for Lee bubbling away under the surface. But does this give her motive enough to want him dead?
Eddie Pierce – young, ambitious and ruthless – is the new kid on the block. Determined at any cost to move up the ranks within the criminal underbelly of Kent, his growing infatuation with Jo only gives him more to fight for. But as his obsession with finding Lee’s killer takes over, his grip on what is fact and fiction begins to dangerously unravel. What is he capable of doing to become the next King of Kent?
Commander Ray Spinks of Scotland Yard has been a long-time associate of Lee’s. Brash, arrogant and underhand – he is owed his share of the wealth Lee has amassed and he won’t let anyone get in his way.
What starts as a seemingly random act of violence will soon turn into a high-stakes man hunt for a killer and the revelation of an explosive secret that will have devastating consequences.
Blood Rival is a fast-paced, addictive and twisty thriller told at a whiplash speed, rife with dark family secrets and deadly stakes. A story of lust, betrayal and tragedy.
Mystery Hard Boiled | Mystery Private Eye | Thriller Crime [ Watkins Publishing, On Sale: October 14, 2025, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781917415149 / eISBN: 9781917415156 ]
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About Jake Arnott
Jake Arnott is an award-winning novelist whose bestselling debut The Long Firm was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was adapted as a BAFTA award-winning BBC TV drama series starring Mark Strong and Sir Derek Jacobi. His second novel, He Kills Coppers was made into a critically acclaimed ITV1 series, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Reilly. Along with his third book, truecrime, this trilogy was awarded the Crime Writers Association Dagger in the Library. His subsequent novels include Johnny Come Home, The Devil’s Paintbrush, The House of Rumour and The Fatal Tree.
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