Book Two in the Tangle & Trouble Mysteries

Coming Soon!

Secrets don’t stay buried forever, especially when Marlowe’s around to accidentally unearth them.

Excerpt from Chapter 2

Rhydian Has a Meltdown (And It’s Not Pretty)

Rhydian’s shoulders tensed as he caught the too loud whispers of the nearby uniformed constables. Marlowe’s head was spinning from trying to keep track of the suits and Alderton wearing another possible hole in place.

Rhydian, however, was having a moment.

A full one.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, pacing like a man with too many thoughts and not enough pockets. “We fell. We didn’t break in. We didn’t open anything. We didn’t even touch the vault.”

Marlowe raised a hand. “You did grab my wrist quite forcefully. Emotionally damaging, if not legally.”

He shot her a look. “Not the time.”

“No, you’re right. Meltdowns first. Sarcasm later.”

Rhydian took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said with the slow, painful clarity of someone explaining fire to a toddler, “They think I changed the courthouse records.”

Marlowe’s eyebrows shot together in utter confusion. “What?”

“The council,” he said, enunciating every word like she might be holding a sieve instead of a brain.

“The repair team found something odd in the records. When they checked the permits for the courthouse, half of the files had been changed. The computer thinks I did it, because the digital ID on the changes matches mine.”

He finished with a look that said: Please keep up, I’m dying here.

Marlowe blinked. “Wait, so they think you tampered with town records? That you popped in one day, a mere teenage boy, messed with their security files, and strolled out with your moral compass still pointing north?”

Her voice sharpened beneath the humour. Not a chance. Someone had set him up. And they were good.

He didn’t answer, unsure whether to feel relieved she finally got it or insulted that she called him a mere teenage boy. He looked away in frustration.

“Crusty crumpets,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “That’s ridiculous. You’re the most rule-following, badge-polishing, procedure-reading person in the entire district. After your dad that is”

“I know.”

Now she began pacing beside him, “You once told me off for using the emergency stairwell during a fire drill.”

“It was a drill, not an emergency,” he snapped.

“Exactly my point,” she flung her arms in the air in agreement. Rhydian stopped pacing and collided with Marlowe’s plait.

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What’s all the fuss about?

The school trip to the old Charlotteville Courthouse was supposed to be educational, quiet, and definitely not filled with trapdoors. But when Marlowe Bellamy stumbles across a sealed vault hidden beneath the ruins, things get rapidly, chaotically… suspicious.

With a council cover-up in progress, and Rhydian Granger accused of tampering with historical records, the unlikely duo must dive deeper than ever before. Into ancient tech, secret societies, and very badly labelled council files.

The vault holds the truth.
But opening it might just break everything.

Rhydian says:

“I would like it formally stated for the record: I warned her. Repeatedly. Loudly. And in writing.”

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