Gordon Thomson is a tyro writer and civil engineer, and lover of all things Japanese. He does not unfortunately bear any resemblance to the hero in his story. Twilight is his 674th book (all still waiting for a lucky publisher!)

He has submitted TWILIGHT. Thomas Twilight is an American detective with a difference, a man undergoing a severe mid-life crisis while trying to cope with the eccentricities of living in the mad city that is 2006 London...

TWILIGHT excerpt from Chapter 1

Peggy was lying naked and face down on my bed as she felt the bruise on her backside with her left hand.

'You hurt me, Tommy,' she complained peevishly.

'You damn well deserved it, jumping out at me like that,' I muttered in response. Yet I was feeling bad; I had given her ass a hell of a crack with the flat of my right hand after I'd recovered from my shock in the bathroom. 'Is it bad? Let me see.'

She allowed me to examine her rump. It was as delectable a Chinese ass as ever but the size of the disfiguring bruise I'd given her did worry me. I wanted to explain about what had just happened on the street beforehand that had spooked me so much, but it sounded like a weak excuse for what I'd done.

'I could kiss it better,' I suggested hopefully.

'You will not!' she said severely. 'You'd only enjoy yourself even more than you have already tonight.'

'Why did you jump out on me like that, then?'

She shrugged petulantly. 'I was taking a bath, making myself nice and fragrant for you, when I heard you coming up the stairs. So I switched the light out; I thought it would be a lovely surprise for you.'

'It was,' I assured her, 'after I recovered from the heart attack anyway.'

Peggy really is a wonderful girl, and the only person I will ever allow to call me Tommy. I give her this leeway because she is gorgeous and slender and smart and sassy. Her real name is No Choi Yim and she is a Malay Chinese from the Pearl of the Orient, the island of Penang. She is also thirty-two years old although she looks about seventeen (particularly when naked), and she is as truly clever as only the Chinese can be.

I've often wondered why a girl like Peggy would exchange an island paradise like Penang for the dubious benefits of crime-ridden London, but then she has made crime her business. (It is London's one real growth industry after all.) Peggy came to London in 1995 to do a PhD in microbiology and genetics at Imperial College, and is now one of the foremost experts on DNA fingerprinting in the entire world. She is the forensic scientist in charge of the Metropolitan Police's genetic testing laboratory, and shoots off to high-powered conferences all around the world. But the thing that pleases her most is that, because of her qualification, she now shares her name with a famous James Bond villain...

My Dr No doesn't want to take over the world, though - not as far as I know anyway - but she can still be scary enough in her own way, and sex with her has probably left me permanently scarred in more ways than one, particularly when her scarlet fingernails rake my back. For such a petite and sweet-looking woman she has an insatiable and voracious sexual appetite. I have suggested occasionally that she should change her name to the more appropriate Pussy Galore but so far that idea hasn't found favour with her...

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Author: Gordon Thomson

E-mail: Gordon.Thomson@mouchelparkman.com