How far would you be willing to go to keep the one you love?
Charlie Watts has found the perfect partner in Declan Hunt, and he hopes that they can spend the rest of their lives together. But when your boss is sexy and talented, sometimes you’re not the only one who wants to tie him down.
The Attercop, a clever adversary who is good with disguises, starts to spin a web of lies and deceit to get Declan for his very own. And as the two detectives look into a break-in where nothing is taken, and a random beating at a gay bar, their perfect partnership begins to unravel.
Will Charlie be able to stop the worst from happening, or will The Attercop get his wish and take Declan away from Charlie forever?
General Release Date: 4th August 2026
The late-July sunset painted the Calgary horizon with radiating bands of yellow, orange, amber and purple. He watched as the colours began to shift, and the darkness devoured the light. He found momentary inner peace observing the death of the day from his home in the sky.
He thought back to the afternoon when he had attended the condominium’s open house last year. The fourteenth-floor penthouse suite had been priced far above any of the other units in the development. He had gently reminded the unseasoned sales rep that superstitious buyers were savvy enough to notice that the numbers of the floors jumped from twelve to fourteen, meaning the suite he wanted was actually on the thirteenth floor. He’d smiled, then continued, that given the current market of slowing condo sales, wary buyers weren’t going to jump at the chance of picking up the overpriced unit. The sales rep could let the suite linger on the market, which would only call into question the initial asking price, or accept his modestly reduced offer. He was persuasive when he wanted to be, but just to hedge his bets he had talked to other perspective buyers at the open house and expressed his concerns about rumours that the builder had cut corners by using substandard rebar in the construction. He’d gotten his price and now the place was his, a refuge from life’s stresses.
He stood naked in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, took a sip of his vodka, and stared out at his view—which, he acknowledged, was courtesy of his father who had essentially paid for it by having the decency of dying and leaving him a healthy inheritance.
The money had come as a great surprise because his father had heartily disapproved of him. Not so much because he was gay—although his father had loudly carped that a queer son wouldn’t produce another generation to carry on the family name. No, the expansive parent–child chasm had grown out of his father’s determination that his son was weak and useless, just like his mother, who had run off with another man. He’d never met the other guy, but he had, after all, only been five when it had happened.
His father had further declared that his son “had no gumption” and that if he didn’t prove he could make something out of himself by the time he was thirty, he would be cut out of his father’s will. In the end it didn’t matter. Fate had intervened and the old man had died just a few days before his son’s thirtieth birthday.
The year surrounding that event had been filled with unexpected surprises, such as the reappearance of his mother. She’d said that she’d been watching him from afar and wanted to help him establish himself. She had used her connections to land him a decent job in a small, financially stable firm. He was all set for success. It looked as if he was going to prove his father wrong after all. But no matter how hard he tried, things never seemed to go his way, especially in his search for love, because nobody really liked him. Every time he thought he’d found ‘Mr Right’, it always turned into ‘Mr Right-Now-But-Never-Again’.
At first, he couldn’t understand why. He was good-looking and intelligent. He was certain he was good in bed. His major flaw, from what he could see, was that he fell in love too easily, and that was something he couldn’t help. He was a giver and, to those he fell for, he gave everything. He became infatuated with them. And what did he get in return? Another view of the curb he’d been kicked to—again and again.
Well, he’d had it with that. He was done with being ‘Mr Nice Guy’. He took another swig of his drink and lay on the carpet by the window. A small spider made its way along the floor and crawled up his naked body, past his carefully groomed pubic hair, slowly working its way toward his navel. He put his hand on his stomach to block its path, but it simply crawled up onto his fingers. Nothing was going to stand in its way.
He held the spider up to his face and watched its tiny legs working in precise synchronicity as it traversed the back of his hand. It was persistent. It had gumption.
Many people would have thrown the spider to the floor or squashed it where it stood. Spiders were repulsive to most—things to be feared, to be reviled. But he liked spiders. They were patient and meticulous and never gave up. Even when people tore down their webs, they started again. He needed to become more like a spider. He needed to decide what he wanted and go after it. And if anyone stood in his way, he would show them what a spider could do. Like the ones in his favourite book The Hobbit, he would ensnare his enemies, keep what he wanted, and make the others feel pain and suffering. ’Attercop’ was what the character Bilbo had called the spiders. A term that meant ‘poison head’ in old English. It was intended to be an insult, but he liked the description.
He gently lifted his hand to his face. It was time for he and the spider to become as one. He set it on the end of his tongue and swallowed. He knew what his purpose was. It was time to become The Attercop, spinning his web. And soon, he would pounce. He would snare the thing that he wanted most and if anyone got in his way, he’d suck them dry and discard their empty husks. And there was one person in particular he yearned to snare. Declan Hunt would be his.
The Attercop marks Peter E. Fenton’s fifth novel with Entwined Publishing. It is the fourth book in the Declan Hunt Mysteries series.
Peter’s first book, The Woodcarver’s Model, came out in April of 2022 and was a four-time nominee in the Goodreads M/M Romance Readers’ Choice Awards. The other three books in the Declan Hunt Mysteries series are Mann Hunt, Hoodoo House, and The Burnt. Each of these books was also nominated for the Goodreads M/M Romance Readers' Choice Awards. His novels have been translated into German, Spanish and Italian.
Peter is also a playwright who has penned the book for four musicals—The Giant’s Garden, Newfoundland Mary, Bemused, and The Detective Disappears—which have had professional productions across Canada and the USA.
He spent many years working in palaeontology in remote locations including the Canadian Rockies, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Peter currently resides in Toronto, Canada, with his partner of over twenty-five years. At heart, he is an incredible romantic.
Find out more about Peter at his website and blog and follow him on Instagram and Bluesky.
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