Sean Slater is the pseudonym for Vancouver Police Officer Sean Sommerville. Sommerville works in Canada’s poorest slum, the Downtown East Side – an area rife with poverty, mental illness, drug use, prostitution, and gang warfare. He has investigated everything from frauds and extortions to homicides. Sommerville has written numerous columns and editorials for the city newspaper. His work has been nominated for the Rupert Hughes Prose Award, and he was the grand-prize winner of the Sunday Serial Thriller contest. His debut novel, The Survivor, was published to rave reviews. Snakes & Ladders is his second novel.

Praise for The Survivor

‘A satisfyingly authentic debut from a man who really does know about the bleak side of the human psyche . . . written with an unexpected gentle irony, and featuring a lead character that the author clearly likes, it’s a neat, stylish thriller from a writer to watch’

Daily Mail

‘The USP of this energetic debut thriller is that it’s written about a Vancouver cop by a Vancouver cop . . . In fact Sean Slater writes the sort of pacy superior pulp you’d expect from an author who’d never eaten a doughnut on a dull stakeout’

Daily Telegraph

‘Fast-paced, gripping and impossible to put down, Sean Slater’s debut novel is an explosive, action-injected tale told by a great new talent. A fantastic read’

CHRIS CARTER, author of The Night Stalker

‘The Survivor grabbed me by the throat from page one and held on until the very end. Slater’s debut is a rocket-paced evocative thriller. Gritty, dark and graphic, The Survivor is at times hard to read but always harder to put down. A terrific read’

DANIEL KALLA, bestselling author of Pandemic,

Blood Lies and Of Flesh and Blood

Also by Sean Slater

The Survivor

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2012

A CBS Company

Copyright © Sean Slater, 2012

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Sean Slater to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

1st Floor

222 Gray’s Inn Road

London WC1X 8HB

www.simonandschuster.co.uk

Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-85720-040-2

eBook ISBN 978-0-85720-041-9

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Acknowledgements

In The Survivor, I thanked everyone in the world who has ever

supported me in my writing career. In Snakes & Ladders, I am

being more specific. This book would not be what it is without

the help of my usual advisers:

Joe Cummings, my plot & character mercenary

Kirk Longstaffe, my idea bouncer and information safeguard

And my dear wife Lani, who not only acts as my first reader and editor, but who endlessly takes care of our home so I can actually have a few hours here and there to write these novels.

Professionally, I have to thank everyone at Simon & Schuster UK, especially:

Libby Yevtushenko for being such a wonderful editor

Clare Hey for her tiresome diligence in ironing out the wrinkles

Suzanne Baboneau for giving me the opportunity to break into the writing world

And everyone else there who has worked so hard with regards to typesetting, proofing, cover art, publicity and so on.

I would also like to thank everyone at the Darley Anderson Agency for their constant work behind the scenes:

Rosanna Bellingham

Madeleine Buston

Mary Darby

And, of course, Clare Wallace.

It is always an unexpected delight to receive an email from

any one of you.

Last, and certainly not least, I have to thank my fantastic agent, Camilla, who acts as an editor, agent, negotiator, adviser, friend and counsellor – heck, this woman wears so many hats, she needs a walk-in closet at the office. Life in the writing world would not be as exciting or enjoyable without her. She has been a godsend, pure and simple.

For anyone I might have missed, apologies all round.

Sean

This book is dedicated to three amazing men:

To Gramps, for always being there for me.

To Dad, for finally finding your way and coming through at the end.

And to Larry ‘Big Poppa’ Oakley, who has always been a rock of support for everyone in the family.

Snake Eyes:

Definition:

1)

The lowest possible roll of the dice (two ones) in a game of Craps, or

2)

Extremely bad luck

Contents