Editing by Elizabeth

May 25, 2011

this letter to Norman Court by Pablo D’Stair

this letter to Norman Court is a novella consisting of 22 sections (each around 1250 words) I am releasing by way of serializing the piece across blogs, by reader request.

A little hub site is set up at www.normancourt.wordpress.com that has a listing of the blogs that have featured or will feature sections—please give it a look, get yourself all caught up if the below piques your interest. It is my simple hope to use this as a casual, unobtrusive way to release this material to parties interested.

As of now the 22 slots have all been requested (cheers to everyone for that) but if you enjoy what you read please do get in touch with me via unburiedcomments@gmail.com. I welcome any and all comments on the piece (positive, negative, or ambivalent) or general correspondence about matters literary.

Cheers,

Pablo D’Stair →

May 24, 2011

The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris

The Cleansing Flames by R.N. Morris No, you couldn’t leave anything to the people. You had to take up the cudgels on their behalf, even if it meant a few hundred of them were incinerated in the process. – Demyan Antonovich Kozodavlev

The Cleansing Flames, the fourth book in author R.N. Morris’ series featuring Russian Magistrate Porfiry Petrovich, finds spring creeping upon St. Petersburg. But as the snow and ice recede, the fires begin to burn. Fresh on the heels of revolution in Paris, pockets of radicals in Russia’s capital are sowing the seeds of revolution. Part of their manifesto includes setting fires to notable properties in order to burn down, literally and figuratively, the symbols of the perceived failures of Tsar Alexander II’s reforms.

Amidst this chaos, Porfiry and his partner, junior magistrate Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky, are called upon to investigate a body found in the newly thawed Winter Canal. An anonymous tip to Porfiry alerts him to the possibility there are larger implications to the body than a simple murder, implications which lead Porfiry’s investigation in the direction of the radicals at the heart of the city’s unrest.

Virginsky, for his part, takes advantage of a random meeting with a man believed to be one of the revolutionaries by using the connection to infiltrate the group. The further he gets into the group, however, the more he finds himself sympathizing with their cause. As events continue to unfold Virginsky’s loyalties are put to the test, forcing him to choose between his head and his heart. →

May 23, 2011

A Matter of Life or Death by R.N. Morris

May 20, 2011

The Last Red Death by Paul Johnston

Like the gun-slingers in the movies, there were things you couldn’t say no to, there were things you had to do. – Grace Helmer

At its bare-bones, The Last Red Death has a deceptively straightforward premise: a woman who witnessed the murder of her diplomat father when she was a child returns to the county where it happened and hires a local private investigator to help her track down the man responsible for the murder. As with any great thriller worth its salt, however, things aren’t that straightforward.

The woman, American Grace Helmer, didn’t witness a random act of violence or mugging gone wrong. No, her father was murdered by Iraklis, a rogue offshoot of the Communist Party in Greece which was responsible for a string of terrorist activity in the 70s. And the investigator she hires, Alex Mavros, is himself searching for someone, his brother, who was last seen at an underground resistance meeting thirty years prior.

Further, the recent murders of two high-profile businessmen, both marked with Iraklis’ signature calling card, seems to herald the return of the group after over a decade of dormancy. Tracking down the answers Alex and Grace want may get messy, but like those movie gunslingers, there are some things you just have to do. →

May 19, 2011

On Death – Not Necessarily Terminal, Not Necessarily Red by Paul Johnston

Today I am pleased to welcome Paul Johnston for a guest post. Though he’s criminally under-the-radar here in the States, Paul is the accomplished author of three different series: the Matt Wells series (featuring investigative crime reporter Wells), Quint Dalrymple series (crime-SF crossover novels set in a futuristic Edinburgh), and the Greece-set Alex Mavros series. It’s that last series Paul is talking about today, and from which The Last Red Death, the book I will be reviewing tomorrow, comes.

Paul Johnston The second of my Greece-set novels, The Last Red Death, first saw the light of day in 2003 and was republished in 2009. So why the hell am I writing about it now?

Some background. I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and studied classics there and at Oxford. But the formative period in my life was the six months I spent as a somewhat ham-fisted tour guide in Greece between school and college. Obviously I was already fascinated by ancient Greek literature and history, but the experience of the ‘real’ country and its people turned me on to the modern culture and language – to the extent that I changed my degree and ended up majoring in Modern Greek.

From then on, I was interested only in returning to the country to live, something I finally managed in 1987. I’ve been moving between the UK and Greece ever since, but now spend much more time in our new home in Nafplio, a beautiful seaside town in the Peloponnese, about 100 miles southwest of Athens.

After writing a series of five crime-SF crossover novels set in a futuristic Edinburgh, I finally found the time (and publishing contract) to do what I’d really been wanting to do for years – write crime novels set in Greece. Note: this was in 2000, well before the current financial woes that are ripping the country apart – back then there wasn’t much crime, apart from corruption. But there was no shortage of other problems. One of them was the caustic effect of sudden tourism-based prosperity in previously dirt-poor island communities. I wrote about that in A Deeper Shade of Blue, republished as Crying Blue Murder. →

May 18, 2011

Yellow Medicine by Anthony Neil Smith

If you want respect from the badasses and psychos, become a cop. Then that’s who your colleagues are. – Billy Lafitte

Most people don’t take bribes or go out of their way to abuse their authority. Most people don’t routinely violate their oath of office or take advantage of people who are down. Most people wouldn’t dream of exploiting a natural disaster of historic proportions for their own gain.

Most people aren’t Billy Lafitte.

And thank god for that, because Billy Lafitte is not a nice man. Billy Lafitte is the type of thieving, exploitative, brutal thug people expect the police to protect them from. Good luck with that…Billy Lafitte is a cop.

Lafitte’s antics finally got him kicked off the Gulfport, Mississippi police force when he stooped to exploiting residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, commandeering supplies and charging scalper’s prices for things people needed just to survive. Adding insult to the injury of losing his job, his wife also decided to call it quits, taking their kids and leaving him. Most people would have taken this as a serious wake-up call to get their life in order.

Most people aren’t Billy Lafitte. →

May 17, 2011

Witness to Death by Dave White

If he’d just gone out and gotten wasted like a normal guy, none of this would have happened. – John Brighton

Breakups are never fun, but rarely do they lead to the disastrous chain of events that John Brighton finds himself caught up in after being dumped by his girlfriend, Ashley. Instead of going the getting drunk route, John decides to turn to his ex-girlfriend, Michelle.

Problem is, Michelle is involved with a new guy, Frank, and John’s convinced Frank is cheating on her. Thinking he can kill two birds with one stone, prove the cheating and get Michelle back, John sets out to follow Frank to what he believes will be a secret rendezvous with another woman. Well, he was right about the secret rendezvous part, anyway.

As John follows Frank down to some waterfront apartments along the Hudson, he notices Frank actually appears to be tailing a group of men in trenchcoats. As John’s trying to puzzle out what’s going on, a gunfight erupts between Frank and the men. Before he knows it, all five of the men in trenchcoats are dead, Frank is dragging him away from the scene, and life as John knows it will never be the same again.

You see, John has inadvertently stumbled upon a covert operation involving rogue arms dealers, terrorists, the Department of Homeland Security, in-fighting between the New York and New Jersey mobs, and one very, very dysfunctional family…of which his ex-girlfriend, Michelle, happens to be a member. Now John isn’t just trying to salvage his relationship, he’s fighting for his very life, and the lives of countless others. →

May 16, 2011

‘I Had to Stay Dark.’ by Dave White

May 13, 2011

The Gravity of Mammon by Dan O’Shea

He was pushing 50, and, after almost 20 years schlepping around the Sahel, 50 was pushing back. It was time for an exit strategy. – Nick Hardin

With 8 years in the Marines as a sniper, including two tours in Gulf War I, and 10 years with the French Foreign Legion under his belt, Nick Hardin is a genuine badass. Unfortunately, even badasses have a sell-by date, and given all the mileage he’s racked up in conflict zones Hardin is fast approaching his.

Working as a “fixer” in Darfur – someone who escorts foreign journalists into conflict areas, making sure they and their gear get in and out safely – Hardin somehow finds himself tasked with ensuring the safety of a Hollywood feel good charity event, Dollars for Darfur. And he almost pulls it off.

Until, that is, hotshot actor Shamus Fenn feels the need to try and out badass Hardin, a move that earns Fenn a broken nose and a video clip of his humiliation endlessly playing on the internet and late night talk shows. Exercising what little clout he has left, Fenn gets Hardin blackballed by the networks, effectively drying up Hardin’s source of income. Time for that exit strategy. →

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