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August 12, 2011

Chop Suey by Ty Hutchinson

Chop Suey by Ty Hutchinson Reality check: The success of my business plan involves doing business with organized crime. – Darby Stansfield

Chop Suey is what would happen if you threw Glengarry Glen Ross and Office Space in a blender. Then added a serial killer. And Triads.

Telecommunications salesman Darby Stansfield is desperate. Having hit a bad stretch with his sales, he’s been put on notice he’s got six months to get his numbers headed in the right direction again or he’ll be fired.

Problem is, Darby doesn’t have any good leads. The one decent client he had was stolen out from under him by another salesman, leaving Darby with nothing but one-sale, dead end, mom-and-pop clients.

When a conversation with Mr. Fu, the owner of his favorite Chinese restaurant, brings up the subject of Triads inspiration strikes… he will tap into a previously untapped source of clientele and become a telecommunications specialist for organized crime. Darby will help the “organized” get organized.

Knowing he needs a bit of room to operate without being too scrutinized by the home office in San Francisco, Darby decides to branch out. To Hong Kong. Following up on information obtained from Mr. Fu, Darby actually manages to connect with the Fan Gang Triad, sell them on his plan, set up a fake toy company as a front for the operation, place a massive first order, and before you know it he’s on his way back to the top of the leaderboard. Coffee time, right? Wrong. →

August 08, 2011

Harvest of Ruins by Sandra Ruttan

All the memories and all the lies were like that game, Jenga. Pull out the wrong one and they’d all come crashing down. – Vinny Shepherd

Detective Sergeant Hunter McKenna’s world is crashing down around her. Two teenagers have been found dead under suspicious circumstances, and McKenna’s investigation into the deaths leads places some would rather she not go.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, her former partner, Tom Shepherd, has been shot and killed by his own daughter, Vinny. It would be an upsetting investigation under any circumstances, but added to the mix is that McKenna was once involved with Shepherd, an involvement that some say lead to the collapse of his marriage.

Shepherd’s ex-wife, Rose, is one of those people, and she blames McKenna for his death. Rose claims that McKenna’s questioning of the Shepherds’ daughter, Vinny, about the deaths of her friends pushed the emotionally fragile girl over the edge. With the help of her powerful new husband, Rose brings pressure to bear on the District Attorney, forcing him to pursue a case against McKenna for negligent homicide.

Now the only person that can help McKenna is the very person she’s accused of having driven to murder: Vinny Shepherd. →

August 05, 2011

Coming Home by PD Martin

Coming Home by PD Martin As time went by and I moved up the ranks to Homicide I realized that some cases don’t get solved…ever. – Sophie Anderson

For thirty years FBI profiler Sophie Anderson thought her brother’s case was one of the ones that was going to go unsolved forever.

Just a young girl when her slightly older brother was kidnapped and murdered, the event left a deep impression on Sophie which drove her into law enforcement. She worked her way up through the ranks of the Victoria Police department in her home country of Australia, eventually making it to a position in Homicide.

Her college background in psychology, and dual citizenship because of her father’s status as an American, got Sophie’s foot in the door where she really wanted to be: criminal profiling with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Little could she have imagined that after years of profiling kidnappers, rapists, and murders she would actually be called upon to put her skills to use in a case that hit far too close to home.

Yet, that’s exactly where she finds herself when a call from her parents back in Australia informs Sophie that the police have found the body of a young boy murdered in a virtually identical manner as her brother was, dumped within a stone’s throw of the remote location where her brother’s body was found all those years ago. Now, on leave from her position with the FBI, Sophie heads back home to Australia in hopes that solving this modern day nightmare will help put to rest the demons from her past. →

August 04, 2011

To plot or not to plot? by PD Martin

August 02, 2011

Julius Katz and Archie by Dave Zeltserman

“How do we pick which one among a group of psychopaths is our killer?” – Archie

Julius Katz is an unquestionably brilliant private investigator who lives and works in Boston. Unfortunately, he’s also unquestionably lazy, only working when his cash flow dips below the point of sustaining his healthy interests in fine wine, upscale dining, and gambling.

Julius Katz and Archie finds Julius hired by famous crime fiction author Kenneth Kingston to participate in a publicity stunt to help launch Kingston’s upcoming release, and hopefully boost severely lagging sales. The idea is to gather six “suspects” together in Julius’ office and, with press gathered, reveal one of them as being behind a plot to kill Kingston.

Having recently hit a bad streak of luck at poker, and always with an eye on adding to his extensive wine collection, Julius reluctantly agrees. However, a funny thing happens on the way to the bestseller list.

As Julius has the six suspects gathered in his office awaiting Kingston’s arrival, Julius’ assistant, Archie, happens upon a Boston Police radio communication indicating a body has been found at Kingston’s residence. It seems someone really was out to kill Kingston, and what started as a publicity stunt has turned into a very real mystery for Julius and Archie to solve. →

July 27, 2011

Dust Devils by Roger Smith

“Welcome to the heart of goddam darkness, son.”
– Bobby Goodbread

A man who protested alongside black South Africans for the end of apartheid, freelance journalist Robert Dell is a devoted pacifist with a deeply ingrained sense of justice. When his wife and children are killed after a truck deliberately forces them off the road, Dell’s grief turns into outrage when he is accused of being the one responsible for their deaths.

Initially placing his trust in the justice system to set things straight, Dell quickly realizes those responsible for the deaths of his family have connections in both the police force and court; he’s being railroaded, and the only way he can prove his innocence is to bring down the real culprit. Not an easy task, and one with which Dell reluctantly accepts his father’s help.

Ironically, his father, Bobby Goodbread, was himself only recently released from prison, where he was serving time for his involvement with death squads under the apartheid government. Fortunately Goodbread is still connected to his old network, because the man he and Dell are after is big game. →

July 25, 2011

Street Raised by Pearce Hansen

Speedy shrugged. For better or worse, he looked exactly like what he was: a savage motherfucker.

Having recently been released from prison in upstate California, Speedy hitchhikes home to Oakland to reunite with his brother, Little Willy, and best friend, Fat Bob. Unfortunately, during Speedy’s time away Little Willy has fallen into a life of crime and crack, and Fat Bob’s working as a bouncer in some of the area’s rougher establishments. Not exactly what Speedy hoped to find.

When two of the group’s longtime friends get rolled by a Mexican gang – tied up in chains and thrown into a river…alive – Speedy and the crew know things have to be put right and set out to make it so. Of course things aren’t that straightforward.

Along the way Speedy gets distracted by a woman, becomes the target of a racist gang, and the obsession of a very disturbed (and disturbing) killer. Matters are further complicated when the same cop who sent Speedy up the first time starts sniffing around the crew with ill intent. Taking place over the course of one tense, action-packed week, Street Raised by Pearce Hansen is a truly remarkable read. →

July 22, 2011

Becoming Quinn by Brett Battles

Oddly, the thing that really should have upset him – that he’d killed someone – barely bothered him at all.
– Jake Oliver

Jake Oliver is a bright-eyed, ambitious, twenty two year old rookie officer with the Phoenix Police Department. While out on patrol with his training officer one evening they are dispatched to the location of a 911 call requesting officer assistance. Upon arriving at the remote location they find a barn engulfed in flames and call in the fire department.

While waiting, Jake conducts a walk around of the property and notices some odd details – including a cable-like indention in the ground leading to the building – and takes photos of what he finds. After the fire is extinguished a search of the building reveals a dead body, one that wasn’t killed by the fire. The detectives investigating the case quickly chalk it up to something drug related, but Jake isn’t convinced.

So, with the assistance of another rookie officer, Jake begins his own investigation. Little could he have known that his search for the truth would reveal more than what happened to the victim, it would reveal Jake’s own future. →

July 21, 2011

The Indie Journey by Scott Nicholson

Author Scott Nicholson has been doing this writing thing for quite some time. He’s collected his thoughts about it in a book called The Indie Journey, and today I’m pleased to turn the blog over to him to talk a little about his personal journey as an author.

Scott Nicholson I used to think I was a decent writer.

That was back before the Internet, when I was pecking out my stories on an IBM Selectric that used a print cartridge and a wheel that kept breaking the E key. Those suckers were expensive, and I eventually calculated it was costing me about 20 cents a page to print out my stories. But that was okay, because my first-ever fiction check was for $10, so that…hey, wait a minute. That was pretty dumb.

But at least I was happy, because all I had to compare myself to was Stephen King, Lawrence Block, James Herbert, Shirley Jackson, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, James Lee Burke…you know, people who were so good that I never had to worry about catching up to them.

Even after I got a New York book deal, I still lived somewhat in a vacuum, because all I had to compare myself to were all the other moderately published midlist writers around, and few of us were breaking big. →

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