Dead Ringers – Captain Arlon Stoddard Adventures book 9

I have a blast writing my Captain Arlon Stoddard Adventure novels. Book 9 is now up for ebook ($5.99) preorder (available April 20th), and immediately if you want the paperback ($16.99).

Universal Book Link.


On his last day alive, Gus Caleb sits alone in a bar. Quiet place. No problems. Until problems show up.

Called to the Colston Ring, an alien artifact thousands of years old and inhabited by generations of human colonists, Captain Arlon Stoddard and his crew find the local authorities in disarray. Attempting to decode the background to a rash of strange disappearances makes the job near impossible.

When the crew begin uncovering the mystery, the things they find might just change everything for the millions of inhabitants of the ring.

More than anyone knows.

A Captain Arlon Stoddard novel that pushes the series into new directions. A must for fans and great place to jump in fresh.


In other news, book 10 Tramp Steamers has been written and copy-edited and is now just awaiting final formatting and last-minute tinkering. That will be out in October.

Not Above The Law, book 7 in the Cole Wright Thriller series will be out on June 20th, and available for ebook preorder, again $5.99. It will be in paperback too. More news on that to come. I should have a Cole Wright short story up for the month, free to read here. Check back on that in June.

Speaking of Cole Wright short stories No Lack of Courage, the first collection of stories is out now. Available as an ebook ($6.99), and as a trade paperback ($15.99) and hardback ($19.99).


Thanks for reading. I appreciate your eyes. More news soon.

Sean

No Lack of Courage – the Cole Wright short story collection

My Cole Wright series is now at six novels, with the seventh due in July (more on that in another post). Kevin J. Anderson mentioned in a seminar I was attending that most series don’t take off until book six. Maybe that’ll be book seven for me (or eight, or nine, grin – yes I will keep writing them).

Through 2022 each time I released a new Cole Wright novel, I also put out a short story, as an ebook, a print book and, for a limited time, free to read here on the website.

There was also a novella Cold Highway, and a limited free story with that. That’s enough stories for a collection, I figure. Even though releasing a collection kind of effectively kills the sales of those individual stories. It’s nice to see them gathered together like this.

Available here from the Universal Book Link.

ebook $6.99 (preorder for March 20th), paperback $16.99, hardback $21.99 (both available now)

Contents:
Dark Fields
Schedule Interruption
The Forest Doesn’t Care
One Little Broken Leg
The Handler
Cardinals
A Steep Climb
What Do You Say Gus?
Cold Highway


Probably a good time to mention that the seventh novel in the series is almost out for preorder, for release in June.

More news on that soon.


Then there’s other writing happening. The next Captain Arlon Stoddard novel Tramp Steamers has been copyedited and proofed and we’re looking at scheduling that for October, though the next Karnish River Navigations novel Rorqual Saitu is complete, just awaiting those edits. We were hoping to have that out in August, but we might switch those around.


And then with the day-to-day writing, I’m deep in the heart of a new book which started out as, I thought in my naivety, a short story that might break 5000 words (think twenty pages) and is now somewhere north of 30,000 words. Yes, it will be another novel. This is good news for fans of my Morgenfeld Saga, on which nothing has happened for a few years (busy with other series as you see above) – the new book is tentatively titled The Wintermas Paintings and might even be out before the end of the next year.

At the risk of extending that naivety, I thought I’d pop in the draft of Chapter One below for any who might be interested. This is raw, remember, not tinkered with, not copyedited, not even proofed. But it might still give a feel for where this book is going.

Art not final – just an ai version of what it thinks of Morgenfeld’s Tower of Bats.


The Wintermas Paintings

Chapter One

Despite the size of the space, the air in the old cavernous hall was musty and damp and thick.

Jason Trone shivered, pressed up to one of the windows. The glass was cold, and from somewhere came angry bellows.

Someone shouting his name.

Far off for now. He had a moment.

Jason sat on a low wooden bench seat. It was hard and had once been polished to a fine shine. The lustre was long gone, and the vanish was cracked and pitted and discolored. Probably oak, with a strong grain and a few knots. The legs were still strong.

Lying on the bench were the spoils of his plunder. Trinkets and baubles mostly. Two iron necklaces with gold plating that was already wearing off. Some glass sapphires and emeralds set in brass brooches. The pins on two were snapped. A pair of pearl earrings that might have been genuine, but they wouldn’t fetch much.

He scooped them back into his soft leather satchel. It had been a gift from his grandmother and wouldn’t she be disappointed now with the use he was putting it to.

Jason sighed.

The windows behind stood thirty feet high. They hadn’t been cleaned in decades. A dust patina lay across them, and bright green lichens spread on some of the panes, with darker green mosses looking lush and vibrant in edges and corners of the framing.

Jason wiped at one of the windows, removing just enough dust to be able to see through. The next part of the building stood about forty feet away, and he was about level with the edge of the roof. There were rows of windows, leading down three, no four, stories. The brickwork was festooned with dead vines, as if someone had cut the poor plant off at the roots.

An orange cat strolled along the parapet–the building’s walls rose higher than the roof, so there were gutterings hidden behind. The cat stopped and turned to lick at its side, stripes showing and tail flicking.

If Jason could get around to where the cat was now, then that would give him more options. The question was how to reach it.

Looking over the hall again, Jason marveled. It would have been quite impressive back in its day.

The vaults of the ceiling was a good forty feet from the wooden floor. The remains of chandelliers hung, sad and drooping.

Across from the windows there was a long mezzanine balcony, rather than a wall. Stiff plaster pillars still showing signs of their original gilding held the floor in place, and the railing was complex and twisted. Probably wrought iron. It had once been painted white, but now the only remaining paint was a few chips, and rust showed.

Perhaps it had been a ball room, or even a throne room. Perhaps there had been huge thick woollen curtains over the windows and where he sat now had been occupied by a stage. There might have been performances held of Crespin’s The Draper’s Revenge, or any number of Peart’s complicated plays. Or chamber quartet shows.

Jason closed his eyes a moment, imagining the hall filled with chairs, the audience chattering away until a master of ceremonies stood at the stage front and cleared their throat.

Another bellow from the distance brought him out of his reverie.

Closer.

What he hadn’t figured on, when he began fleeing with his purloined jewelery, was getting chased by constabulary with the mindset of zealots. That, with finding his escape route blocked, had thrown him into disarray.

Probably shouldn’t have even taken this moment to catch his breath.

Jason scooped the pauper’s jewels back into his satchel. One missed and fell to the floor. One of the faux-sapphire brooches. It glass jewel glinted with a fabulous blue.

With a quiet curse, Jason slipped off the bench and reached around for the jewel. An big black spider scuttled away. Jason caught a glimpse of its tunneled web, leading back from a hole beneath the window framing.

As he stood, he heard another bellow.

“Jason Trone! Stay right where you are.”

The voice echoed around the hall.

Turning, Jason saw a hefty officer just at the entry door at the far end.. Dressed in a dark blue uniform with gold buttons and brocades. His hat was slightly askew and his mustache was thick.

Another officer came up behind him. A woman. Smaller, with narrowed eyes and an angry mouth.

“Stay right there,” the male officer said. “You’re nicked.”

Jason tucked the flap of his satchel in.

“Don’t think about it son.” The officer took another step.

Jason slung the satchel over his shoulder.

“Get on your knees,” the female officer said, coming around, drawing her baton.

Jason ran. He sprinted right at one of the old plaster pillars.


copyright 2023 Sean Monaghan

Goldie – finalist in the Asimov’s Readers’ Awards

My novella “Goldie” from the January/February 2022 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is a finalist in annual Asimov’s Readers’ Poll Awards. Amazingly this is actually my third time as a finalist for this award, following “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles” and “The Molenstraat Music Festival“.

When they put up the finalists lists, Asimov’s also make the stories and poems available to read online for a limited time – see the full page of finalists here, and the the direct link to “Goldie”.

Nice to see Dominic Harman’s cover illustration for “Goldie” as a finalist in the Best Covers category. Dominic captured Goldie herself so well that I was stunned when I received my copies of the magazine. I’d spent a lot of time with Goldie over the course of a year. The novella was a big work and there was a lot of back and forth with Sheila Williams, the Asimov’s editor in getting it right for publication (thanks Sheila!). I was surprised by my own feelings when I saw her so gorgeously realized right there in front of me. Thanks Dominic! Good luck with the award.

And good luck to all the finalists, though of course fingers crossed for me.

 

 

 

 

Dead Ringers – Captain Arlon Stoddard book 9

Dead Ringers, book 9 in my Captain Arlon Stoddard series is available on pre order with an April 20th release – universal book link here

More will come closer to the time (though I will be away from the net on a research trip on the lead up to release day).

I will say now, though, that I’m excited about this one. Nine books now in the series. Who’d have thought, huh?

And, as I type this, I’m working on Tramp Steamers, the tenth book.

I also wanted to mention briefly the wonderful cover by Algol (licensed through Dreamstime) – I actually licensed this years back for a different story. A story I hadn’t written at the time. I loved the image and I grabbed it, and wrote a story based on it, thinking just to indie publish it. But then, I sold the story to a magazine, so that locked it up for a while (generally when you sell – license – a story, part of that is a period of time when it’s exclusive to the magazine, fair enough, they paid for that).

Anyway, in the interim, I’ve just never got around to publishing the story as a standalone (goofing off, I guess, since, you know, apparently I’m a slouch when it comes to putting stories and novels up indie and really should be getting more of them out), but I still hold the license on the image.

Then I wrote Dead Ringers and it was really different and high-concept and stuff like that and ultimately I was struggling to find cover art that fitted the story. Then I remembered I had this. It fits this story well, it’s dynamic and energetic and conveys the action. So here it is.

More soon – a blurb and other details on price and so on. But you know, we do have until April 20th until it’s out.

Thanks for reading.

More soon.

Sean

Liquid Machine – Karnish River Navigations book 6 – on pre-release now

Liquid Machine, Book 6 in the Karnish River Navigation series (though actually the ninth book to come out) will be out on February 20th, but can be preordered now.


Liquid Machine – blurb

An easy minder job, watching a dignitary’s child, should be a simple payday for Flis Kupe and Grae Sinder. Sometimes their little investigations business needs the peace and quiet. Sometimes it needs the money.

But when the job turns sour, Flis and Grae might just find themselves in the firing line.

A Karnish River Navigations novel that changes everything.

Universal book link here.

ebook $5.99, print $18.99


Why, you ask, is this book 6 in the series, but the ninth to come out? Well, it’s one of those series that can be read in any order, and, it turns out, I’m writing it in any order. I started this when I was a younger writer, and the first book was titled Arlchip Burnout and, naively I thought that was neatly alphabetical, why not carry on? (see Toby Litt’s alphabetical series).

So then, Canal Days and Eastern Foray and so on.

But it turned out that titles came to me from different places in the alphabet. Tombs Under Vail came out long before Eastern Foray. In fact, Fantastic Fiction lists them by publication year (fair enough) rather than alphabetically:

Karnish River Navigations
Arlchip Burnout (2015)
Night Operations (2016)
Canal Days (2016)
Guest House Izarra (2016)
Persephone Quest (2017)
Tombs Under Vaile (2018)
Eastern Foray (2019)
Jackpot Kingdom (2022)

Reading order would be

  • Arlchip Burnout,
  • Canal Days,
  • Eastern Foray,
  • Guest House Izarra,
  • Jackpot Kingdom,
  • Liquid Machine
  • Night Operations
  • Persephone Quest
  • [Rorqual Saitu]
  • Tombs Under Vaile
  • [W… X…]
  • [Y… Z…]

You’ll see those three titles there in parentheses/brackets – [ ] – these three are still to be written. I will be embarking on Rorqual Saitu possibly as soon as next month, so it might even be out later this year.

Then, the challenge I seem to have set for myself of coming up with the WX and YZ titles. And good stories to roll around under those. Humph. I suppose that I do like a good challenge.

A Steep Climb – a Cole Wright short story

A little slow off the mark with this… call it the end of the year blues. Mostly I like to have a Cole Wright short story up free to read in the first week of the month when a Cole Wright novel is coming out. This time, I missed that by a wide margin – Zero Kills, book 6 in the series, has already been out for a few days now.

The idea with a free story on the website here is to promote the upcoming title and the series as a whole. Since I’m kind of goofy with that whole marketing thing, sometimes pieces fall by the wayside. Social media? Advertising? Up to date website? Email list? What’s all that?

“A Steep Climb” as it turns out, was actually the first Cole Wright short story I wrote. When I was getting a feel for the character. It was fun coming back to it at this point (and making a couple of important changes) and cool to let it out into the world. I’ll leave it free here for a week or two. Maybe longer.

More Cole Wright news soon – an update on Zero Kills (you know, promotion), a little news on book 7, which has been drafted and as such is in the machine to get up to scratch to be publishable, and on a collection of all the Cole Wright short stories so far, including the novella.

A Steep Climb will also be out soon as an ebook and in paperback – priced as usual at $2.99 and around $5.99.

Enough of my waffling on – here’s the story.


A Steep Climb – blurb

Hitching a ride, Cole Wright finds himself listening to tall tales. He meets some remarkable people on the road.

When the driver suggests a detour to a beautiful overlook, they find more than they expect. People dressed and ready for a ball.

But they have other things on their mind.

Cover illustration by Dek257 | Dreamstime


A Steep Climb

 

Chapter 1

Delle Brodie climbed the steep face of the grassy slope, nursing her twisted ankle, watching the rage of angry waves below.

There were rocks there, at the base. Old granite or basalt or something. The kind of rock that sat implacable against the ocean’s onslaught for millions of years. Or against the impact of a boat’s hull.

Above the rock, the grassy slope was something she had to cling to. Maybe mountain goats or bighorn sheep could traverse it easily, but for a reasonably fit woman like herself, it was still a struggle.

Unnerving, even.

The grass was crisp and dry. The blades crackled underfoot and in her hands as she grasped at them. Some came away in her fingers. Hopefully the root mass was tougher. Otherwise, her urgent traverse might dislodge something and send a whole volume of it down into the Pacific. Her with it.

Back down with the debris of Hibiscus, her boat.

Insects buzzed around. Hornets, maybe, or bees. Despite the dryness of the landscape, there were still weedy flowers around. The smell was a heady mix of dusty earth, pine and a mess of floral scents.

If you could bottle it, you’d make a killing selling it at state fairs.

The sun beat down on Delle. Late September in Oregon you’d think it would be more temperate. There had been some fires a year or two back, racing up through parts of this countryside. Relentless and without mercy. Times were sure getting hotter.

Still, at least the sun would be setting soon. It might have been six PM already. Maybe later. On the boat, time hadn’t seemed to matter so much.

Somewhere south of Portland, north of Crater Lake National Park, one of her favorite places. Amazing that a lake could be so deep–deepest in the country–but only be accessible at the top of a mountain. Stunning, summer or winter.

It would be a whole lot better there right now, than here.

She was wearing running gear, which was a good thing. Tights, Nikes, a wicking, long-sleeved Ladbrook top. Black with bright colors–pinky-crimson on the upper half of the top, and the same color highlights along the leggings.

Better than if she was in jeans, sandals and some old baggy sweater.

She was in good shape, for her age. Pushing forty. She ran five miles a day, put in a couple of regular weekly sessions at Stone’s Gym in Tacoma hefting weights and pulling the oars on a rowing machine.

Delle stopped and took a breath. The slope had to be sixty degrees. Math had never been her strong suit. Ask her to pick the chords in a song and she could do that easy. Listen to something once, then play it on the piano no problem.

But angles and square roots and even multiplication baffled her.

Honey, her mother had said right through school, Music is just math.

Well, she got that. All the notes relate, one to the other. That was easy. But when you had to look up the cosine of an angle to figure out how long the side of a triangle was, well, that just lost her.

And why was she thinking about that now?

As if poor math skills were something to worry about when her boat was wrecked, she was stuck here scrambling up some wasteland into who knew where?

Another glance down–didn’t they say don’t look down?–and she could see that she was actually making progress.

She didn’t remember scaling the rocks. Just being thrown into the water, then she was here on the slope. Some survival instinct taking over. The conscious, memory-forming part of her brain shoved aside as something took over to get her away from those waves and out of the water.

A plunge through the water–she was still wet–and a scramble up the rock face. She had some cuts on her fingers and the left knee of her leggings was torn, the skin beneath scraped.

She stopped for another breath. Impossible to tell how far the slope reached. It curved back away from her.

It was tiring. And already she’d had to deal with the broken steering on the boat.

Hibiscus was a forty-foot fiberglass cutter. At least, she had been. Now she was just jetsam, with the mast bobbing in the waves, the keel sitting at the bottom of this little cove.

Her own fault, really. It was her father who’d been the sailing enthusiast. He’d gifted her the boat in his will.

He’d tried to share a lot of his enthusiams with her. Taking her to Jayhawks games, teaching her to shoot at the local range, watching bad fifties science fiction movies. Some of them were really terrible.

Maybe it was some desire to honor his name, to take the boat out. Maybe it was something clouding her judgement.

She’d been out on the boat plenty of times with him, from when she was maybe ten and he’d come into the money to purchase it.

He made it look easy. Adjust the sheets, work the tiller, change the sail configuration.

The last five years it had sat almost idle–just occasional rentals that helped pay the hospital bills–while he made noises about beating his cancer. Right up until the last day.

I’ll lick it, you hear me? I will.

Sure Dad.

Delle climbed on. Maybe it wasn’t too much farther. And the slope definitely seemed to be growing less steep. Something darted away through the grass to her right. Maybe a mouse. Maybe a small snake.

She should know more about the area’s wildlife, really.

The slope evened out. The grass was more vibrant and strong. Soon the slope was shallow enough that she could stand and walk upright.

The tips of trees showed farther up. Some pieces of litter were caught in the grass in places. Burger wrappers, plastic bottles.

The slope changed not far ahead. An edge to it. The grass scruffier, a low fence made from fat round pieces of wood. When she reached it though, the fence was higher than it had seemed. More like three feet high, with wire mesh between the posts.

Beyond, there was a gravel area, with tall pines behind. The scent of them was strong.

A black Cadillac was parked in the middle of the gravel area.

With a man standing at the open driver’s door. Just watching her.

 

Chapter 2

Cole Wright sat in the passenger seat of the rickety old Ford, listening to the driver talk about his time in the marines. Nice guy, though perhaps getting on a bit to still be driving, especially at the speeds he was doing. Staying within the posted limit, but the twists and turns didn’t lend themselves to the aggressive mode at all.

“Last posting was Desert Shield,” he told Wright, heading off into a long story about fixing the blades on helicopters in the baking heat and driving, sandy wind.

The car popped and purred. Sometimes driving smoothly, sometimes seeming to struggle. It had once been dark blue, but all the luster had gone out of its paneling and trim. The blue seemed hidden under decades of patina. Wright’s window was jammed about an inch from closed.

The guy had picked him up outside of a diner near a freeway spur. Wright had been thinking about finding a place for the night, though there hadn’t been much at the little interchange. A gas station, the diner, a few houses. A motel that was so decrepit that it looked abandoned. A sign out front boasted that they had Color TV!, though all the color had washed out of that too.

Easy enough to try his luck a ways up the road.

Days like this could go either way. Sleeping in a bus shelter, or getting invited back to someone’s home for a three course meal and a feather bed.

Right now, it was impossible to tell which way this ride was going to go.

“I liked the Blackhawks,” the guy was saying. “The rotors on those, whew! You could always tell when one was coming from the sound of those blades, yes sir.”

They were sweeping through country that was rough and rugged. Tall, old pine trees lined the road, the smell of them blasted through the gap in Wright’s window. Some exposed rock in the undergrowth.

“You serve?” the guy asked. He had a wiry white mustache and a Tigers cap, as orange as the fruit.

“I was a cop,” Wright said. “Doesn’t really count.”

“You served in your own way.”

“I guess.”

“You been out this way before?”

“No sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir’. Just ‘Fast’.”

“Fast?”

“Haven’t heard my real name since I was maybe three. Apparently I’m a fast learner. But it’s more like I can look at something and see how it works.”

“Like a helicopter rotor assembly.”

“Exactly.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes. The wind ruffled the trees. As they passed a clearing, Wright caught a glimpse of a raptor, diving into the grassy area. Must have seen a mouse or a small bird.

“If you have a moment or two,” Fast said, “We can stop off at Deep Cove Point. We might just catch the sunset and, let me tell you, a sunset over the Pacific. Ain’t nothing like it.”

“I’m not in any particular hurry,” Wright said. “Sounds like a deal to me.”

“Well all right then.” Fast sped up, and a few minutes later turned from the tarmac onto a gravel road.

The trees seemed to have closed in, and the road was even more twisted and tangled than the one they’d left. Fast barely seemed to slow.

Another few minutes and around a couple of bends, Wright glimpsed a graveled parking lot, fenced off from what looked like a cliff. Beyond lay the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The lot was below them, far off and around a few more bends. But, for a moment, he had a good view.

A vehicle in the lot already. And a couple of people.

One of them staggered back.

 

Chapter 3

Fast’s car’s tires crunched on the gravel. The stern swayed around corners. The rock chips on the road seemed a bright gray, as if a fresh load had been graded in recently. They’d had no time since leaving the crusher to become soiled and weathered.

The parking lot had vanished out of sight, hidden behind the thick trees.

The land was steeper here right near the coast. The Pacific slowly nibbling away as the bluffs. The road led Fast’s old Ford down.

“Give you a meal later,” Fast said, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gearshift. “If you’re hungry. If you can cope with bacon and cheese omelet.” The way he said it made it sound as if that was about the only meal he ate.

“Bacon and cheese omelet sounds good to me,” Wright said.

“Can’t offer you a bed. My place is tiny enough with just me. But there is a woodshed out back that’s not too bad. Got a trestle in there. We could lay down a couple of blankets. Shut the door you’d be fine.”

Fast glanced his way.

“Of course,” he went on, “I wouldn’t want to offend. Your tastes may be much more refined.”

Almost as if it was a test.

“I’ve slept on trestles before. Slept on worse.”

Facing the road again, Fast smiled.

They came around the corner and onto the expanse of the overlook parking lot.

The other vehicle was there.

The two people.

One standing. One laid out on the ground.

The one on the ground struggled to his feet. He was holding a gun.

He pointed it around. Aiming at Fast’s car.

Fast swore. The marines would have been proud.

 

Chapter 4

Out over the ocean beyond the overlook, some gulls glided along, white wings spread wide, red bills darting left and right. Always something interesting to look at if you were a gull.

Fast brought the car to a stop.

The guy with the gun got to his feet. He was wearing a formal suit. Not quite a tux, but definitely black tie. As if he’d just stepped out from some award ceremony to get some air.

Wright pulled on his door handle.

“Wouldn’t do that,” Fast said.

“No?”

“That guy’s armed.”

“And her?”

The other figure, a woman, who’d now stepped back, looked like she was out for a jog, wearing bright running clothes and expensive shoes.

One of them out exercising, one dressed to the nines. Neither really fit with how remote the location was.

“Looks like she can take care of herself. Looks like she knocked him down.”

“Yes, on both.”

“So,” Fast said, “seeing’s as how this guy is holding a Smith and Wesson M&P 9, and is pointing it right at me, I figure I’m going to back right out of here. Sorry about your sunset.”

“Mind if I stick around?” Wright kept his hand on the door handle.

The guy with the gun wasn’t steady on his feet at all. But, he was the one with the gun. Fast knew his weapons. The M&P 9 was a police issue weapon too, so maybe this was a cop, or he’d taken it from a cop.

“You gonna stick around?” Fast said. “Well, I can’t leave you to that.”

“Don’t feel obliged.”

“Oh, not at all.” Fast stared straight at him. “I’m seventy-nine years old. Not as fast as I used to be, but never one to shy away from a little action.”

Fast opened his door. Stepped out into the cooling air.

Wright did likewise.

The guy with the gun was shaky, but coming around.

The other vehicle was a Caddy. Late model too. Darkened windows and buffed paint. It was as shiny as Fast’s car was dull.

“If I were you,” the guy with the gun said, “I would get back into the car and go find somewhere else to be. Forget you were ever here.”

“Well,” Fast said, stepping around. “You ain’t me, so there’s no argument at all.”

On the near side, the back door on the car opened. A woman stepped out. She was wearing a red ball gown. She had coiffured dark hair that was almost buoyant.

The gown was cut to her figure, not revealing, though. Elegant and classy. She was wearing dark glasses with big lenses and tortoiseshell lenses.

The other woman stared at her.

“Delle,” the woman in the gown said. “Delle, Delle, Delle. Why would you think you could possibly back out of our little agreement.”

Spoken as if Wright and Fast weren’t even there.

“There’s no agreement,” said the woman in exercise gear–Delle, presumably.

“And now we have witnesses here.”

“You planned this?” Delle said.

“Had access to the boat,” the man with the gun said. “Easy enough.”

“You sabotaged my boat?”

The guy shrugged. He kept the gun aimed at Fast.

They formed a rough pentagon, a couple of yards between Wright and Fast, a couple of yards between the guy with the gun and the woman in the ball gown. She was a little under three yards from Wright.

Delle, the woman in the bright exercise gear, was a little father off, stretching out that corner of the pentagon.

It was a bad situation with the gun right there. The guy could practically pick them off at will.

So the situation needed something to mess with it.

“Where’s the boat now?” Wright said.

He started walking toward the rough fence. He cut between Fast and Delle.

The fence was the kind of thing that had probably been put in about twenty years back. Maybe after some incident. Maybe a car went over the side and the county made a token effort to prevent that happening again. And then they’d promptly forgotten it.

“Stop there,” the guy with the gun said.

One body was a problem, for sure. But three, that was a real problem. With them all dressed up like that.

Wright was betting the guy wouldn’t shoot.

“Is the boat down here?” Wright said. Kind of obvious, really. The ocean was below. Where else would the boat be?

“Last warning.”

Wright kept walking.

The guy fired. The loud crack of the discharge echoing around.

So much for betting that the guy wouldn’t shoot.

 

Chapter 5

The shot had been high and wide. The bullet now arcing out across the Pacific. Might hit some poor seabird or fish out there. Most likely the round would just splash down and sink to the bottom.

Wright was practically at the fence.

He hadn’t been shot. Maybe that was down to luck. Or maybe that was the actual last warning.

Maybe these people were smart enough to know that three bodies was bad odds. That kind of stuff caught up with you.

“I want to see the boat,” he said. What he wanted was to keep the gun aimed away from Fast and Delle. He would come to the fence and move along. Force the guy to turn and track him.

There would be one moment where the gun was aimed at Delle, but sometimes you took calculated risks.

None of his business really. Could have just stayed in the car with Fast. Let him back away.

“I don’t see a boat,” Wright said, looking over the fence, moving along.

Below him was a gradual curve of slope that looked as if it just vanished into a cliff. He couldn’t see where the land met the water.

“There’s a channel down there,” Delle said, stretching out her vowels as if she was from the far corner of the country. Georgia, maybe.

“A channel?” Wright said.

“Well, it’s a cove. The boat went off course. It got caught in the swell.”

“Which was the whole plan,” the man with the gun said. “Now, buddy, why don’t you come on back over this way?”

“Me?” Wright said.

“You might be over there thinking to yourself that I’m a bad shot. You might feel that the odds are a little in your favor. After all, you saw me getting up after being knocked down. You might be thinking that I’m off my game.”

“I was thinking along those lines,” Wright said.

“I’m a professional here.”

“Good for you. How’s the pay?”

“Come back over here.”

“What kind of boat?” Wright said. He didn’t move. Just kept looking over the slope. The waves were long and straight, stretching north and south. They’d come all the way from Hawaii or Japan or the Kamchatka peninsula.

“Buddy,” the guy said. “Don’t make me count.”

“Did the engine break down?” Wright said.

“Yes,” Delle said.

One of the passing gulls called. A loud plaintive bleat. Hard to tell if it meant it was annoyed at the intrusion of folks with cars and guns, or if it was calling to others.

“So this,” Fast said, “is not making any sense to me. You were on boat, honey and–“

“Don’t call me honey.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry.”

“Just Delle, please.”

“Will you people be quiet?” the woman in the ball gown said.

“I still haven’t figured it out,” Wright said. He kept moving along the rail.

“Nothing to figure out.”

“Did you climb up here?” Wright said, turning to Delle. The others were all still where they’d been.

“Right up from the water.” She looked around at him. Her eyes picked up the sun as it reached for the horizon.

She was a few years older than he was, maybe even late thirties. Clear that she looked after herself, though the climb up from the water must have taken it out of her.

“You knocked him down?” Wright said.

“Just.”

“Enough,” the woman in the ball gown said. “We just have a few questions for her and we’ll be on our way.”

“Ask your questions,” Wright said. “What’s the occasion?”

“Huh?” the guy with the gun said.

“We’re the ones asking the questions,” the woman said. She stepped away from the car.

“I haven’t heard a question yet,” Wright said. “But I’ve got a few of my own.”

“Likewise,” Fast said. He’d stayed by the front of his car. The separation between him and Wright, with the gunman between was close to a hundred and eighty degrees. No way the guy could shoot them both.

The gunman was standing where he’d been. Back to the woman, side on to the Cadillac. Facing so he could watch Wright and Delle.

“Where are you from?” Wright said, meaning Delle. She had her eyes on him. Hard to tell what she was thinking.

“Seattle,” she said.

“How about that. Me too. You ever get over to–“

“Stop.” The woman in the ball gown stepped away from the car. “He opens his mouth again, shoot him.”

“Wouldn’t do that,” Fast said.

“Or shoot him,” she said. “I don’t care. I just want to know what happened to the package.”

She took a step toward Delle.

Who were the good guys in this situation? Easy to assume that the guy with the gun was in the wrong, that the woman who’d climbed up the cliff was the victim.

He’d made mistakes like that before. You had to step back. Avoid assumptions.

Fact was, anyone who was shooting at him was a bad guy.

Wright took a step back from the fence. Toward the Cadillac. It was a nice car. Well-maintained. Kind of thing it took money to get your hands on.

Didn’t things like this always involve money? Real money. Not the kind of cash involved when your friend bought your movie ticket, or a someone built a deck on the back of your house.

The kind of money most people would retire on.

“What’s in the package?” Wright said. He flicked his eyes from Delle to the guy with the gun. Even though he’d fired a shot, he didn’t look like he was going to shoot again anytime soon. Still a little dazed.

Wright took another step.

“He don’t look so good,” Fast said.

“No,” Wright said. “She must have popped him a good one.”

“I did,” Delle said. “But that was before I knew he had a gun.”

“Makes sense,” Fast said. “I wouldn’t go knocking someone down if they had a gun on me.”

“Enough!” The woman in the ball gown stepped forward. She ripped the gun from the guy’s hand. She pointed it a Wright’s feet.

Fired.

Whipped around. Fired a second shot. At Fast’s feet.

Came back again.

A third shot. This one at Delle’s feet.

“You people are not getting the message. Shut up. Answer the question. Where. Is. The. Package?”

The woman kept the gun aimed right at Delle. Center mass.

A kill shot.

 

Chapter 6

A Smith and Wesson M&P 9 is a well-balanced pistol. Smith and Wesson make a fine range of weapons, many destined for law enforcement agencies.

Wright had fired plenty of them himself. Little kick, nice feel in the hand. No jamming.

The magazine would hold fifteen, with a chambered round too. By Wright’s count, that made twelve left.

No chance of safely disarming her. Or even risking a bad shot. Had to assume a full magazine.

And she was quite the marksman, too.

All the shots had been about a half a foot to the right of the target.

Ostensible target. She’d hit exactly where she’d meant to. Intentional. The bullets might have buried themselves in the ground, or ricocheted away. But it would have been bad luck if the ricochet had angled back and hit one of them. Maybe catching a bad angle from one of the rock chips in the gravel parking lot.

“I suppose,” Wright said, “someone ought to tell her where the package is.”

A gull alighted near him, on the fence’s rail. Perhaps it was the same gull that had been gliding around and calling.

“I don’t know about a package,” Delle said.

“Course you do,” the guy who’d previously had the gun said. He was scowling. He was supposed to be the tough guy here. Now he’d been knocked down, and disarmed.

Guy like that, his ego wouldn’t like it. Chances were his precious little ego was even more bruised because both actions had been by women. Too old fashioned.

“What was the package?” Wright said. He held his hands low and out. I’m unarmed. Let’s talk this through.

The woman turned. She stared at him.

“The boat was leased to us, for as and when we required it.”

“Smuggling something,” Wright said.

“Yet this woman chose to take the boat–“

“It’s my boat.”

“You’re still bound by the contract signed by your father.”

“There was no contract.”

“Guns?” Wright said. He took another step closer. “Drugs? Data? What were you smuggling?”

“It doesn’t matter. It was loaded in the boat. She took it.”

“Whatever it is,” Delle said, “it’s at the bottom of the ocean now.”

The woman in the ball gown licked her lips. “You’re telling me you didn’t know about it?”

“Of course she knew about it,” the guy said.

“Don’t think she did,” Fast said.

“I really didn’t,” Delle said.

The woman with the gun sighed.

The logic of crooks. Assuming that everyone was crooked and just out to get them. Didn’t matter if you were some street thug or rolling in dollars, like these two, you still thought the world was out to get you.

Wright took a half a step forward. Getting within reach. Almost.

Very delicate time now.

The guy was watching him. The woman had the gun aimed right at Delle.

Very delicate.

Anything could set it off.

 

Chapter 7

A couple of big dark birds darted through the trees behind the gravel parking lot. They twittered and spun, almost like some dogfight.

Above and behind, puffy clouds were growing. Moist air pushed in off the ocean, and up by the terrain. Maybe they would dump some rain later. The land around here sure could use it.

“Sounds like she didn’t know about this package,” Wright said.

“The package was right under the galley sink,” the woman said. “She had to know about it, because she would have stored food there.”

“I didn’t store any food.” Delle glanced at Wright, back at the woman.

Another sigh. The woman adjusted the shoulder of her dress. She was wearing heels, but not too high, and not stilettos. As if she’d been expecting to be walking on rough ground, but still wanted to look good for whatever event later.

“You were seen loading the food,” she said. “A cardboard box, open at the top. A couple of cans and a bag of cereal sticking up.”

Delle’s lips pursed.

“Our contact told us you’d left the marina. Heading south.”

“We shut down your steering,” the guy said. “On remote.”

“Seems mighty impolite,” Fast said.

The gull that was on the fence took to the air with a squawk. Below, the waves continued to pound in.

“I overrode it,” Delle said. “But it made things worse. No control at all.”

“Let me see if I understand this all,” Wright said. “You stored a package on her boat. Then, when she took the boat, you used some remote system to disable it. Right here?”

Wright turned, looking back out toward the ocean, but using the pivot to move himself closer to the group. To the woman.

“Nasty rocky coast, this,” Fast said. “No place to be in a boat without steering.”

Wright turned again, bringing himself just a little closer.

“Believe me,” Delle said to Fast, “I know it.”

“You wanted the package,” Wright said, “but you wrecked the boat, meaning that it’s taken the package down with it.”

The guy in the suit grunted. As it was obvious, now that it had been pointed out to him.

“You’re running your operation much too lean,” Wright said. “You needed to be tailing her in another boat, not in this.”

“We didn’t have another boat,” the woman said. She jabbed the gun’s muzzle toward Delle. “She knew we were using the boat. She knew what for.”

“Happy to turn the other way,” the guy said. “As long as she needed the cash for her dear departed dad’s hospital expenses.”

“So she took the package,” Wright said. “When she knew the boat was going to wreck. Took it with her. Hid it away somewhere on the cliff face there. Some nook. Figured she would come back later.”

“She would have known by then,” Fast said. “Would have known that the disabled boat wasn’t a random accident.”

“Yes,” Wright said. “She would have figured you to be after her.”

“Knowing that you didn’t have another boat.”

“So you’d be coming by land.” Wright nodded at their car. “In your fancy ride.”

“We should go have a look down there,” Fast said. “Probably hidden away.”

“There’s nothing hidden away,” Delle said. “There’s no real cliff. Just grass that gets real steep. Rocks at the bottom.”

“She doesn’t have it on her,” Fast said. “Outfit like that, you’d know right away. Meaning no offense.”

“None taken,” Delle said.

“How about this?” Wright said. “I’ll go down and take a look. Your goon can come with. We’ll have a good hunt for this package.”

He was less than a yard from the woman now. Almost within striking range.

“You?” the woman said.

“Just trying to figure out a way that no one gets shot.”

“Very admirable. I–“

Wright moved then. Ducking. Moving quickly.

Charging ahead. A football tackle.

He caught the woman around the waist.

The gun went off.

 

Chapter 8

For a moment, Wright and the woman were airborne. In weightless freefall.

She smelled of roses.

She twisted in his grip.

Wright landed hard. A sharp piece of the gravel drove into his shoulder.

She’d twisted enough that his full weight didn’t come down her. She wrestled from his grasp.

Wright grabbed for her, but she scrambled away. Sharp pain came from his shoulder. The feel of blood trickling.

She sat, staring at him. Out of reach. Her ball gown was ripped at her hip.

She didn’t have the gun.

Wright whipped around. Still on the ground. Looking for the weapon.

Had to be somewhere.

Delle was holding it. Like Wright, she was bleeding from her left shoulder.

Unlike Wright, the wound looked bad. Moist and glistening in the fading light.

The gull darted low, squawking at them.

Delle held the gun in her right hand. She seemed unsteady.

“I found your package,” she said. She started walking around to the side, kind of following the path Wright had taken earlier.

“Knew it,” the guy in the suit said. He was standing back by the car. Leaning on the hood.

Delle kept the gun trained on him.

“Of course I found it,” she said. “You could have been more obvious. Keys.”

“So where is it?” the woman stood. She dusted off her gown, as if that would make it all right.

Fast stayed where he was, right at the front of his dull old Ford. He looked bemused.

Delle continued on. She went around the front of the Cadillac.

“Where is it?” the guy said.

“Keys,” she said. “Give me the keys to your car.”

“As if I’m going to do that.”

Delle shot him. The sound cracked through the lot. Up into the trees.

Some birds took flight.

The guy went down. Not dead. Shot in the shoulder.

Same as her.

Not a random, accidental shot. She knew how to handle a weapon.

The guy had collapsed to the gravel. He lay, panting. Not screaming, though it must have been excruciating. Impressive.

“Okay,” Wright said, getting to his feet. “Looks like we’re done here.”

“We could give you a lift,” Fast said. “Take you to town somewhere.”

“Oh,” Delle said. “We’re not done here. Not by a long shot.”

She moved away from the side of the Cadillac and took aim. She shot out the front tire. The crack of the gunshot blended with the ugly, burping blast of the tire exploding.

She did the same to the back tire.

The Cadillac rocked on its suspension with the sudden removal of air from the tires.

She came around and put two more shots into the near side tires. Then she reached inside and popped the trunk. The spare got the same treatment.

“Starting to hurt my poor old ears,” Fast said. “I haven’t heard this much shooting since back in the good old days.”

Delle took something from the trunk and brought it around. She tossed it to the woman in the ball gown.

A first aid kit.

“Your buddy might need some help,” Delle said. “Might be a while before you get an ambulance out this way.”

The guy was moaning now.

“You need that,” Wright said.

“It’s a scratch,” Delle said. “This guy’s got a bullet lodged against his scapula.”

“Got you covered, anyway,” Fast said. “Got a better kit than that in my glove compartment.”

Of course he did. The car might be run down, but Fast was a smart guy.

“I did find your package.” Delle pointed the gun inside the car. She fired four more shots. Into the upholstery and the dash.

“It was so obvious. You assumed that you could just continue using the boat and that made me mad. Real mad.”

“Where is the package?” the woman said.

“Thing with a yacht is that you have a lot of sharp tools. For cutting rope and gutting fish and peeling vegetables. So I cut the package open. I let the contents waft away on the breeze.”

The woman closed her eyes. “You’ll pay for this.”

“No,” Wright said. “She has witnesses now.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Sure,” Delle said. “You left drugs on my boat so I–“

“Not drugs.”

“I could feel the package. Powdery. About two pounds. Maybe less.”

Delle went around the guy who was still lying on the ground moaning, clutching his shoulder.

Delle fired another shot into the car’s grill. Steam hissed through the gap.

“I figure it’s drivable,” Delle said. “But you’ll have to take it slow. You should look after him.”

She headed toward Fast’s car.

“Guess we can be on our way,” Fast said.

“If you’d take another passenger.”

“Hop on in.”

Fast went around and got in. He started the car. Delle got in back.

Wright stood a moment watching the woman. She didn’t move.

“Come on,” Fast said. “We got places to be.”

Wright held up his hand. “Just a moment.”

 

Chapter 9

Wind ruffled through the trees upslope, peace and soft, as if no one had been shooting the tires out of cars, or wrecking smuggler boats. Nature didn’t care.

Wright’s shoulder throbbed, but it felt like the bleeding had stopped. He went to the woman in the ball gown.

“Give me that,” he said, and just took the first aid kit from her.

He went to the guy and took out a bandage. Wright stripped off the plastic wrapping. He took the guy’s hand off the wound and put the still-rolled bandage over it. He put the guy’s hand back.

“Hold that there. Pressure.”

The guy grunted.

Wright rolled him a little and found his phone in his back pocket. A swipe at the screen brought up the camera.

Wright photographed him. He stood and photographed the woman. The car, the parking lot, the trees.

He took the phone with him back to Fast’s car. Handed it to Delle.

“What was all that?” Fast said. “With the phone?”

“Evidence, I hope.”

“You don’t have your own phone?”

“Not right now.” Wright looked over at Delle. “Nice shooting.”

Delle dropped the gun. It thumped into the footwell.

“She emptied it,” Fast said. “Woman knows her guns.”

“I didn’t really throw away their package,” Delle said. “I did take it. I did hide it in the rocks.”

She had Fast’s first aid kit already and with scissors, was cutting away at the blood-stained fabric to get at the wound.

“Hid it?” Fast said. “Now why would you do that?”

“He knows.”

“Me?” Wright said.

“Yes.”

“Well?” Fast said.

“It wasn’t drugs?”

“No.”

“It was human remains, wasn’t it?”

Delle nodded.

“Where is it?” Wright said.

“Human what?” Fast said.

“Ashes,” Delle said. “Who knows why it was packaged in taped-up brown paper, but there you go.”

“Her father?” Wright said.

“My guess, yes.”

“His last wishes, maybe. The smuggler wanted to have a final joke on some client somewhere.”

Fast laughed. “That’s great. I love that. I can picture a movie star out there snorting up someone’s ashes.”

Wright looked back across toward the woman and the guy. Hard not to feel sorry for her. Whoever you were and whatever you did in life, a parent was still a parent.

Closure, they called it. Real important.

“You didn’t dump it?” Wright asked Delle.

“I left it on the climb,” Delle said. “Kind of near the top. It’s pretty out of reach, but I figured someday, someone might find it. Wonder how a package of drugs got wedged in behind a gull’s nest here on the coast.”

“Insurance,” Wright said. “You knew they were coming for it. You needed backup in case we didn’t show up.”

“She was expecting us?” Fast said.

“No,” Wright said. “If she’d known we were coming she would have tossed it.”

“I wouldn’t,” Delle said. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Can I get to it?” Wright said.

Delle took a breath. “Let me. I know where it is.” She opened the door and got out of Fast’s car.

“You need a rope?” Fast said. “I’ve got one in the trunk.”

“I’ll be fine.”

And she was. She scampered across the gravel lot and over the fence. Vanished toward the ocean.

“I’m losing my faith in human nature,” Fast said.

“Isn’t this moment helping you regain it?” Wright said.

“Whatever. It’s a very complex thing.”

“Human nature?”

“Absolutely. Who would have thought that one moment this shipwrecked woman would be shooting out the radiator in that nice car there, then next moment she’s clambering down a cliff to retrieve someone’s ashes?”

“Not me,” Wright said.

Fast laughed.

A moment later, Delle reappeared. She had a package. She carried it over to the woman and handed it to her.

“I hope you get closure,” Delle said.

The woman stared. Her face was a mask, but right there, right underneath, it looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

Delle came over and got into the back seat of Fast’s car. Wright got into the front passenger seat.

Fast backed around. Sped out of the lot, and off along the winding road.

“Nice work,” Fast said, with a laugh. “Nice work everyone. I haven’t had so much fun in ages. Now, how do bacon and cheese omelets sound?”

“Sounds great to me,” Delle said.

Wright smiled. He was hungry. It sounded pretty great to him too.



Thanks for reading “A Steep Climb”. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did (after all, this is marketing, right), check out the other stories and novels in the series on the Cole Wright page on the website here. Ebooks, paperbacks and even hardbacks (of the novels). Does anyone want audiobooks? Seems as if lately the AI revolution is making that a little more cost effective (as expense, I suspect, of numerous skilled voice artists – that’s kind of scary). Maybe I should wander down that path for a little while.

Again, thanks. Feel free to comment, even just to say hi.

Take care,

Sean

Cold Highway – the first Cole Wright novella out now

Cold Highway – A Cole Wright Thriller – novella

A trip north of the border takes Cole Wright into the heart of snowbound Canada. Friendly people, vast distances, tough vehicles, isolation.

When a breakdown looms, Wright finds himself caught in the white, compacted landscape. A road thirty feet wide, hemmed in by the piled up ridges left by snowploughs. And an endless forest that could hide just about anything.

Unfriendly territory. Dangerous places.

A Cole Wright novella that focuses down on a single moment where the slightest error could be his last.

 

Available now as an ebook, $3.99, and in print $7.99/$10.99 – Link here.


It’s been a big year for my Cole Wright character, from the first short story “Dark Fields“, and the first novel The Arrival, we’ve put out a bunch more novels and stories, and now, the first novella. This has been a labour over the last several years to get these up and running. The sixth novel Zero Kills will be out in December (available for preorder now), and I’m hard at work on the seventh right now, and hoping to have that out around May next year. More on that as the time approaches.

Check out all the details and links on the Cole Wright Thrillers page here on the website.

Next year we’ll be putting some of the novels together into box sets – that’ll be two box sets, of books 1 -3 and of books 4-6. We’ll also have a collection of all the short stories, and include Cold Highway in there too. And some bonus content that we’re still tinkering with.


Thanks for reading. More soon.

Sean

Writing, writing, writing…

For a little change and a little challenge, I took on participating in NaNoWriMo this year. The background to taking that on comes from my day job workplace, a public library, where the youth team are working to encourage young writers to participate. I’m going to run a couple of workshops for in the Youth Space too.

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, held every November. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days. That works out around 1667 words a day. In any given month I write more than that so it’s manageable. This is the first time, though, that I’ve started a novel intentionally on the first of the month, targeting a finish by the last day. Mostly my novels come in around 60,000 words. Sometimes they spill over to 70,000, even 75,000.

NaNoWriMo is a funny thing, though. Signing up is cool and it’s nifty recording my word count each day as I progress toward that target. They have pep talks and encouragement, but sometimes miss the mark.

The first one I came received, from a well-published and award-winning writer talked about how “writing is hard”. Really? Sorry NaNoWriMo, that’s no pep talk. That sounds discouraging. I did read the whole of the ‘pep’ talk and it wasn’t really to my taste, wasn’t really talking to me.

I would have loved something about how writing is fun. It’s a blast. You’re making up stuff just for the heck of it. Because you can. I would suggest that if it’s hard you might be doing it wrong, or coming at it from the wrong approach. And if it’s not fun, go do something that is.

Last year I railed against an article in the Sunday Star Times* titled if “Writing is torture and you hate it, you might be a writer”. What is the deal out there with so many people writing about how tough writing is? Let’s encourage writers rather than put them off.

*[In previous years I also railed against the T&C of the SSTimes story contest which were a rights grab. I noticed this year that they’ve updated the terms to drop that grab. Good on them, finally. Sorry I didn’t notice this until the contest closed – I guess I’d become cynical about it over the years.]

On a lighter note, I am having a blast writing this novel. It’s fun and different and once it’s had a once-over and a copy-edit and a proof-read, it should be out sometime in the first half of next year.

 

Oh, yes, about next year. I’m looking at publishing a little less. Publishing ten novels (albiet one of them a short novel), a few novellas and numerous short stories this year has been good, but I still need to learn marketing better, and social media [talking about something that’s hard – try social media… oh, what, that’s easy? I wish I found it easy… it doesn’t come naturally to me, so I need to practice I guess 🙂 ]. I do have three novels in various stages of preparation to be released through the first half of the year, likely to be February, April and June. Another focus next year will be collections – I have a whole lot of stories that I’ll gather together. Including all the Cole Wright shorts from this year. Considering the title No Lack of Courage. Cheesy? Corny? I don’t know. It’ll be nice to have them all together in a single book.

The last novel for this year will be the sixth in the Cole Wright thriller series, Zero Kills. It should be up for preorder soon. The cover it a little different from the original, but matches the story better. (cheeky me, I’ll reuse that original image on another book, maybe next year).

I’ll have another short story – “Junkyard Mornings” up for free in early December for a week or so. You know, marketing and promotion. Reader magnet or what have you.

Thanks for reading.

 

“Cardinals” – A Cole Wright short story, and Cold Highway – A Cole Wright novella

With my last post, I was deep in the heart of writing the ninth Captain Arlon Stoddard novel, Dead Ringers, and as I write this, I’m deep in the heart of writing the seventh Cole Wright novel (as yet untitled), which shows that I go too long between posts here.


Cold Highway – A Cole Wright Novella – out now

A trip north of the border takes Cole Wright into the heart of snowbound Canada. Friendly people, vast distances, tough vehicles, isolation.

When a breakdown looms, Wright finds himself caught in the white, compacted landscape. A road thirty feet wide, hemmed in by the piled up ridges left by snowploughs. And an endless forest that could hide just about anything.

Unfriendly territory. Dangerous places.

A Cole Wright novella that focuses down on a single moment where the slightest error could be his last.


With “Cold Highway” the first Cole Wright novella came on November 20th, and the sixth novel Zero Kills will be out on December 20th, it’s a busy time for my little thriller series.

Stay tuned for more news – another free story in December, and plans for Cole Wright and other series next year.

“Cold Highway” is available now. $3.99 ebook / $10.99 print.


Cardinals – A Cole Wright Short Story – also out now

Lieutenant Ione Anders of the Spokane Police Department stares at a blade jutting from one of the tires on her new issue vehicle.

Looks like the start of another one of those days.

A day that proves full of surprises.

A Cole Wright story with a difference, putting him right there in the action as he tags along.

Cover illustration © Constantin Opris | Dreamstime.

 

“Cardinals” is available as as an ebook and in print, usual thing of $2.99 and $5.99, since it’s just a short story. Link here.


Keep an eye out for a short story free to read here in December, and Zero Kills released on December 20th – preorder link here


 

“Sea Skimmers” – a Captain Arlon Stoddard short story

I am currently deep in the heart of writing the ninth Captain Arlon Stoddard novel, Dead Ringers, which is proving to be one of the most complex I’ve ever written – I’m taking more notes as I go than ever, and I’m tinkering a whole lot more with early parts of the story. It’s fun and different, and I hope to have it out in the first quarter of next year, all going well.

Also out is “Ortanide Steppers“, the first novella in the series.


Sea Skimmers

Experienced Captain Ulliana Alvis loves skimming above the forty-five hundred kilometer stretch of the Tegh Sea. Her vessel the Mourave carries fifty passengers in safety and comfort. The calm of the water always reassures and moves her at once.

But safety can be an illusion.

A Captain Arlon Stoddard short story that pits the crew against cascading events and into a desperate attempt to save lives.

A great place to jump in if you’re new to the series, and a wonderful addition for fans.

Cover illustration © Savagerus | Dreamstime.

“Sea Skimmers” is out now as an ebook and a little paperback. Usual thing of $2.99/$5.99.