CQI Magazine - Crime Wave edition

c I Q

EDITION 3 ISSUE 6 May 2018

* Choosing the right sub genre for your crime story ~ page 6 * a bit about the origination of the police force in England ~ Page 13 * Electric eclectic books ~ page 18 * The award winning short story~ ‘twenty

minutes’ by Lauren Hester~ page 22 * Kazz’s column book review~ page 26 * The F B I ~p a g e 2 9 * Interview with Robert Crais ~ page 32

Contents * Poetry by Nicholas Nguyen Page 43 ~ 46 * Bloodstain Pattern Analysis ~ Page 50

* A bit on Editing ' Rob Bignell ~ Page 56 * Half way up a mountain ~ Dorothy Berry~Lound Reports ~ Page 62 * Alone and Forsaken ~ a short story by Mamie Willerby Pound ~ Page 78 * Unsolved Crimes for your writers Muse to muse over ~ Page 80 * August CQI announcement ~ Rear Cover

A note from our editor Crime

is usually distinguished from

mainstream fiction and other genres, such as science fiction or historical fiction, but

crime drama stories and I am currently working on a bloodthirsty 'slasher' style crime novel.

boundaries can be and, indeed are, blurred.

The genre's flexibility is perhaps one reason

All one can with any certainty is the label

for its wide and enduring appeal and means

'crime fiction' is a resilient convenience for

different things to different people at

those who use it, not an exact term.

different times. Unlike some literary fiction, the crime novel retains many of the time-

Looking at the history of crime fiction as a

honoured techniques of fiction character,

serious genre, it didn't begun to be

theme, narrative, tension and so forth.

considered a serious genre until around 1900. Crime fiction generally started in 1841

There is now such a huge variety within the

with the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's

genre, it also has several sub-genres,

story 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'.

including detective fiction (including the classic whodunnit), legal thriller, courtroom

From there it gradually spread over the

drama,

Police

United States, Great Britain and France. By

procedurals, private eye, suspense, thrillers

the turn of the century crime fiction was

and any other sub-genre in which a

generally acknowledged as a new and

committed crime is the leading motivator of

special kind of literature.

hard-boiled

fiction,

the plot. Indeed, there are novels where the hero is the criminal not the detective.

I myself have written several Psychological

The position of the most famous crime fiction author in this brief history must

surely be Arthur Conan Doyle 1880 - 1920 (a

best-known detectives are Hercule Poirot,

medical practitioner from Edinburgh) who

Jane Marple and Mr. Parker Pyne.

invented Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes mysteries are said to have been

The evolution of the print mass media in

singularly responsible for the huge popularity

Britain and America in the latter half of the

in this 'locked room mysteries' genre. The

19th century was crucial in popularising

evolution of locked room mysteries was one

crime fiction and related genres.

of the landmarks in the history of crime fiction.

Just as these writers broke new ground, so now are numerous modern writers, many of

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes

those who venture outside the established

stories first appeared in serial form in the

boundaries of single genre are Indie Authors.

monthly Strand magazine in Britain. The series

quickly

attracted

a

wide

and

These people are empowered by the internet

passionate following on both sides of the

and social media, as our earlier counterparts

Atlantic, and when Doyle killed off Holmes in

were enabled by the innovation of mass

The Final Problem, the public outcry was so

print.

great, and the publishing offers for more stories so attractive that he was reluctantly

I say "onwards and upwards" the future

forced to resurrect him.

for literature has rarely looked healthier.

Equally as important in the history of the

CQI Magazine is here to support all writers,

crime fiction genre was Agatha Christie (1890

authors, illustrators cover designers and

-1976) who was born in Devon and educated

artists from all walks of life and all disciplines

at home, studying singing and piano in Paris.

by showcasing their works to the world.

Agatha

served

as

a

Voluntary

Aid

Detachment nurse in Torquay during WW1, and worked in the dispensary of University College Hospital, London, during WW2. Her

Enjoy.

Paul White Editor in Chief.

Genre - Crime Make it work for you CRIME: a story focused on the commission of a crime, often from the point of view of the criminals.

BUT… there are many sub-genres, some I am sure you would not have considered for your crime story setting.

Perhaps this is why you may be struggling to justify some of your characters, their actions, or the entire premise of your plot.

Your story has developed, it has taken on 'a life of its own'. So, now is a good time to reassess your tales genre.

It may open possibilities and options you have not deemed possible previously.

Altering your mindset may get you out of the 'cul de sac' you have written yourself into?

Think about these…

Amateur Detective: a mystery solved by an amateur, who generally has some profession or affiliation that provides ready access to information about the crime.

Child in Peril: a mystery involving the abduction or persecution of a child.

Classic Whodunit: a crime that is solved by a detective, from the detective’s point of view, with all clues available to the reader.

Comic (Bumbling Detective): a mystery played for laughs, often featuring a detective who is grossly unskilled (but often solves the crime anyway, owing to tremendous good luck).

Cosy: a mystery that takes place in a small town—sometimes in a single home—where all the suspects are present and familiar with one another, except the detective, who is usually an eccentric outsider.

Courtroom Drama: a mystery that takes place through the justice system—often the efforts of a defence attorney to prove the innocence of his client by finding the real culprit.

Dark Thriller: a mystery that ventures into the fear factor and graphic violence of the horror genre.

Espionage: the international spy novel—here based less on action than on solving the “puzzle”—is today less focused on the traditional enemy spies than on terrorists.

Forensic: a mystery solved through the forensics lab, featuring much detail and scientific procedure.

Heists and Capers: an “antihero” genre which focuses on the planning and execution of a crime, told from the criminal’s perspective.

Historical: a mystery that takes place in a specific, recognizable period of history, with much emphasis on the details of the setting.

Inverted: a story in which the reader knows “whodunit,” but the suspense arises from watching the detective figure it out.

Locked Room: a mystery in which the crime is apparently committed under impossible circumstances (but eventually elicits a rational explanation).

Medical: generally involving a medical threat (e.g., a viral epidemic), or the illegitimate use of medical technology.

Police Procedural: a crime solved from the perspective of the police, following detailed, real-life procedures.

Private Detective: Focused on the independent snoop-for-hire, these have evolved from tough-guy “hard-boiled” detectives to the more professional operators of today.

Psychological Suspense: mysteries focused on the intricacies of the crime and what motivated the perpetrator to commit them.

Romantic: a mystery in which the crime-solvers fall in love.

Technothriller: a spinoff from the traditional thriller mystery, with an emphasis on high technology.

Thriller: a suspense mystery with a wider—often international—scope and more action.

Woman in Jeopardy: focuses on a woman put into peril by a crime, and her struggles to overcome or outwit the perpetrator.

Young Adult: a story aimed at a teenage audience, with a hero detective, generally the same age or slightly older than the reader, pursuing criminals who are generally less violent—but often just as scary—as those in adult mysteries.

Romantic Comedy: a romance focused on humour, ranging from screwball antics to witty interplay.

Romantic Suspense: a novel in which an admirable heroine is pitted against some evil force (but in which the romantic aspect still maintains priority).

Child in Peril: involving the abduction and/or persecution of a child.

Dark Fantasy: a horror story with supernatural and fantasy elements.

Steampunk: a specific type of alternate history in which characters in Victorian England have access to 20th-century technology.

Urban Fantasy: a fantasy tale in which magical powers and characters appear in an otherwise normal modern context, like Latin American magical realism.

Young Adult: speculative fiction aimed at a teenage audience, often featuring a hero the same age or slightly older than the reader.

Dark Mystery/Noir: inspired by hardboiled detective tales, set in an urban underworld of crime and moral ambiguity.

Technology: stories featuring technology that has run amok, venturing increasingly into the expanding domain of computers, cyberspace, and genetic engineering.

Weird Tales: inspired by the magazine of the same name, a more traditional form featuring strange and uncanny events (Twilight Zone).

Action: a story that often features a race against the clock, lots of violence, and an obvious antagonist.

Comic: a thriller played for laughs, whether through a spoof of the genre or wisecracking interplay between the protagonists.

Conspiracy: a thriller in which the hero battles a large, powerful group whose true extent only he recognizes.

Espionage: the classic international spy novel, which is enjoying a resurgence with one important change: where spies used to battle enemy spies, they now battle terrorists.

Political Intrigue: a thriller in which the hero must ensure the stability of the government that employs him.

Alternate History: speculative fiction that changes the accepted account of actual historical events, often featuring a profound “what if?� premise.

Biopunk: a blend of film noir, Japanese anime and post-modern elements used to describe an underground, nihilistic biotech society.

Cyberpunk: stories featuring tough outsiders in a high-tech near-future where computers have produced major changes in society.

Because she has always been considered different, Wynter Malone does not believe that any man can love and accept her, even though she dreams nightly of the same hot guy. Gifted with psychic abilities to find the missing, she must put her talents to work once again when a little girl is kidnapped in her town of Black Falls.

After the sheriff calls her to help, her path becomes intertwined with the victim’s no-nonsense uncle who wants answers sooner than later. Rafe Wolf has no time for the supernatural world, even though he has the ability to walk into other people’s dreams.

He is not looking for love, even after he meets Wynter, the woman who has starred in his dreams for nearly a year. Six months after Wynter finds his niece, Rafe relocates to Black Falls to begin a new chapter. As he and Wynter are drawn into the mysteries of the kidnappings still occurring in their town, they must strive to stop the abductors, overcome their trust issues, and accept their gifts and connection to each other—before all else is lost.

In this romantic mystery, a psychic and a gifted man work to stop the evil penetrating their town while attempting to determine if dreams really do come true.

Amazon UK

https://amzn.to/2vr4it7 Amazon USA

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=searchalias%3Daps&field-keywords=Gift+of+Dreams% 3A+Black+Falls+Novel

Kelly Rose Saccone

is a poet and homemaker who holds a bachelor’s degree in history

and a master’s degree in creative writing. She lives with her husband, John, and their two dogs, Pumpkin and Woofer, in Florida.

Gift of Dreams is her first book

The Orb is a fast-paced, urban action, speculative fantasy adventure.

After stealing the Orb from the Librarians, she is on her way to meet the Cardinal who has promised to pay fifty thousand pounds to lay his hands on the Orb. But the Librarians what their treasure back and are willing to go to great lengths to ensure that happens.

However, they are not the only ones chasing the Orb. Both the Paladin and Mamluk would like the opportunity to taste the secret powers the Orb holds.

They and others are going to make her journey north a very interesting road trip.

https://amzn.to/2JaXT8x

It’s easy to assume that there have always been police forces, but, the idea is very new. Before the establishment of the police, governments called on the army to control rioting mobs and quell uprisings, but there was no civil force to prevent crime, or to detect it.

By the end of the 18th century in London, crime prevention was the responsibility of around 2,000 men, all employed by different parishes, local divisions or magistrates’ courts. It took a series of worrying current events to change this: the end of the French revolutionary wars saw the return of large numbers of suddenly unemployed soldiers hardened to scenes of violence and death. In addition, high food prices and chronic unemployment produced ever more incidents of civic unrest. In 1812 a parliamentary select committee recommended putting a single centralised authority in control of policing throughout London, but it took another 17 years to achieve this.

Thus, on 29 September 1829, parishes within 12 miles of Charing Cross saw the first ‘new police’ on the streets. Within eight months there were 3,200 men, all dressed in blue, the colour chosen to reassure the population that, unlike the redcoated army, this was a civil, not a military force.

(Not that the new colour made much difference: the police were tauntingly called ‘raw lobsters’ or ‘the unboiled’. An unboiled lobster is blue; when it is put in hot water it turns red. So, a policeman was only ‘hot water’ away from being a soldier.)

Until 1842, the police force was entirely dedicated to crime prevention. It was only when they took an embarrassingly long 10 days to find a murderer that it became clear they needed to focus on detection too, and the government opened an eight-man ‘Detective Department’.

(Scotland Yard, a turning near Whitehall, was the address of police headquarters; soon it became shorthand for the Detective Department, renamed the Criminal Investigation Department, or CID, in 1878.) Police work was now about both the prevention of future crimes and the detection of past ones.

Charles Dickens was enthralled by this idea, and wrote several articles praising the new department. Shortly afterwards, in his novel Bleak House (1852–3), Dickens created Mr Bucket, who has been called the first fictional detective, and, it is generally accepted, was drawn from the mannerisms and appearance of a real detective-inspector, Charles Field. What then seemed like a trick ending, where readers learn what the detective had been thinking all along, and thereby discover the murderer, appeared here for the first time. With this new twist, readers became fascinated, not by the crime itself, but by its solution.

'Police Work in the East End'. © Sourced from the British Newspaper Archive

To satisfy this desire to explore how a crime is solved, dozens of stories with detective heroes began to appear. What is often called the first detective novel, The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, was published in 1868. But several years before that, the female professional detective in fiction had already been born, even though in the real world the police force was entirely male until two women were hired to look after female prisoners at police stations in 1883. In Ruth the Betrayer (first published in parts in 1862– 3), Ruth Trail is ‘a female detective – a sort of spy we use in the hanky-panky way when a man would be too clumsy’. She is not of the regular police, but ‘attached to a notorious Secret Intelligence Office, established by an ex-member of the police force’. (Rather wonderfully, it is so secret that the office has a brass plaque on the door: ‘Secret Agent’, it reads.)

Working-class readers were initially ambivalent about fictional detectives, just as they were about the real police, whom they felt, possibly correctly, were only there to protect the middle-classes. Ruth the Betrayer was the heroine, but as a detective she was ‘degraded by the hateful calling of spy and informer’. A more middle-class heroine appeared a couple of years later, in Andrew Forrester’s Revelations of a Female Detective, and she fought back: ‘we detectives are necessary,’ she said. And slowly the working class came to agree - at least some of the time. In The Boy Detective Ernest Keen ‘could use dissimulation as a shield or sword when dealing with powerful enemies. In common life such conduct would be detestable, but Ernest Keen was the BOY DETECTIVE...in his own character there was not a franker, more impulsive lad in the world.’

The Boy Detective was also one of the earliest penny-dreadfuls to teach readers how to detect vicariously, explaining how clues were found, how one must not walk over ground where there might be footprints, how to check for bloodstains and more. In fact, in the early days of detection, it’s probably safe to say that detectives learned how to behave from Dickens’s Inspector Bucket, or Wilkie Collins’s Sergeant Cuff, every bit as much as the authors learned how to detect from the police.

Written by © Judith Flanders An historian and author who focuses on the Victorian period. Her book, ‘The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London was published in 2012.

The Spiv The Spiv is from the ‘Boggle Eyes’ collection by Paul White.

The Spiv represents the fly boy, grifter, wise guy, petty criminal of the 1940’s and 1950’s.

The word spiv is British slang for a type of petty criminal who deals in illicit, typically black market, goods.

The word was particularly used during the Second World War and in the post-war period when many goods were rationed due to shortages.

The crucial difference between the spiv and the classic Hollywood gangster was the degree of sympathy the spiv gained as an intermediary in the transfer of black market goods to a grateful mass of consumers.

The spiv had a characteristic look which has been described as "A duck's arse haircut, Clark Gable moustache, rakish trilby hat, drape-shape jacket, and loud garish tie, all represented a deliberate snook cocked at wartime austerity.

You can now own this artwork outright visit

https://paulznewpostbox.wixsite.com/artworks

It would be criminal if you do not read at least one Electric Eclectic book.

I have read several so far and will be reading more soon. Furthermore, I love the ethos

and browse local bookshops for hours on end… or is that just me?

It is at this point Paul found himself in a dilemma. Should he spend several pounds on a novel in the hope he would enjoy the story and the author's style? If he did not it was good money wasted.

On the other hand, he could download a

“There is no guarantee of quality with free and that destroys a books intrinsic values.” which lays behind their creation.

Their founder, a chap called Paul White, created Electric Eclectic as a way for bookworms, bibliophiles and book lovers, like me, to find their "next favourite author".

Like most of us, Paul reads at a far quicker pace than any writer can produce a book, which often means he is looking around for another great read, an intriguing and captivating tale that would, hopefully, lead to him finding an author whose work he thoroughly enjoyed and give him a new pool of books to wade through.

That is, after all, the prime aim of many of our book searches, it is why we scour online titles

freebie eBook, but which? With so many to choose from and no guarantee of quality, it was a bit of a lottery.

Besides Paul already held a load of free books.

They were littering his e-reader. Each one seemed like a good idea at the time he downloaded the title, but now, looking back, not one seemed interesting enough to open, not after all the disappointing freebies of the past, the ones where Paul could only manage a page or two before deleting them, along with a ton of others.

Paul is not alone doing this. According to Amazon's own figures, only 2% of all free books are ever read. I think those statistics speak for themselves.

Instead of doing what many of us do and simply moan about the quality of e-books and Kindle books, Paul has set about changing the way to find great reads with little of the previously associated risk.

Hence, Electric Eclectic books.

Each Electric Eclectic book contains a relatively short story, they vary from 6K to 20K words. They are Novelettes, written especially for Electric Eclectic.

The idea of Electric Eclectic Novelettes is to give readers a 'taste' of an authors writing style and narration. It is a way to introduce authors to readers without running the risk of getting a low grade, poorly presented book, as each Electric Eclectic book undergoes assessment for the quality of its storytelling content.

Murder, psychological drama, dirty dealings and con-artists, life lessons, love, time travel and pulp-fiction. Electric Eclectic books have something to suite everybody's taste.

With Electric Eclectic books readers are ensured of the quality of the tale and with each Electric Eclectic book costing just ÂŁ1.00/ euro/dollar, it is also inexpensive. In fact, because Electric Eclectic books are low cost, they find people often buy three or four novelettes each time they visit.

You may be wondering about the name, well that's simple too.

Electric is for Kindle/eBooks‌ electronic books.

The Eclectic is because the books cover many genres and are written by many different authors.

There really is a whole 'eclectic' choice waiting for you to browse through.

Browse through the titles on the

Electric Eclectic website, you'll find yourself spoilt for choice.

You can also find Electric Eclectic on Facebook,

https://www.facebook.com/ ElectricEclecticBooks

Each time you grab yourself an Electric Eclectic book, you can enter a prize draw to win Amazon Gift Vouchers. Even more reasons to get yourself a copy or two.

“I love a solid horror story and Paul White has crafted one with his novelette, Three Floors Up: An Electric Eclectic Book. Beginning with an unnamed man observing the street outside his third-floor window, the story builds step by step, navigating the recesses of his mind like an alligator-infested swamp. “ “I was intrigued to know what the young guy was doing as he eaves dropped on people from above.

I hadn't expected this macabre and creepy story and I'm sure you won't either.”

“A kind of a British Norman Bates. The unnamed narrator watches the world spin by looking out his window, only getting involved with the "lucky" few. Well-written, puts the reader right in the squalid flat and in his squalid mind. “

An

ELECTRIC ECLECTIC novelette by Pa u l W h i t e Get yo ur copy Now

TWENTY MINUTES b

This is the winning entry of the 2106 C The image below was t 12:41am The way my life ended was incredibly simple and quick. My smile was now on my neck, a perverted lover's kiss that opened me up and made me one with the water; my life's blood creating a watercolour of deep crimson, maroon and rose pink, swirling in the eddies and waves created by my futilely splashing legs, until their energy was spent. I felt my nether regions shudder as my bladder and bowels evacuated. If I had the wherewithal I would have been embarrassed, but instead I felt -- lighter. Free. My head flopped back and jerked slightly with each remaining beat of my heart. The water was in me now, bubbles turning red and popping wetly inside my throat-mouth. My toes floated just above the shitty piss blood water, ten little reminders that I knew this whole thing was going to come to a head at some point. I just thought that it would be a lot more...fun.

12:40 am I had to stop struggling after a while, it hurt too much. My mouth tasted sickeningly sweet from the amount of bubble bath I had swallowed. I grasped at the arm around my neck, grinding my chin into his arm, digging in with all the force I could muster. My thrashing legs tossed water and bubbles and candles everywhere. Somewhere deep in my brain, there was a part that was cool and rational,

thinking that someone was going to have to clean that up and it was not going to be me.

He used his other hand, the one holding one of our nicest butcher knives, to force my chin up. He held the knife over my face. I dimly realized he was taunting me, but I was mesmerized by my reflection. Mascara drew deep black tears down my face, contrasting starkly with the whites of my eyes. I dimly noticed his tobacco-stained teeth and bushy nose hairs before the knife traced a hot line across my flesh.

by Lauren Hester.

CQI Magazine short story competition. the only given prompt. porcelain rim, I felt a pin that I had missed.

What a thing to think of at a time like this. I reached up to claw at his hand, which alternated between smashing my head on the edge of the tub and shoving it underwater. His voice sounded guttural and primitive as I submerged and resurfaced. I couldn't make out any specific words, but I could imagine what they were.

12:38 am

12:39 am It only took two strides for him to cross from the bedroom into the bathroom. I felt the Derringer slip from where it hung carelessly on my index finger. As I struggled to rise, the water fell heavy across my chest and I had a sudden vision of an elephant lumbering through a tidal wave. I lost my footing and came crashing back down in the water, snuffing out at least half of the candles. His meaty fingers buried themselves in my hair, and when he yanked me back against the

I resumed my rehearsed position in the tub, pulling back on the hammer with my thumb.

The clicking sound was satisfying and felt delightfully dangerous. "Eddie? Come on, hurry your ass up. Just take off the bottom half. No - scratch that. Leave the socks on. I like to see your garters strain over your muscular thighs!" I casually flicked the hammer to the rhythm of the hi-hat in "In the Mood." CLICK cli-cli CLICK cli-cli CLICK cli -cli CLICK. Bah-BAH! "Eddie, on second thought, keep the nightstick too. It could be fun. No funny business though!" An unnatural sounding thud resonated through the steam and smoke-filled air. I felt very, very cold, despite being up to my neck in hot water. After a harrowing, heavy silence, in which the wafting vapours were the only movement, I called out. "Eddie honey?"

My only answer was the nightstick, which rolled from the bedroom across the hall and into the bathroom of its own volition, leaving an oblong-shaped smear of blood at even intervals along the tile until it hit the tub's claw foot.

"Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgod."

"Murphy?"

12:30 am The banging continued longer than it should have. "Goddamnit Eddie, it's open!"

I heard the apartment door give, and I sincerely hoped it wasn't because he busted the thing down. "I know you do that for a living, darling, but I'm not a criminal."

Eddie's halting baritone drifted in from the living room. "Sorry doll, just muscle memory, I guess. Where the hell are you?"

"I'm in the bathroom." I grinned from ear to ear. "I have a little surprise for you." He poked his head in. Eddie was a big man, the kind of big that meant muscle underneath, not fat. But on the surface, he just looked like a very large mustachioed teddy bear. He grinned as he took in the scene, exposing the delightfully endearing gap between his front teeth. "Niiiiiiiice!"

I rose halfway up out of the water and pointed the Derringer at his barrel chest.

Eddie's jaw dropped as he raised his hands.

"Aw, you caught me! I swear, I'll do anything to get out of this, anything!

What's it gonna take?"

"Get in that bedroom and take it all off, you dirty bastard!" Between Eddie's eager

chuckle and the whoosh of smoke out of the corner of my mouth, there was a thump in the living room. A chill ran down my back. "Eddie, did you shut that door?"

"Yes, yes of course I did," he said, still staring at my chest.

"Then get out you fool!" I said, reassured.

"I'm armed and dangerous!" He obliged, holding his hands above his head, scampering into the bedroom. "And don't come back until you have half as many clothes on!�

12:21 am I pulled out the last pin from my hair, yanking it a little too hard and taking some of my brassy blonde with it. I swore a little and rubbed the offending spot. The pin curls bounced attractively against my face, which I had made up for the occasion. It was the perfect sultry look; smoky eyes, long, dark batting lashes and dangerously red lips.

Satisfied, I gave my ringlets one last pat before letting my chemise fall to the floor and easing myself into the steaming water.

Bubbles lay over the surface like iridescent marshmallow fluff. I reached for the pack of Pall Malls on the back of the toilet and tapped one out, placing it carefully between my teeth to light it on one of the many candles I'd scattered on the bathtub. Clearing away some exhaled into my reflection in baring my teeth to carefully

lip of the bubbles, I the water, rub away

baring my teeth to carefully rub away traces of Ravishing Rose #12.

Replacing the pack, I took up the snub-nosed Derringer pistol and flipped open the chamber to make sure it wasn't loaded. I arranged myself carefully, with my hair falling over the back of the tub, the right hand raised slightly, the cigarette casually nestled

between index and middle finger, and the left hanging over the front. I rubbed my thumb on the hammer. Now it was time to have some fun.

END

Lauren Hester was born and raised in Iowa, among cornfields, Friday night football, wide open spaces and night skies full of stars.

Lauren read voraciously since she was a kid. She is now “dabbling in the writing game� while being employed full-time at a public library in the Washington, DC area and working towards her MSLIS in Library Science.

Lauren has other stories published on The Write Practice

http://thewritepractice.com/laura

Kazz’ s

Column

Crime books are still one of the most popular genres and it always continues to fascinate us. Why do people kill? What drives them? Solving a crime, detectives can pick up the clues and pin them together to see justice prevail -in most cases but that’s another story!

Before I identified myself as a multi genre author or even a writer come to that, I played about with words. And one of the short complete stories I wrote covers a crime and perhaps one day I’ll reveal the whole story.

Poor Dead Isabel Kate sits on the sofa smoking a cigarette. The doorbell goes and she takes her time in answering. Billy is standing there, his face white, his eyes tired. She steps back, he comes in shutting the door behind him.

In the lounge they stare at one other. He comes to her and she comforts him. They cling together in mutual grief. Isabelle is dead.

He is stunned by her murder. Pent up emotion rises to the surface and he cracks under the strain.

Kate comforts him as he weeps. She treasures the moment. Isabelle. Dear sweet Isabelle. Gone from their lives forever.

Kate knows he is tired. The police have been interrogating him for hours. Finally releasing him to grieve.

She steers him to Isabelle's room, untouched, just as her flat mate left it.

At the door he stops and looks appealingly at her. He cannot sleep there. He cannot even enter.

Kate tucks him up in her own bed. He sleeps. She returns to the sofa and stares into space. She had answered an advert for someone to share and moved in with Isabelle the same day.

Isabelle loved Billy. So did Kate. Picking up a packet of cigarettes she lights up another. A smile begins to form. Billy belongs to her now. In time he would grow to love her and they can forget about poor dead Isabelle.

Kazz’s Recommended Read Genre: Human Trafficking Description: When a girl is rescued from the clutches of a human trafficker, she faces a struggle from within. Was her life even worth saving? What is it all for? Find out in the free Novella – Girl Unbroken.

Get it on instafreebie

K a z z ’ s R e v i e w.

This book kept appearing in my Facebook newsfeed and as I am a great love of covers, especially when they are vivid, imaginative, and draws you in. This one did all of these things. As it was a free book, and mostly because I’ve crossed paths with this author a few time on Facebook. I didn’t know anything about her, except I liked her.

I downloaded the book and must admit; these days I am not a fan of free books any more. Writing a book is hard work. A lot of hours go into it, and then afterwards all the editing, re-reads, and rewriting can take as long as a year. To give it away is sacrilege.

However, having said that, I jumped on the bandwagon too, because I downloaded a copy.

Immediately, I saw it was an emotive book.

Sometimes people like to write about dreadful things full of emotion and trauma because they can, it’s almost cathartic for them. Perhaps they have experienced it, or maybe they just want to explore the subject. Sometimes, books are self-absorbent, and getting involved in someone’s fantasy is not what I generally enjoy.

But, and a big BUT, this is NOT what this is. I quickly realised the writing was exceptionally good. This was someone who knew what they were doing, and does it well. It could have been a story full of pain and misery, but it isn’t. The bad bits of the book are told without detail. It’s suffice to know that this or that happened, we don’t need the details as we have our imaginations. Too many books want to spell out every gory thing and for the clever writers it’s not necessary.

The heroine in this story is young, sassy, and had been through a horrific time, but the story isn’t about that. It’s about hope and goodness. The good people shine through and as a reader it gives us hope for life. We don’t always want to be dragged down by someone’s misery. We always need hope.

I really loved this story, loved the way it was told, and loved the foster family and how everything was about good coming out of bad. When I reached the end, I fully understand why the author decided to give this book away, and I think you will, too.

Genre: Thriller

Description Kelly needs to escape from her abusive and controlling boyfriend, but she's terrified to leave.

She’s then given a chance to start a fresh, but is the cost for her freedom too high?

Sarah is happy in her life. She has a dream job and a perfect roommate. But when a brick is thrown through the window, followed by a letter containing razor blades, her life starts to spin out of control.

Detective Ryan Andrews is on the case and the two quickly form a close bond. Will Kelly pay that price for freedom? Can Sarah's secret past be kept from Ryan? In the end The Truth Will Out.

K a z z ’ s R e v i e w.

Sarah is constantly looking over her shoulder. Who is stalking her?

Kelly is afraid and knows she must escape an abusive relationship. Can she get out unscathed?

When the truth comes out, only one girl survives!

I had written a romance novel, then my second book was romantic suspense, so when I came to write a third I added some crime too.

One of my favourite films was released in1993. Blink starred Madeleine Stowe and Aiden Quinn and it was the relationship between the hardcore detective and the witness that fascinated me.

Another thing that fascinates me, and I hope I never find out is what thoughts would go

through your head if you are suddenly faced with your own death.

As with all my books, I like my female lead to be sassy, fun and able to laugh at herself, even when the situation is dire.

If you would like to find out which girl faced death and which girl survives, you can find out here – myBook.to/TTWO Also available on Kindle Unlimited.

You can link up with me here: Website: magiofstories.net Facebook - www.facebook.com/ karenswritingsonthewall/ Twitter – www.twitter.com/KarenJMoss Amazon – author.to/KM

A considered selection of books by CQI Magazine readers and staff.

All the books in The List are commended for their content and / or narrative flow.

The books are listed randomly throughout the magazine making it an intriguing and fun publication to thumb through when looking for your next book.

Click on the cover image opposite or on the link below to read The List.

Enjoy you next read.

GO TO THE LIST

Robert Crais

is the author of the best-selling Elvis Cole novels. A native of

Louisiana, he grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a blue-collar family of oil refinery workers and police officers. He purchased a second-hand paperback of Raymond Chandler’s 'The Little Sister' when he was fifteen, which inspired his lifelong love of writing, Los Angeles, and the literature of crime fiction. Other literary influences include Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck.

Robert Crais has been publishing great mystery-thrillers for more 30 years and with his new book, The Wanted, he’s as good as ever. He consistently has mixed well-developed characters in books with good plots with excellent plot twists.

Crais new book,

The Wanted

is back to the usual set up of Cole and Pike

fighting some bad guys and some good folks who have made, let’s say, bad life choices.

The book begins when a single mom, Devon, hires Elvis Cole to help with her troubled son, Tyson. For undisclosed reasons he suddenly has lots of cash and Devon is worrying her son has started dealing drugs.

A little investigation and Cole realises the son and his two friends are responsible for some high-end burglary. A pair of disturbingly bad guys are on the tail of the burglary threesome. Will Cole be able to find the three and save them before they are harmed by pair?

You’ll have to read to find out.

Crais was good enough to let CQI Magazine hold an interview with him.

CQI. Where did your new Pike and Cole story for The Wanted come from?

Robert Crais. There is a lot of crime in L. A. these days with burglaries and home invasions on the rise. Many of these crimes are perpetrated by teenagers and young adults.

Elvis Cole is attracted to cases where he believes he can make a real difference, the idea of helping a single mom find the truth about her son and, hopefully save him, is right up Cole's alley.

CQI. There is plenty of humour in your books, particularly during dialogue. Did working on 'Hill Street Blues' help you create such interactions?

RC. I’m naturally a funny guy. TV script writing helped me block out a scene, visualize the action, write authentic dialogue. It helps me to shape a story. In turn it showed me how much more I could do as a novelist.

CQI. Having written for Miami Vice, Cagney and Lacey, Quincy, and Baretta, do you pay any attention to current TV shows.

RC: My taste is all over the place. I Love

Breaking Bad, Mad Men, I enjoy Game of Thrones (duh), Stranger Things, and thought Handmaid’s Tale was incredible.

CQI. The Wanted deals with loyalty, unconditional love and what it means to be a parent. Is there something you hope readers take away from this story?

RC. I hope readers connect with the characters. Most parents have experience unconditional love. In this story a mother is forced to imagine the worst-case scenario. If her son has committed a terrible crime, will she still love him? How much can a parent forgive?

CQI. You created a pair of horrible, dangerous, perverse guys in the characters of Harvey and Stemms. Where did those characters come from?

RC. Villains need to be as fascinating and as formidable as your hero. I wanted to create 'bad guys' that with deep, many faceted personalities, who were very interesting.

These guys, like Elvis and Joe, have history together, they shared a lot of adventures.

Many thanks to Robert Crais for giving CQI Magazine this interview and may we wish him every success with The Wanted, on bookshelves now.

ELVIS AND JOE ARE BACK. It seemed like a simple case--before the bodies starting piling up. Investigator Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, take on the deadliest case of their lives in the new masterpiece of suspense from the Number 1 New York Times-bestselling crime fiction author.

When single mother Devon Connor hires private investigator Elvis Cole, it's because her troubled teenage son Tyson is flashing cash and she's afraid he's dealing drugs. But the truth is devastatingly different. With two other partners in crime, he's been responsible for a string of high-end burglaries, a crime spree that takes a deadly turn when one of them is murdered and Tyson and his girlfriend disappear.

Dr Edward William Pritchard was born in 1825, in Southsea, Hampshire, he was the son of a navy captain and came from a family with distinguished naval connections.

On the surface, the doctor was well mannered and respectable. He was a kind and loving husband who adored his wife and family. Beneath that pleasant exterior, however, lurked a darkness that few would have guessed existed.

He was a loathsome, arrogant man, a serial adulterer, and a sociopathic liar who would go down in history as one of Britain's most evil killers. But, was the doctor innocent of such sinister crimes?

What was his motive for murder? In a case that gripped the nation, reports suggest the possibility of even more victims.

Based on historical records, and written creatively, this account closely examines the Pritchard’s lives and the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the sinister doctor’s victims.

Review ''This is not a book for the faint-hearted, but its characters and events will live forever in the minds of its readers.'

'Rhodes frequently challenges the reader’s emotions and reactions. The characters are not clearly delineated in terms of good or bad, strong or weak. The reader finds themselves at once judging, but at the same time excusing; disoriented by the uncertain ground of the moral ambiguity into which they have been led.

Yes, they feel the unspeakable physical and emotional trauma experienced by the victims and those they leave behind. They feel also the pain and humiliation which result from Dr Pritchard's self-gratifying exploitation of those he defiles and dehumanises while under his spell. But what is most unsettling is Rhodes' ability to leave the reader sometimes doubting the way they feel about this opportunist murderer. Without ever losing sight of his wickedness, it is possible to share in his frequent and fluctuating bouts of despondency and indignation, even though their consequences are wholly abhorrent. ' Dominic Walsh-Journalist.

AMAZON https://amzn.to/2HDavot https://www.books2read.com/u/mKJdjV

Wendy Rhodes , author of ‘Pritchard the Poisoning Adulterer’, was born in Yorkshire in the late 1950's; She moved to the coastal town of Filey in North Yorkshire with her husband and family in the middle 1990's. She studied English Literature at The Open University where she graduated with a 2.1 BA (Hons) degree. She later went on to graduate from Teesside University with a first class masters degree in Creative Writing.

Wendy has had many jobs from working in a library, a bank, a financial advisor, and former founder of Norwich Union Direct, to owning a Bar/Restaurant with her husband.

Her first book Filey, a History of The Town and its People, traces the history of the town from Roman times through time.

It tells the history of the town’s churches and the influence that the Methodist had on the community. The book also warns of the dangers of the sea, and its treacherous tides, and recalls stories of many people who have lost their lives to the sea over the years. It also recalls the story of The Bonhomme Richard and its notorious Captain John Paul Jones. The book is illustrated with over one hundred photographs.

Filey is known as ‘The Unspoilt Hidden Gem of The Yorkshire Coast’ with its glorious wide golden beach, elegant Victorian houses and well-kept gardens, but what were Filey’s origins? Unlike the neighbouring town of Scarborough, Filey was mentioned in the Domesday Book ‘as a very small village occupied by less than fifty people, and that Filey was worth a reasonable income, with access to good quality timber which was ideal for construction.’ So, were these people Filey’s oldest residents?

Filey a History of The Town and its People, traces the history of the town from Roman times through time. It tells the history of the town’s churches and the influence that the Methodist had on the community. The book also warns of the dangers of the sea, and its treacherous tides, and recalls stories of many people who have lost their lives to the sea over the years. It also recalls the story of The Bonhomme Richard and its notorious Captain John Paul Jones. The book is illustrated with over one hundred photographs.

https://amzn.to/2H6ChZz

FORENSICS

Asphyxiation Asphyxiation is something that many people die of throughout the world and it is something that many people think is simply the act of suffocating or smothering a victim until they can no longer breathe.

In actual fact Asphyxiation is the term given to blocking the airway so that the individual on the receiving end cannot breathe and ultimately dies.Asphyxiation also comes under the category of strangulation, which as we have already mentioned - is the process of blocking an individual's airways until they stop breathing.

Most cases of Asphyxiation are the result of a frenzied argument or uncontrollable rage and it is - contrary to popular belief - unusual for an attacker to deliberately set out to kill their victim by means of strangulation. The most common reason for this is that the process is slow and arduous and requires a lot of strength to subdue the victim whilst also trying to strangle them.

If the deceased is found at a crime scene - or what might potentially be a crime scene with no physical signs of how they died it is

normal for the forensic scientist or Scene of Crime Officer (SOCO) to look for signs of Asphyxiation.

These - if the eyes are open upon discovery are bloodshot eyes, as well as ligature marks around the neck and/or wrists, which signify the tying up of the victim.

These practices are - as we have already mentioned - dangerous and unwise but it is well documented that they do carry on throughout the Western world and as such are prone to going wrong.

Many cases of Asphyxiation are accidental and the victims are normally to be found in the presence of a partner or at least someone who knew the victim.

It is worth noting also that in those rare instances of death by Asphyxiation that there is normally a sexual element to the investigation and this is something that forensic pathologists and police alike will seek to confirm or deny at the beginning of any enquiry where Asphyxiation is used as a means to bring about death.

Also in any of the instances of Asphyxiation it is important to note that when there is a lack of oxygen to the brain for any length of

time a potentially lethal build-up of Carbon Dioxide waste in the deceased tissues can be monitored during the autopsy stage.

For many people, forensics is a fascinating but confusing field that is full of mystery and intrigue. Whether it's learning more about how criminal evidence is collected and stored or finding out how the legal system uses this information, every writer should explore the world of forensics.

S u f f o c at i o n a n d S m o t h e r i n g Generally speaking these two practices will occur - as we have already touched upon - by placing something over the mouth and nose of the victim to prevent them from breathing.

This can be anything from an assailant's hand to a pillow, plastic sheeting or even a plastic bag - basically anything that can and will restrict the flow of oxygen into the lungs and likewise to the brain.

In these cases where a forensic pathologist is called upon to try and determine the cause of death one of the first things he or she will do if there are no discernible wounds or marks is to check the deceased's eyes.

If suffocation or smothering has taken place then the eyes of the deceased will be bloodshot; this is a common way of accurately determining that one of these methods has been employed.

A c c i d e n ta l S u f f o c at i o n Likewise suffocation and smothering can also be applied to young children who perhaps are left alone with small toys or small items that can fit into their mouths.

children are (a): never left unattended and (b): not allowed to put anything in their mouths which may result in their choking.

There have been numerous accidental deaths as a result of children putting things into their mouths and swallowing them, which in turn block the airways.

This is why it is imperative that small

There have been numerous accidental deaths as a result of children putting things into their mouths and swallowing them, which in turn

block the airways. This is why it is imperative that small children are (a): never left unattended and (b): not allowed to put anything in their mouths which may result in their choking.

the high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood and will also look for bruising around the nose and mouth and may even collect trace evidence such as hairs and fibres from around the nose and mouth of the deceased.

People also die of suffocation in the instance of a house fire where there is a lack of oxygen and they cannot breathe; again if this scenario unfolds a forensic scientist or Scene of Crime Officer (SOCO) will be charged with the job of proving whether or not the victim was conscious at the time of the fire starting or if indeed they had already been deceased. This process is measured by the amount of carbon dioxide in the deceased's system at the autopsy stage.

As accidental suffocation or smothering is relatively common - especially in small children - it is recommended that whilst putting them to bed at night they are not tucked in and also that mattresses in their cots are flush so that no gaps are revealed into which a child could work their way into in their sleep and become trapped.

Although it should be said that murder - as a violent crime - is comparatively rare - in some cases the assailant has tried to cover his or her tracks by setting fire to the location at which the deceased is finally found. This could be a house, an office, a workshop, anywhere.

smothering suspicious.

Throughout the investigation of a death by suffocation or smothering the pathologist will look for the tell tale signs: the bloodshot eyes,

Until proven otherwise by a pathologist and subsequent inquest all cases of suffocation or

are

treated

as

potentially

This article is reproduced with the kind permission of

www.ExploreForensics.co.uk forensic science, crime scene investigations and pathology.

Nicholas Nguyen

(c) Copyright Nicholas Nguyen 2018

I don't have a normal headache, As the pain prevents you to wake.

I don't condone heavy drinking to any of my viewers. This needs to be addressed. This poem explains what can happens and can be very harmful. Thank you for

I do not remember that night, Especially before the fading light.

The party was fun and loud, With most of my friends dealing proud.

The feeling of absolute pain tore me down, So, I went to the nearest bar in town.

The party started when we all arrived, And it would surely be the night of our lives.

Me in my drunken state was a weird feeling, But I sure did regret it the next morning.

Some of my limbs are sore and numb, Might've been from the coke and rum.

Either way I forgot what brought me tears, Something I most definitely feared.

I shall never forget the sound.

I do not mean the gunshot, but the sound that followed it.

A combination of a pop and a crack, like splitting a coconut with a sledgehammer, which I suppose it was in a way.

Then, there was the smell.

The rich iron scent of fresh blood mixed with the drifting aroma of cordite.

As I looked at the mess of blood, brain and bone splattered over the wall, combined with those odours wafting on the light breeze coming into the room through the open window, I could not help but recall the words "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning".

I have no idea why that particular phrase echoed in my mind, but it did.

This was the first time I watched somebody blow their own brains out.

As I stood there, transfixed at witnessing such a macabre scene, each stage began to replay itself in my head, it was like a slow-motion playback.

The way he slammed the phone down. The casual way he lit the cigarette, tossing the lighter onto the desk and picking up the gun in one seamless, smooth movement. Lifting the pistol to his temple and‌‌.bang.

That was it.

He was dead.

There was not a hint of hesitation, not a single millisecond of indecision..................

Paperback http://amzn.to/2HwTOto Kindle http://amzn.to/2tNsZiE

m (c) Copyright Nicholas Nguyen 2018

Nicholas Nguyen

As the days move on The war in my heart makes nights so long; With everyone making me strong, Whether I am sure I'm wrong.

Trapped in a cycle of sorrow Needing to find a way out; Searching for myself in the devils burrow, But always I am filled with doubt.

The haunting memories of my mistakes Stops me dead in my tracks; Trying to do all it ever takes, To be my best and bounce back.

I am not alone in this fight Suffering the most intense pain; Everyone has moments so tight, But no one makes it out insane.

“People Lie. Evidence Doesn't."

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Time for the boys to ride bitch!

Cass has just gotten out of an abusive relationship. Fed up with people walking all over her, she decides that her life has to change. Enter the Kittnz.

Now she can kick ass without remorse, get paid and serve the public at the same time.

She wished it was that easy.

These Kittnz have claws.

Six empowering women that own the night.

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Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA),

one of several specialties in the field of forensic

science, involves the study and analysis of bloodstains at a known or suspected violent crime scene with the goal of helping investigators draw conclusions about the nature, timing and other details of the crime To understand how analysts, interpret bloodstains, one must first understand the basic properties of blood. Blood contains both liquid (plasma and serum) and solids (red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and proteins). Blood is in a liquid state when inside the body, and when it exits the body, it does so as a liquid. But as anyone who has had a cut, or a scrape knows, it doesn’t remain a liquid for long. Except for people with haemophilia, blood will begin to clot within a few minutes, forming a dark, shiny gel-like substance that grows more solid as time progresses. The presence of blood clots in bloodstains can indicate that the attack was prolonged, or that the victim was bleeding for some time after the injury occurred.

Blood can leave the body in many ways, depending on the type of injury inflicted. It can flow, drip, spray, spurt, gush or just ooze from wounds.

Types of Stains

Cast-off -

Bloodstains are classified into three basic types: passive stains, transfer stains and projected or impact stains. Passive stains include drops, flows and pools, and typically result from gravity acting on an injured body.

Transfer stains result from objects coming into contact with existing bloodstains and leaving wipes, swipes or pattern transfers behind such as a bloody shoe print or a smear from a body being dragged. Impact stains result from blood projecting through the air and are usually seen as spatter, but may also include gushes, splashes and arterial spurts.

in an arc flings blood onto nearby surfaces.

This occurs when an assailant swings the bloodstained object back before inflicting another blow. Analysts can tell the direction of the impacting object by the shape of the spatter (tails point in the direction of motion). Counting the arcs can also show the minimum number of blows delivered.

Blood spatter is categorized as impact spatter (created when a force is applied to a liquid blood source) or projection spatter (caused by arterial spurting, expirated spray or spatter cast off an object). The characteristics of blood spatter depend on the speed at which the blood leaves the body and the type of force applied to the blood source.

Gunshot spatter -

includes both

forward spatter from the exit wound and back spatter from the entrance wound.

Gunshot spatter will vary depending on the caliber of the gun, where the victim is struck, whether the bullet exits the body, distance between the victim and the gun and location of the victim relative to walls, floors and objects. Typically, forward spatter is a fine mist and back spatter is larger and fewer drops.

results when an object swung

Arterial spray -

refers to the spurt of

blood released when a major artery is severed. The blood is propelled out of the breached blood vessel by the pumping of the heart and often forms an arcing pattern consisting of large, individual stains, with a new pattern created for each time the heart pumps.

Expirated spatter -

is usually caused

by blood from an internal injury mixing with air from the lungs being expelled through the nose, mouth or an injury to the airways or lungs. Expirated spatter tends to form a very fine mist due to the pressure exerted by the lungs moving air out of the body. Small air bubbles in the drops of blood are typically found in this type of spatter.

Some bloodstains are latent, meaning they cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Investigators can use chemical reagents such as Luminol to find and photograph latent bloodstains. When sprayed on blood, Luminol creates a bright blue luminescent glow by reacting with iron in the blood’s haemoglobin.

Bloodshed Events A crime scene where bodily injury has occurred is likely to have some amount of bloodstain evidence present; however, the amount will vary depending on the circumstances of the crime. The type of injury inflicted and the amount of force used will determine the volume and pattern of bloodstains:

Sharp force (stabbing)

injuries

these injuries are caused by an object with a relatively small surface area, such as an ice pick or a knife. Less blood is deposited on the instrument, resulting in a smaller, more linear pattern of stains.

Blunt force injuries (hitting or beating) objects inflicting this type of injury are usually larger, such as a bat or hammer.

If the object impacts liquid blood, the larger surface area will collect more blood, producing drops of varying sizes.

Gunshot injuries mist-like spatter caused by bullets entering and exiting the body.

Interpreting the Patterns When blood is impacted, droplets are dispersed through the air. When these droplets strike a surface, the shape of the stain changes depending on the angle of impact, velocity, distance travelled and type of surface impacted.

Generally, the stain shape will vary from circular to elliptical, with tails or spines extending in the direction of travel.

Smaller satellite stains may also break away from the initial drop. By measuring the width and length of the stain, the angle of impact can be calculated, helping investigators determine the actions that may have taken place at the scene.

As the angle of impact changes, so does the appearance of the resulting stain. A blood drop striking a smooth surface at a 90° angle will result in an almost circular stain; there is little elongation, and the spines and satellites are fairly evenly distributed around the outside of the drop. Below 75°, spines begin to become more prominent on the side of the spatter opposite the angle of impact. As the angle of impact decreases, the spatter stain elongates, becoming more elliptical, and the spines, etc., become more predominant opposite the angle of impact. At very low (acute) angles, a single satellite may break off to form a second stain; this is the distinctive “exclamation point” stain.

Void Patterns A void occurs when a person or object blocks the path of the blood.

They are important because voids can show investigators if objects are missing from the scene, where a person or persons were at the time of the incident, and if a body was moved.

An object that leaves a void in a bloodstain pattern will have a matching bloodstain pattern on its surface, allowing analysts to replace it in the scene if found. Void patterns are most useful for establishing the position of the victim(s) and assailant(s) within the scene.

Just as it says on the cover, The Collection is CQI Magazines list of amazing, wonderful , handcrafted and unusual gifts you will love to give to your friends, family and loved ones.

The Collection contains gifts and ideas for giving all year around. There are presents for Christmas, birthday’s, anniversaries, weddings and graduations.

No one is left out, here you will find the ideal present for you partner, for him, for her, for your parents, children, friends and even the home.

Simply click on the cover image opposite or follow the link below.

Enjoy browsing, enjoy giving.

GO TO THE COLLECTION

You’ve finished your novel or short story but are beginning to think that maybe someone else should look it over before you publish or send it off. So how do you find an editor? And how do you decide which one is right for you?

Unfortunately, the writing world abounds with stories of writers who disliked the work their editor did. Many writers have trouble finding one who delivers the kind of edit they'd like.

Since editors can cost hundreds - even thousands of dollars - you don't want to become yet another story of a writer done wrong by an editor.

Decide if you need a manuscript editor Before thinking about hiring an editor, decide if you even need one.

Some writers simply don’t require an editor. Those authors understand punctuation, grammar, mechanics and the art of storytelling well enough that an editor at best simply will point out what they already know or would have caught on the next draft. Many writers simply instead could turn to a friend or colleague who could provide an excellent read, or they might run their manuscript through a few beta readers.

But those writers are in the minority. The extreme minority.

For most writers, having someone else look at your novel or short story is a necessary step to getting it in shape before self-publishing it or sending it to a literary agent or editor. If penning your first novel, an outside editor is a useful step in helping develop and hone your craft. After all, no apprentice becomes a master without a mentor. Unfortunately, many editors at publishing houses and magazines just don’t have the time to serve in that role. A freelance manuscript editor can help fill that need.

The importance of an editor really can’t be understated for self-publishing authors. A human editor can use years of experience and expertise to point out parts of a text that won’t make sense to readers.

So, which kind of writer are you? You need to make an honest self-assessment of your skills and talent.

Sometimes the reason a writer seeks out a manuscript editor is because a literary agent or publisher recommends it. The agent can’t sell the book in its current condition or a publisher wants to print your book can’t in its current form. (Many publishing houses don’t retain editors, or if they do, the editors are overloaded with work.) If agents and publishers do make such a recommendation, by all means follow up on it – it means you’re very close to getting in print.

For self-publishing authors, reviews that say you've got multiple spelling, punctuation, capitalization and grammar errors in a story – never mind a confusing plot or a dull main character – are a sure sales killer.

Who wants to buy a book that is frustrating to read?

you will require a different type of edit.

What keeps most writers from using a manuscript editor is the cost. Most charge by word or page. For a 75,000-word novel, be prepared to pay a few hundred dollars for a close edit and critique. That’s beyond the reach of most single parents, college students, and many others who hope to turn writing from a hobby to a profession. So, you have a decision to make: Do you tighten your belt now with hope of book sales later or do you just hope you're good enough that readers will overlook gaping plot holes, inconsistent comma usage, or your protagonist’s name spelled two different ways throughout the book?

• Substantive editing – The focus is identifying and offering solutions to problems in a manuscript that the author has just “completed.”

Determine the kind of edit you need Once you've decided your book needs a professional editor, next determine what kind of edit you want done.

Depending on your ability as a writer and the number of drafts you’ve taken a manuscript through,

There generally are four basic type of edits:

• Developmental editing – This involves working with the writer to take a book concept from start to finish.

• Copy editing – The editor’s lens tightens on spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar and craftsmanship issues that remain after the manuscript has gone through several drafts.

• Proofreading – Typos in the text and formatting errors are identified in a copy of the manuscript about to go to the printer.

Traditionally, a manuscript goes through each of these edits at least once. Often copy editing and proofreading occur several times on a manuscript and sometimes are even done by multiple editors.

That’s an expensive route for those self-publishing books. Most indie writers can do the developmental and substantive editing themselves with the help of fellow writers or colleagues.

They definitely need copy editing and then a proofreading of their formatted book by an outside source, though. If a beginning writer, having a substantive edit done until you become more skilled is a good idea.

What to look for in an editor After you know the type of edit you need, you're ready to develop a list of potential editors for hire.

That actually is easy enough. Type “editing proofreading service” into any search engine, and you’ll find a number of editors and proofreaders in business. A search through Craigslist likely will yield a few living in your area. You also can post your project on websites like Elance.com or Guru.com to solicit bids from freelance editors.

Once you’ve got a list of potential editors, the question then arises: What should you look for to ensure you have a good editor or proofreader?

Consider these qualities: • Experience – How many published books has the editor worked on? Are those books similar to yours (You wouldn’t want someone who’s only handled novels take on your nonfiction book; further, you wouldn’t want an editor who’s only worked on romances edit your science fiction novel). How long has he been in the business? Ask to see a portfolio of his work.

• Can bring own creativity and knowledge to the fore – While you may not want an editor to rewrite your book, you do want him to be talented enough to suggest how you might solve various problems, such as how to better develop a character or how to improve the organization of chapters in a section.

• Knowledge of basic software – If your editor doesn’t know his way around Microsoft Word or the word processing program you use, you’ve got a problem. You probably don’t want the editor to make proofreading corrections on paper only for you to have to make those changes to your book on the computer.

• Human not a machine – Many online editing companies, especially those that are 24/7 and national in scope, simply run your book through a souped-up spell and grammar check program. You could buy such software and do that yourself for much less money. You want an editor who will read your manuscript line by line.

• Corresponds regularly with you – Editors are busy folk, but if handled as a freelance contractor, they should be able to keep you updated on their progress. When you have concerns or questions about specific sections or your book, they should be willing to discuss those matters.

• Ethical – An editor should neither be a literary

agent nor a publisher and will not offer such services as they represent a conflict of interest. No referral fees should be paid to an editor by any agent or publisher, and the editor should not pay others to recommend them. Indeed, some online editors essentially run a scam in which they receive work from a friend who is a literary agent or publisher and who without reading your book suggests that you seek an editor (and guess who gets recommended) to spruce up your manuscript. Each party – editor, lit agent and publisher – gets a kickback for “referring.”

Finally, recognize that editors have different views on how much rewriting they should do of your manuscript. Some editors are very hands-on with the submissions they accept for publication and have no ethical qualms about rewriting whole sections of it. In the hands of the right editor, such changes actually can improve a writer’s work. A case in point are the works of short story writer Raymond Carver, which saw significant changes after passing through the blue pen of his editor, Gordon Lish. Arguably, Carver owes his success and fame to Lish’s keen eye and rewording.

In contrast, some editors (myself included) are much more hands on, preferring to respect the integrity of the work. Such editors usually make proofreading corrections so that your book meets the publisher’s standards, which usually means conforming to the Chicago Manual of Style. On other matters, such as writing style, character development and plotting, they will suggest and discuss changes but leave it up to the writer as to whether or not to implement them. Given this, you’ll need to decide which editing approach you prefer.

Always ask for a free sample edit. Most editors will give you a sample edit of a single double-spaced page. That should be enough to give you an idea of how the editor will approach your work and if that’s the right fit for you.

Some caveats When selecting a manuscript editor, keep this in mind: • Don’t pay fees to a literary agent or a publisher for a referral – Or vice-versa. When the manuscript editor receives money for referring you to an agent or publisher, that’s called a kickback, and it’s not giving you an honest appraisal of where to send your manuscript, so it can be published.

• No manuscript editor ever should guarantee publication – That’s a decision only a publisher can make.

• An editor is not a ghostwriter or a formatter – Some editors offer those services, but they are not the same as editing. If you need someone else to pen your book, search for a ghostwriter not an editor.

Once your edit is complete, then the setting up your manuscript to look like a book so it can be printed

(known as formatting) can begin; a book designer does that kind of work.

For most authors, having your story professionally proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In a publishing world where your story faces heavy competition, pieces need a second eye to make sure they are more marketable and to give them the edge. Even if your story is never published, having that second eye can provide insights that help you master your craft.

Rob Bignell is a long-time professional editor who owns and runs Inventing Reality Editing Service.

Rob is the author of the “7 Minutes a Day…” writing guidebooks.

He is the author of the nonfiction "Best Sights to See," “Hikes with Tykes,” “Hittin’ the Trail,” and “Headin’ to the Cabin” book series, the literary novel “Windmill,” and more.

Since 2011, six of his hiking guidebooks have topped Amazon.com bestsellers lists. Several of his short stories in the literary and science fiction genres have been published.

Learn more about his services at inventingrealityediting.wordpress.com/home or follow his blog at inventingrealityeditingservice.typepad.com/inventing_reality_editing.

You can find Rob Bignell’s books at

https://amzn.to/2qcxbn8

Rupert is snatched off the street, by two men in a white van, on the day he is to propose to his girlfriend Carla.

Confused by Rupert’s disappearance Carla, along with Rupert’s boss, George start to seek Rupert’s whereabouts.

Becoming increasingly concerned George enlist the help of the police.

Enter Sergeant Skinner. Rupert and Sergeant Skinners paths have crossed before. That past encounter had a dramatic, life changing effect on Skinner.

The kidnapped Rupert learns he is to be taken to the General. It will be the General who holds Rupert’s fate in his hands.

Travelling with Rupert we learn of his past; his dysfunctional parents, of Aunt Carol, the Filipino nymphomaniac and Rupert’s intense love for Carla.

Carla’s own tumultuous past is revealed; the sudden death of her father, her mother’s long and anguishing depression and Carla’s own emotional breakdown.

George, Rupert’s employer has a hidden, dark background, but has that anything to do with Rupert’s disappearance?

All Rupert wants, is to return home and propose to Carla.

Carla wants to find Rupert.

The General wants to retire.

George wants to live a life of luxury in Cyprus.

Sargent Skinner wants to close his case.

The Abduction of Rupert DeVille is, a fast paced suspense thriller, laced with humorous happenstances and a romantic tale rolled into one amazing story. A story which will take you down dark alleyways of the past, before bringing you back into the glaring light of now.

Above all The Abduction of Rupert Deville features the most important matter of all, the human condition.

The hopes, dreams and fears, the self-doubts and uncertainties that lie within us all.

The Abduction of Rupert DeVille is like no other story you have ever read

UK. http://amzn.to/2kOzbTc Kindle/eBook worldwide. http://authl.it/B00LGJLIK0 USA. goo.gl/j7D79J

H a lf way U p A Mo u n t a i n Our regular columnist

D orot h y Ber ry-Loun d reports from Umbria, Italy.

High Profile Kidnapping and Assassination

9th May will be the anniversary of the death of Aldo Moro who was murdered in 1978.

He was one of Italy’s longest serving post-war Prime Ministers. Politically he was centreleft and was very popular. He was kidnapped by Brigate Rossa (The Red Brigades) which was an Italian terrorist group which had carried out earlier kidnappings and assassinations.

They held Moro for 55 days before they murdered him. When I first bought my house here in Italy I was shown a room downstairs with a sign painted on the wall – I was told this was the sign for Brigate Rossa and that the group had ‘holed-up’ here after the Moro assassination.

I don’t know the truth of that but it makes an interesting story!

Italy’s Criminal Reputation Italy is infamous for its crime and gang warfare, with most people having heard of the mafia. But did you know that the term ‘Mafia’ is used to describe five distinct organised crime groups? There is the original Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra in Naples and Campania, the Ndrangheta in Calabria, and the Sacra Corona Unità Unita and La Rosa in Apulia. While the Mafia has a big grip on Southern Italy other parts of the country will rarely see obvious signs of activity.

The Reality About Crime in Italy

Crime Rate The crime rate in Italy is said to vary from region to region but overall averages about the same as the rest of Europe. You are less likely to be mugged on the street here than anywhere else in Europe). Italy has a lower per capita rate of rape than most of the advanced Western countries in the European Union.

Fraud and Tax Evasion Fraud is rife, including insurance fraud which is one of the reasons why insurance premiums are so high. Then there is the whole issue of tax evasion, with people accepting cash and not issuing invoices (or only partial invoices) for work completed and what used to be widespread practice of corruption and bribery. Much of this tax evasion is being brought under control these days with new banking rules and tighter checks on taxation.

Robbery and Crimes Against Tourists In recent years there has been an increase in crimes against property, theft and robbery. In April 2018 armed robbers held up the Centrale Montemartini museum in the south of Rome making off with some €10,000.

There is some targeted crime against tourists but I guess that is true world-wide.

We live in a tourist area and every year we hear stories of tourists using swimming pools at their hired villas and then finding their belongings stolen from inside the villa.

One year we heard of a group who had been swimming and went up to the house to get something to eat, leaving their bags by the pool. The bags were all gone when they returned. The lessons obviously are to lock up the villa if you are not in it and always keep your bags with you. But when you are on holiday you don’t tend to think of those things.

We got burgled nine years ago. And the house was locked up and I had my bag with me! I remember the shock of walking in the front door. My mind couldn’t compute the smashed glass on the floor with the fact that the tv was missing! That was before we got two large dogs and a burglar alarm!

Pick pocketing and bag snatching are a big deal in the cities with the unwary tourist being particularly targeted. My Mum had her purse stolen from her handbag in Rome. She was jostled by two women as she got on the train. When she unzipped her handbag a few minutes later she found they had unzipped it, taken out the purse and re-zipped the bag, all without her noticing. Scary stuff!

The Postman Who Didn’t Deliver The Post My favourite recent story about crime in Italy is about a postman who didn’t deliver the post. There was an article about this in thelocal.it. A 33 year old postman in Turin has been arrested for not delivering mail for three years. He said he had not been paid enough for the job. He actually had quit the ‘job’ but was caught by police when they stopped his car for a routine check (part of life in Italy) and spotted a pile of mail on the back seat. Following this up, they found 400 kilos of undelivered mail at his home.

This followed the arrest in January 2018 of a 56 year old postman when a 573 kilo pile of undelivered mail was discovered. Eight years of mail to be precise. Can you believe he stored it all in his garage?

Makes you look at the postman a bit differently doesn’t it?

About Dorothy Dorothy Berry-Lound is an award winning artist, visual storyteller and writer/blogger. You can follow Dorothy’s blog and her latest art work at her website

https://dorothyberryloundart.com

UK http://amzn.to/2zZFWFN USA https://goo.gl/Q0DXRq Kindle (Worldwide) http://authl.it/B019VNDE5E

S UZI My name is Suzi Albracht. I live just outside of Annapolis, Maryland which is in the Baltimore/Washington corridor. I mention the corridor because that is where all my books in The Devil’s Due collection take place. My book, A Love Haunting, takes place in the OBX, NC where we vacation every year. I prefer to write stories that take place in locations where I have spent time.

I typically write in the dark realm, that means Supernatural Horror Crime Fiction and most recently, Paranormal Romance/Ghosts. The horror books are Death Most Wicked, The Devil’s Lieutenant, and Scorn Kills. All three books are part of The Devil’s Due Collection.

My most recent release is A Love Haunting which is book one of my An OBX Hauntings series.

It is a paranormal romance, a ghost story that takes place in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This book is so much fun to write. I am taking local lore and threading it through my story. And I get to write about love in a way that my other stories haven’t yet allowed me.

I am currently working on three more books – Her Deadly Intentions which is part of The Devil’s Due Collection, Lucifer’s Queen, also part of the collection, and a second book in An OBX Hauntings series. I also have a political thriller in the works.

My books are like my children so of course, they are all my favorites but if I am forced to pick one or two, I would say Death Most Wicked and my new novel, A Love Haunting.

A LBRACHT I love Death because it introduces Mikael Ruskoff, my favorite character. It shows his love for his family, his hatred for the father who deserted him, and his devotion to his mother. At the same time, you get to know what a dedicated law enforcement officer he is while he risks his own life to stop a child murderer.

I am equally proud of my new book, A Love Haunting, because it allows me to show a softer side in my writing.

I am free to show that silly love couples have in private, the yearning love of innocents. Plus I got to play with the whole ghost concept which pleased me to no end.

I’ve always been fascinated with ghosts. It was also my first book with no profanity or violence. It was like a refreshing after-dinner drink.

https://amzn.to/2uYEd4s

This excerpt is a short chapter from Death Most Wicked. It appears in Chapter 7. Here we meet Mikael Ruskoff, Homicide Detective, our hero.

Even though this is Donnie Henderson’s case, Mikael gets his first introduction into the mysterious murders that are connected to his investigation of a child killer.

Detective

Mikael Ruskoff hovered over his new

laptop and typed with two fingers, one at a time.

Under his breath, he cursed the new computer. Damn

Later…

Donnie

pulled the Crown Victoria to the front

supplies clerk must have given me another one with a

door of the Laundromat. Mikael could tell at a glance

defective keyboard, he grumbled to himself.

that half the force swarmed the scene.

His pecking was disrupted when Detective Donnie

He followed Donnie into the Laundromat. A

Henderson popped his head over the top of Mikael’s

uniformed officer, Joe Lavelle, approached them.

cubicle. Mikael shot Donnie a look before going back

From the grim set of the cop’s face to the slope of his

to his typing.

shoulders, Mikael figured he and Donnie were in for

“Hey fat fingers, I just caught another of those crazy-ass murders.” He waited for Mikael to lift his head. “Wanna come?”

“The ones like that dude, Buzz King?”

one helluva something.

“This way,” Officer Lavelle said, leading them to a large table back by the dryers.

From the looks of it, the table was generally

“Yup. Same gory goop, different location.”

utilized for folding clothes, but today it was the center

Donnie’s head bobbed with the enthusiasm of a high

of a crime scene. A large puddle of sinew, blood, and

school boy being given the keys to his father’s muscle

other body fluids spread across the table and dripped

car.

onto the floor. In the middle of the pool lay a pair of

“You working lead?” Mikael leaned back and

laced his fingers behind his head.

large hoop earrings, a Mickey Mouse watch and a pair

of women’s panties.

“Until they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

“The vic’s name was Lisa Reinhart. Her mother

Come on, you can poke at your computer later.”

identified the earrings and watch. The panties weren’t

Donnie drummed his fingertips on the top of the

hers… too big,” Lavelle said.

cubicle wall.

Mikael grabbed his jacket. “Teresa gave me another defective keyboard.”

“Sure she did,” Donnie said as he slapped Mikael

Mikael walked around the table. He squatted and looked underneath. Next, he scanned the immediate vicinity.

“There was a struggle over there.” Mikael pointed

on his back. “This crime scene will be grosser than

to the row of washers. “The middle two washers are

the worse slaughter house you can imagine. And the

out of line. See that line of dirt and lint where they

stench? Lord Almighty it’s bad, real bad. Better take

formerly stood?”

off your pretty little Jerry Garcia tie.”

“Great. You take me to all the best places,” Mikael groused with a playful nudge.

Donnie nodded his head.

“He grabbed her there and dragged her to this table,” Mikael said as he walked back to the table.

Lavelle piped in, “Someone cut the power to the building. There’s a slashed line out back.”

“So he cut off the power, snuck inside and attacked the girl,” Donnie said.

Mikael walked around the table and stood on the opposite side. “The final struggle took place here.”

“Wait, there’s a partial footprint,” Donnie said as he bent over to take a closer look. “Get them to take a series of close-up shots and see if you can grab a print.”

“Nah, severed ears couldn’t spray near that far.

They’d drip more than spray.”

“A finger then. Or a thumb.”

Donnie looked up at Mikael and gave a little whistle.

“That changes things.”

“Sure does.”

“Got any idea on what he used to dissolve the body?”

“That’s the part that’s screwing with my brain. If

“Will do,” Lavelle acknowledged.

he used acid where’s the residue? There’s no damage

“Got any more ideas, Mikey? This is what you do

to the table. No acid could dissolve a body that

better than the rest of us.”

Mikael leaned closer to examine the residue on the table. He noticed a spray of blood had dripped down one side of a dryer a couple of feet away from the table in the opposite direction of the washers. He walked over to it and knelt in front of it.

“Check this out, Donnie. It looks different from the rest.”

Donnie inched over to the blood splatter. His eyes

thoroughly and not eat the paint off the table,” Mikael said, sniffing the table. “The lab might tell you something.”

“Sure but I won’t be holding my breath. The tech guys haven’t gotten anywhere in the other cases.”

Mikael looked at his watch. “I hate to run, but it sounds like you’ll be here for a while. I’ve got to pick Ivan up after school.”

“You’re right, I’ve got a shitload of interviews to

went from the splatter to the spot they had determined

conduct. Peterson will drop you back at the station.

was the grab site.

Thanks for the help.”

“You’re right. The initial confrontation might have been here.”

“No, I don’t think so. But it looks like the killer took a souvenir. An ear maybe?” Mikael mused.

Mikael walked back over to the blood splattered washers for a last look. He hoped it didn’t mean they were dealing with a serial killer. Especially if it turned out the creep was into young girls.

A festive selection of eight criminally entertaining stories from indie authors, revolving around a Christmas theme.

Proceeds from the paperback go to charity.

REVIEWS Roger A Price: Murder by Christmas is a brilliant read. The author displays excellent ski8lls as she tells the story from several perspectives, all of which help to keep the twists and turns a surprise. Thoroughly recommended.

Margot Kinberg: Oh, this is delicious, Jane! I love the twists and turns in the plot. And you’ve done a fantastic job with the characters, too. Well done!

David Prosser: What a fantastic story. I was glued to the screen and stopped work which means another late night (thanks). Xxx Huge Hugs xxx

Cynthia Reyes: Wow. That’s quite the plot, Jane. Well done!

Kat Browning: Wow. You’ve presented the dark side of the face the public sees. How corrupt we can become, when our closet skeletons are threatened with exposure. Everyone has a price, but some people don’t have to be enticed very far. It makes me think of all the situations and secrets I have been privy to. Guess I’ll be watching my back after this.

Tina Jaray: Wow, this is an amazing story. I could hardly breathe whilst reading it. I always admire writers because it is something I wish I could do, but how on earth Jane thinks of all these things is totally beyond me. Brilliant story, I think it is the best of all hers that I have read. Thank you for writing it.

Lucy Brazier: Wow, quite a story! There’s a certainly a lot going on, there. You have some clever dialogue in there and the descriptive elements are enough to create atmosphere without holding up the pace. Keep writing!

Psychokiller: You have a crisp, clear style, Jane. As easy to read and digest as the bran-flake box and its contents (be careful not to confuse one with the other).

Crime Time and New books and Recommended Reads: https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/crime-time-new-books-and-recommendedreads-4/

https://amzn.to/2HGvbfr

Murder by Christmas

‘Due to an incident on the line, all trains have been cancelled until further notice’.

by Jane Risdon

He’d seen them both enter the station shortly before.

Betty seemed unaware of Percy as she waited at the ticket office. Tim watched from just outside the entrance wondering why Percy hid behind the newspaper stand, lingering there until the train was imminent, when he disappeared towards the platform. Cries of horror and shock alerted Tim that something had happened, not to mention the sight of a guilty looking Percy hurrying away in the opposite direction to everyone else. Tim didn’t need sixth sense to work out what.

An Excerpt

The reading of Tiffany Blunt’s Will was a subdued affair but the repercussions were anything but, and the consequences farreaching. The story picks up as the first of the beneficiaries, Percy, undertakes his given task in order to receive his legacy…

Standing on the platform waiting for the train back to the village Betty was deep in thought about her bank account and the growing sums in it. Being Saturday the station platform was crowded with football fans on their way to see their local team play away. Spirits were high as they sang and chanted, waving their scarves and tins of lager. Betty hardly noticed them milling around her as she planned how she’d get her hands on a lovely little silver snuff box she’d seen on the dressing table of one of her ‘clients’.

The through train to London was due in first. Betty didn’t know what hit her as she fell off the platform and into its path, a gentle shove in the small of her back was all it took.

Percy disappeared into the crowds as they rushed to the edge of the platform and what was left of Betty after the high speed train had disappeared into the distance, its driver possibly unaware of the accident but, in any case, even if he had been it would’ve taken some time to stop, and by that time Percy would be on his bike half-way home. He shook from head to foot as he pedalled, hardly able to believe what he’d just done.

‘I’ll have a double on the rocks please’. His first port of call was the pub where he planned on calming his nerves for the rest of the afternoon.

Tim saw Percy leaving the station just as an announcement came over the PA system.

He left the station quickly before the police and ambulance arrived wondering why Tiffany wanted Betty Green bumped off. How clever, he thought, Tiffany had somehow managed to force Percy into doing her bidding. But why? He was going to have to keep a closer eye on the others.

***

Days passed with Percy beside himself with worry, waiting for the knock on the door. But it didn’t come.

He watched all the News bulletins waiting for some clue as to what the police were doing. So far it seemed that Betty’s death was being treated as an accident; she’d been standing too close to the edge of the platform and with some many people jostling around, it was possible someone knocked into her accidently, nothing had shown up on the CCTV footage to make them think otherwise. Percy had got away with it. He didn’t feel at all happy about it and reading his letter again, with instructions as to how he’d obtain Tiffany’s bequest of £500,000, didn’t ease his conscience. He was dressing in mother’s clothes more frequently and had given notice at work, relief building as he prepared to leave his old life behind.

A week later Percy boarded a British Airways flight for his paid round the world trip, his ticket and spending money having arrived as per his letter, along with details of a bank account in his name, in Mauritius - his first destination. He doubted he’d ever return to England and from now on he’d wear whatever he liked…

Jane Risdon writes mostly Crime Thrillers, often set in the music business or with an organised crime or espionage element. With a former career in the international music business managing songwriters, singers, musicians, and record producers, she often draws upon her experiences in Hollywood and in SE Asia for her plots.

She is also the author of shorts stories which have been included in 14 anthologies to date, as well as in magazines and online newsletters. She also contributes articles and writes flash fiction.

Jane is married to a musician and, with author Christina Jones, has co-authored Only

One Woman,

set in the UK Music Scene of the late 1960s, using life married to a musician in the sixties, as background research.

This is Jane’s first outing into writing Women’s Fiction and the paperback and audio will be published 24th May 2018.

Jane’s Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00I3GJ2Y8 Author Blog: https://janerisdon.wordpress.com/ Stab in the Dark Christmas Capers Anthology 2017: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ChristmasCapers-Anthology-Writers-Circle-ebook/dp/B077T1MDJ7 Paperback: http://amzn.eu/iwGMNAY

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/christmas-capers

Serve yourself some Lawless Justice today https://amzn.to/2qyP7IK

Alone and Forsaken

by Mamie Pound My friend, Mamie Pound lives in Columbus, Georgia. She has most recently been published in the Dead Mule School of Southern Lit and Smokelong Quarterly. Today, she treats us with a short tale about… well, read on & find out...

across his lap.

“Gotta get gas,” she said. "Need anything?”

“No ma’am,” he said.

Hank William’s voice flowed from the crackling radio speakers.

“…darkness is falling, sky has turned gray At mile marker 141 the beat-up Plymouth rolled to a stop. The driver’s short gray hair was clipped into a dozen plastic curlers. She leaned out the window on a meaty elbow and smiled.

A hound in the distance is starting to bay…”

She pumped gas, paid, and came back with a pair of 7-ups, handed him one through the window.

“Where you headed, Sugar?”

“Thanks,” he nodded.

“Montgomery,” he said, eye twitching. A faded Dungeons and Dragons shirt barely covered his scrawny frame.

“Where you from?” she asked and pulled onto the blacktop.

“I’m headed that way. Hop in,” she said. “Plenty of room in the trunk for your guitar.”

He sipped from the green glass bottle and swallowed, “Venice.”

“I’ll hold it,” he said.

“Venice, Alabama! Spent my honeymoon at The Holiday Inn right on Highway 65. That place and my ex-husband were both mistakes,” she chuckled. “But they did have air conditioning and a swimming pool.

That was something back then.” She smiled at his reflection in her rear-view mirror.

“I’d offer you the front, but Brutus likes shotgun,” she said and swatted at the raggedy dog, now baring his teeth.

“Hush, boy!” She fished a treat from the pocket of her yellow-flowered dress, tossed it in the floorboard.

The boy slid into the backseat, placed his guitar case

He avoided her gaze.

The head lights blazed on a “Tunnel Ahead” sign.

“They say a hundred men died carving this thing out of Redstone Mountain, back in the twenties,” she squinted, adjusted her mirror and caught sight of the road again, just as her back wheel slipped off and spun on the roadside gravel.

“Hear about them people in Venice, robbed and dumped in the kiln at the foundry? They burned alive in that magma.” She shuddered, raised the 7 -up to her lips. “I tell you what, if you wasn’t as young as you are, no way I’d give you a ride. Crazy world, nowadays.”

He cradled the 7-up between blistered hands. The road snaked on toward the looming tunnel, just around the bend. A molten, orange sun slipped out of sight.

His thumbs found the clasps on the guitar case, opened each one in silence. Facing straight ahead, his hands took inventory. A length of rope, an eight-inch knife, a Ball-peen hammer.

that without them, she wouldn’t have recognized her own mother.

For the first time, she could see his face in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t a boy, but older, with scratches crisscrossing his skin. His eyes were wild, moving over everything, like a pair of black flies, afraid to sit too long on one thing.

She looked back and forth from him to the road, unable even to speak, until darkness swallowed them.

After a while, the crazy-eyed man drove the old Plymouth out of the tunnel.

A black dog chased it for miles.

Yellow-flowered fabric, caught in the trunk, waved until it was out of sight.

And the radio played on: “I wonder, I wonder

“I can’t hardly see a thing at dark,” she said.

He hummed with the radio.

“And out in the darkness, the whippoorwills cry…”

She felt for and found her glasses, slid them on her nose. Her astigmatism caused so much blur,

What she's thinking of?

Forsaken, forgotten Without any love”

Music lyrics by Hank Williams, “Alone and Forsaken”, c.1952

To round up this edition of CQI MAGA

which may just whet y Responsible for a string of the most audacious heists ever, attributed to the Pink Panthers gang surpassed themselves when four men dressed as

women stormed Harry Winston’s exclusive jewellery store in Paris. The men were armed and herded the staffs and customers to one corner of the place, while the others broke open the showcases and stole the jewel pieces with an estimated

£85

million

($108

million)

in

diamonds.

As yet, no one has been arrested in connection with this incident due to lack of evidence.

Between 2014-2016, a ring of Russian computer hackers stole an estimated £650 million from banks all over the world.

Using malware and phishing to hack banks’ systems, they studied the operations and routines of the banks, even watching through webcams and CCTV systems, then transferred money through fake accounts. They even programmed ATMs to dispense cash at specific times.

Never taking more than £80 million from a single target, the gang robbed as many as 100 banks in 30 countries and remain at large to this day.

AZINE,

here are some unsolved crimes

your writers muse…

In the year 2009, veteran bank manager Foster was forced to rob his own bank. The 50-year-old was

abducted and injected with poison while on his way to work.

He was instructed to rob the bank in order to receive the antidote. The group threatened to cause a bomb blast in the bank if he failed to obey their commands.

Foster stole around 40,000 AUD for the criminals who have not yet been tracked down.

The bank is situated in Belfast, North Ireland. A sum of over $50 million was stolen from the bank in the year 2004. The night before the heist, two men dressed up as officials had visited the two bank official`s residence.

They held the family hostage at gun points and instructed the officials to act by their orders. The officials were then sent to work the next day, where they stayed till after the bank closed and gave access to other members of the gang.

The robbery of the Union Pacific train by Butch Cassidy’s “Hole in the Wall Gang” was probably the most iconic heist of the Old West. Two “signalmen” stopped the train in the middle of Wyoming, the gang then dynamited the railcar holding the strong box, dynamited the tracks to stop any pursuit, then dynamited the strong box itself.

The gang escaped on horseback with about $50,000 (£40,000), equivalent to $7 million (£5.6 million) today, using fresh horses along their escape route to outrun any pursuit. Banknotes with the distinctive mark of one burnt-off corner would turn up for years afterwards as far afield as New York and New Mexico

The feared “boogeyman,” who created a mass hysteria in New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century, first appeared on May 23, 1918 when a local grocer named Joseph Maggio and his wife were found butchered in their sleep with an axe which was found in the room still covered with the couple’s blood. The entryway was a chiselled panel in the rear door and the only clue to the murder, as no valuables were taken, was a message written in chalk near the couple’s home. The Axeman killed at least 8 more people until it stopped, the killer was never found.

In 1932 in Stockholm, Sweden, an unnamed 32-year-old prostitute was found dead approximately 48 hours after her murder.

Though murders of prostitute weren’t that rare at the time, the woman who had been killed by a crushing blow to the skull had attracted significant media attention as it appeared in the autopsy note that the killer had apparently been drinking the woman’s blood.

Due to the absence of forensic technology and the lack of witnesses, this spine-chilling mystery remained

The bank is situated in Belfast, North Ireland.

A sum of over $50 million was stolen from the bank in the year 2004. The night before the heist, two men dressed up as officials had visited the two bank official`s residence.

They held the family hostage at gun points and instructed the officials to act by their orders. The officials were then sent to work the

next day, where they stayed till after the bank closed and gave access to other members of the gang.

The investigation is still in process with only one person convicted of money laundering.

Apparently responding to a disturbance call, two men disguised as policemen were admitted to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Quickly overcoming the guards, they spent an hour ransacking the museum before making off with 13 works of art with an estimated value of half a billion dollars – the most valuable theft of private property ever. Among the pieces were a Rembrandt, several Degas drawings and one of the 34 known Vermeers in the world.

Nobody was ever arrested, and not one of the pieces has ever been recovered. The frames of the stolen artworks still hang empty in the museum.

And how about this?..

On August 17, 1966 two repairmen, Miguel Jose Viana and Manoel Pereira da Cruz, left Campos dos Gostacazes, Brazil to buy some supplies for a car.

Three days later they were found dead by a teenager in Vintem Hill. The odd thing about the case was the fact that both men were wearing identical impermeable suits and lead eye masks with no holes like the one worn

to protect from radiation.

Found on the scene were empty water bottles, two towels, and notebook containing the words: “16:30 be at agreed place, 18:30 swallow capsules after effect protect metals wait for mask signal.”

The money for the car was not found and these items did not present any clues but led to more questions that up to now are unanswered.

The August edition of CQI Magazine is scheduled to be the SUMMER of SOUND — that’s all things Music.

Details: https://cqmagazineblog.wordpress.com/