Pretty Dead Ordinary

Nearly two years after a serial killer let loose with havoc in Brumby Flat, intrigue, unexpressed desires and murder ride back into town.

A long-awaited wedding celebration turns sinister when a bridesmaid nearly drowns in the local dam. Once again, Senior Detective Phillip Duncan is drawn into the initial investigations, but quickly becomes the prime suspect. Gradually the small South Australian town starts to believe he fits the profile of their new deadly threat.

Some familiar characters return from The Big Dead Dry. Raquel Willaston is still living with the charismatic silo painter Phil Proctor and Anabella Williams has returned after serving time in a correctional centre for the accidental death of the local Mayor. Raquel’s son Steve is now the local rookie cop, quickly learning how to cope with the evil circumstances unfolding around him. Then there are the new folks in town, the crafty Tanaka family with their rebellious beautiful daughter ‘Yankee’ who Steve becomes obsessed with.

Pretty Dead Ordinary sums up the order of things to come. Detective Duncan is forced to work harder than ever to prove his own innocence and hopefully bring the real killer to justice.

Post Mortem

This new collection of pieces by Alan Blackwood can hardly be called short stories; they are gem-like concentrations or distillations of a series of images erotic, sad, darkly humorous, that Alan calls ‘vignettes.’ They will have the reader turning compulsively from page to page to find out what on earth he’s going to come up with next. It’s literature in a world of its own.

Pieces of Eight

Eight very different women, each with a secret, are closeted together in strange and unexpected circumstances. As time goes by, tongues are loosened and one by one they confess their various sins. Will tensions rise or can they bond in adversity?

Peter

Peter is a special boy with an all-consuming passion for aviation, and it is his dream to fly as a career. We follow his journey from school and his exam results through starting work, and eventually obtaining a place as a pilot cadet with an international airline. We share the highs and lows of his training, of being away from his close family for the first time, and the efforts of his elder brother to thwart his chances.

Payback

In the aftermath of the Horizon Life Settlement Fund scandal, Justin Kell is waiting for the trials of the Lebanese organised crime syndicate to end and for justice to be served. When unexpected events disrupt the proceedings, Kell’s world is turned upside down as he returns to face some old adversaries.

Recently established as a private investigator, his refusal to take on the case of a missing person leads to events from his past returning to haunt him, culminating in a race against time as he tries to stop a serial killer with a taste for blood.

As the two cases converge into a dramatic finale, Kell is faced with some life-changing choices.

Passcodes to Peril

Len Gorski’s new assignment has taken him to Sydney’s heartland to coach the UNSW football team in the State League. On the eve of the grand final, he is embroiled in the aftermath of theft of world-first technology from the team captain, a post-graduate research student.

The search to recover a prototype device and learn the identity of the thieves leads to violence and life-changing adventures for the team captain, his girlfriend, and her former high school sports teacher. Survival skills learned in Len’s earlier life are stretched.

Pass the Parcel

It’s 2008 and the Global Financial Crisis is upon the World … The Establishment turns a blind eye as banks shuffle toxic financial packages around the system to unsuspecting victims…

A hedge fund manager has just placed the biggest bet of his investment career. Market manipulation is suspected, but can he discover who is trying to destroy him before it’s too late?

A hard-working Mexican couple are fighting foreclosure to save their house in San Francisco.

In London, a banker discovers his employer is about to embezzle assets from his brother’s property business.

And, a rising star of British politics is being blackmailed by an ex-professional footballer. When the former player is murdered as well, the politician and his wife become key suspects.

Pass the Parcel is a financial thriller that explores the human psychology around financial decisions and how the lives of a group of people were changed beyond recognition by the financial crash.

Particular Moments in a Night Time

As far as nightmares go, this one was with me for many years. Coming back from time to time to haunt my nights. Getting into the dark side of my conscious thought, twisting, turning. Then you give the dog a bone and try to remove it from him with force. A fun trip they said. A walk in the park. A couple of weeks work utilise your special talents. You’ll be back home, back to your own way of life. They say everyone has a dark side that needs that special person to extract from you the energy to ignite it. Well, these buggers did just that…

A thriller that will leave you shaking.

Parallel

This story is about the struggles of a young man who is running away from his destiny; a destiny filled with expectations to follow in his father’s footsteps.His father is a prominent figure in their society and it is up to his son to become a beacon of hope after their homeland is devastated by an invading empire, affecting everyone, especially the main characters.Throughout the story, reoccurring events haunt the main character, but in actuality, help transcend this young man, who is also dealing with his own internal immaturities, into adulthood and to the destiny he never thought he wanted.

Parallax

Fatal accidents are rarely caused by a single mistake but are often the result of a series of errors. A chain of poor decisions leaves Ian White – golf professional and happily married father of two teenage daughters – with a hellish choice. Should he report the death of Katerina Wysklow, a hitchhiker whom he accidentally kills while having sex with her? If his shame becomes public, it will destroy his family. If he conceals the truth, he must find a way to deal with the horror and his guilt.

In parallel to White’s unravelling, the police investigation of Katerina’s disappearance uncovers sex videos of Katerina with different men and unexplained cash deposits into her bank account. The mounting evidence points to her boyfriend’s father – a close friend of White’s – and Katerina’s last known contact on the day she vanished. Will the wrong man be charged? Will White be exposed? Will his conscience intervene? Or will the reckoning come from another direction entirely? 

Overdose or Murder & Dr Marrow

In Overdose or Murder, a seasoned spy, long retired, is abruptly pulled back into the shadows. His former superior needs a discreet favor, one that treads the fine line between murder and suicide. As he delves into the mystery, every clue raises more questions. Who gains from the death? What drove the victim to such a desperate act? Was it a crime of passion, envy, or sheer malice? Beneath the surface, secrets lurk, waiting to be unveiled.In the follow-up tale, Dr. Marrow, our erstwhile spy finds himself amidst an unlikely team of misfits, tasked with rectifying a grave error. As they dig deeper, they uncover a government project teetering on the edge of groundbreaking innovation. Is it the melding of genes or the birth of advanced artificial intelligence? The stakes skyrocket when they stumble upon a chilling revelation: the potential creation of super soldiers and gargantuan scorpions. The race against time begins, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Out of Hours

A series of events takes us away from our quiet Welsh seaside town, Barry Island, to several countries across Europe. Aided by London’s notorious East End gangster, Bootsie Burns, and Isobelle Omerta, who runs her West End escort agency to help us recover our stolen diamonds back from Romanian criminals on the Isle of Dogs with brutal consequences.

A chance meeting in Milan with Jacques Couture’s friend, Oralik Kalashnikov, both ex French Foreign Legionnaires, Oralik proposes a daring heist on the Musée du Louvre. But there are obstacles to overcome first. Testing times call for drastic measures and our gang is going to be tested to their limits as situations start to spiral out of control crossing paths with a Russian mafia boss.

Myself, Bernie, Mick nor Melody with her narcissistic behaviours which are becoming progressively more pronounced couldn’t  have prepared ourselves or foretold how these events would unfold over the coming year to the extent that we would have to go too to gain what most of us love the most, money. In these series of enduring events that will emotionally detach each of us from our civilised society with each of our lives becoming more infested, more barbaric, more bizarre with each unexpected turn of events and the extreme lengths that we will have to go to hold onto our freedom, our sanity, our morals, ethics and principles that will strain, drain, frighten, sicken and at times demoralise our very souls as they will yours.