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?

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.

Red Front Connection

WWI veteran Spicer leaves his native New York to join a Soviet spy service to combat fascists in Weimar Germany during the late 1920s. Despite his loyalty to the cause and successful exploits on its behalf, his moral principles and his devotion to a woman compel him to flee his spymasters and become the potential quarry of fascists and communists alike. Stacy John Haigney has created a thought-provoking thriller which should be enjoyed by anyone intrigued by the demimonde of espionage in the Europe of the 1920s.

Royal Blood – The Knights

Ever since the car accident that killed her parents, Charlotte Davenport has managed to live a normal life like any other girl her age. Raised by her uncle with her best friend, Vicky Reed, always by her side, Charlotte is quite content. However, when young women start being viciously murdered in her area, Charlotte soon realises that perhaps life isn't so normal after all.

With the help of Nicholas Rinaldi, the most popular, desired, mysterious and ever-so-handsome vampire prince, Charlotte soon realises that she was born into a family with a dark hidden secret. Strange events and mysteries are solved when she is invited to the famous Rinaldi Ball where the secrets to her ancestry begin to unravel. Charlotte finds she is part of something darker and more sinister in this world. But who is murdering these young women and why? And what does it have to do with Charlotte?

Salt in the Wounds

Caught between an international drug smuggling operation and murderous local gang warfare, Peter Barker must find a way out from the international web of violence and intrigue he finds in Nigeria and Brazil.

Faced with threats from all sides, he uncovers more and more of the complex plot as the tentacles reach out to threaten not just him in Lagos but his family back in UK. Drawn into ever-increasing levels of violence, Peter realises this new job will lead to certain disaster and he must find an escape route before it is too late.

San Diablo, The Devil’s Haven

They had all heard the rumours about the place of course, but they had dismissed them as jailhouse myth and bullshit, a place where the prison doctor would pronounce you dead, and you would disappear from heart and memory, and enter into Hell on Earth as the warden’s guest in San Diablo the devil’s haven.

The Devil’s Haven is set in the middle of the baking hot desert. Hidden far from public view and scrutiny resides the top-level, top-secret super-max correctional facility, a warehouse of sorts for the very worst of the worst of humanity’s dregs and gangsters, those sentenced to death for their heinous crimes, those that no one would miss.

Through twists and intrigue, it soon becomes clear that all is not as it seems at San Diablo, neither is the hyper-sadistic warden, nor his new guest the bizarre and enigmatic high-profile inmate en route to the hell pit, or the mysterious CIA super agents entirely as they seem at the Devil's Haven, San Diablo.

Seth Bronx and the Coathanger Killer

When Eleandra Jacobson is murdered and her organs removed, it seems straightforward to Kentsville’s small police force that Clarke Richards is guilty. He was found dead, hanging from a noose next to her with a full confession in a suicide note. Eleandra’s mum and her cousin, Seth Bronx, disagree and the latter is out to prove they’re right. One year after her death, the now private investigator decides to find out for himself.
The town of Kentsville will be changed forever as Seth seeks truth and justice for his cousin, his blood and his family – for Eleandra.

Shaw Vengeance

Amid an escalating series of attacks, Australian Intelligence Service Agent Max 'Prince' Shaw hunts for the leader of a local terror group, known as The Pilot. Driven to stop the unfolding events, Max is thrown into a relentless pursuit across Australia, from Sydney to Canberra and Melbourne. Willing to do whatever it takes to protect the innocent, Max is ruthless and determined, but conflicted, as he is put on a collision course with his past. He is forced to question how he can live the life he always wanted while being the agent the country needs. Is it truly better to have loved and lost, and what would you do to honour your partner's memory and in the name of love? What lengths would you go to to protect your country and its people? When wronged, and in anguish and pain from loss, can you make it right and find peace and closure through vengeance?

Short Shrift

Jonny Hainsworth is an autistic, penniless orphan who lives in a caravan on his auntie’s farm. He never seems to get it right. William Mortensen is an erudite, successful lawyer who lives behind electric gates and has a gardener. He never seems to get it wrong.

But not everything is as it seems.

William Mortensen is dead, slumped over a dank public bench in a rank public park.

In and around this park hover shady characters – warm and humorous yet deviant and debauched. All of these characters have an interest in William Mortensen’s life. All of these characters have an interest in William Mortensen’s death.

And now there is someone else interested in William Mortensen’s life. And he is also interested in William Mortensen’s death. No one seems to know who he is. No one seems to know what he is doing. He can’t tell them. The man with no name is mute.

This book is not about class. This book is not about money. This book is not about success. This book is not about failure.

This book is about guilt.

We all carry it. But how do we carry it? And what does it lead us to do?

Jonny keeps asking. But Jonny keeps getting Short Shrift.

Sitting Down With Evil

West Belfast, 1972. The government has lost control. The streets of Northern Ireland are on fire, with violence escalating on both sides. Lance Corporal Owen Twill is snatched up by the IRA and held captive for ten days. On his release he leaves the army and returns to England, a broken and bitter man, obsessed with visiting revenge on the Provo commander responsible for his injuries.

It’s 2016, and one by one, members of Owen Twill's old unit are dying in suspicious circumstances. When he learns the dark secret behind his betrayal, a chain of events is set in motion, the aftermath of which is felt from Belfast to New York City.

As he tracks down former colleagues, he uncovers a powerful cabal with tentacles that reach to the corridors of Westminster. A conspiracy that pitches friend against friend in a battle to be the last man standing.

Snuff

The story of a boy with a dysfunctional upbringing, who faces depraved acts of violence and criminality and is saved by adoption in London and evacuation to Derbyshire to avoid the blitz of WWII.

Thirty years on the searing drought of 1976 exposes two bodies under Ladybower reservoir. What’s the connection with the spate of murders in Sheffield?

Police Inspectors Hawk and Tony D both have buried secrets of their own. Can they work together to stop a serial killer?

One suspects, but the other knows the psychopath responsible.

Both face the gravest consequences if they can’t cover up their past deeds.

Just how far will two hardened streetwise detectives go to save themselves?

Sons and Mothers

The year was 1939 and soldiers were about to go to war. Constance Cummings, a sixteen-year-old beautiful but naïve young girl, was taken in by a conniving and duplicitous junior army officer who was already married with a family using a false identity.

With the false promise of later marriage and following a wager with his colleagues he lured the girl into a seedy room where he raped her.

She found herself to be pregnant and in 1940 she had a baby with an unknown father. Even though she had been duped and raped this was considered to be a disgrace and the child, a boy, was taken from her without her even being aware of his sex.

Meanwhile, some miles away the offender’s real wife gave birth to a son.

This is a story of their lives from that point on. Will Constance ever meet up with her son? Will the offender’s real wife ever realise what a dreadful man she had married? Will the two half-brothers ever meet and become friends?