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Take a moment to
discover what happens when a hard boiled detective story is set in a science
fiction world:
A detective with
no way out. A telepath with something to prove...
World-weary
detective Charlie Madison has seen more than his share of war. When he stops by
the 37th precinct late one night to check on his old friend Sergeant Douglass,
the place is as quiet as a morgue. The last thing he expects to find: half a
dozen Russian gunmen with a score to settle.
What starts out
as a vicious Alamo-style battle soon evolves into something more sinister as
Madison's past comes into play. Will his ties to a branch of the Japanese mafia
be a help or a hindrance? And who is the strange man in holding? Why are the
Russians determined to break him out?
Struggling to
survive the night, one private eye must rely on his wits to solve a mystery
where he's outnumbered, outgunned, and trapped inside a police station with a
soulless killing machine.
Excerpt:
Maybe checking in
on Sergeant Douglass late that night hadn’t been the best idea. I should have
paid more attention to the warning signs right off; things weren’t exactly
business as usual at the precinct. The pencil-necked clerk wasn’t at his post,
and an eerie quiet held the foyer as still as a morgue. No cops, uniformed or
otherwise, to be seen. In a city that never slept, one expected its law
enforcement personnel to share the same god-awful insomnia—graveyard shift or
no.
The vacant front
desk didn’t sway me from my course, though. Little glitches out of the ordinary
seldom did. I’d trained myself over the years to file them away, but not focus
on them too much. As a detective, it was easy to get distracted by particulars
while going after the big picture. Besides, I was suspicious by nature. I
questioned everything as a matter of course. But as far as I knew, everybody on
duty was partying in back, throwing Douglass a well-deserved soirée after his
recent ordeal and return to the land of the visible.
I paused at the
unlocked door leading into the bullpen—an open-concept area with clusters of
desks for everybody ranked lower than lieutenant. Access into the station’s
inner workings wasn’t usually so free and easy. As I quietly stepped inside, I
knew without a doubt something was amiss.
The whole room
lay empty except for five guys standing in the middle with assault weapons
slung over their shoulders—AK-12s and SIG MPXs by the looks of them. Not what
your average citizens usually carried around concealed on their person.
“Hey.” I saluted
the first one to notice me. “Am I late to the party?”
He glared my way,
and I couldn’t help feeling like I was back in high school; once again, I’d
forgotten the beer. They weren’t in uniform—unless black nubuck jackets and
jeans counted, not to mention the scruffy stubble, slick hair, and stocky
frames. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the look of your standard-issue
thug for hire these days.
“Charlie—get
down!”
I would have
recognized that Scottish brogue anywhere. I’d already assembled a good enough
picture of the situation to know it was in my best interest to hit the floor a
split second before the deafening staccato of weapons fire and a hail of
bullets headed my way. The rounds blasted straight through computer monitors
and potted plants on desks; sparks flew upward along with shards of clay and
clouds of potting soil. Chairs disintegrated as I cringed behind a solid steel
desk and drew the snubnosed Smith & Wesson from my shoulder holster.
“Sarge, you all
right?” I barely heard myself over the stampede of slugs plowing into the steel
that sheltered me. The rounds were making some serious dents, but none had
punctured through—yet. It was only a matter of time. I wouldn’t be able to stay
put for long.
***
Getting to know
the man behind the book:
1. When did you
start seriously pursuing writing as a career?
I've been writing
since I was a kid, but I started submitting my work for publication in the
summer of 2009. I'd always thought I would pursue publication at some point --
probably after I retired from teaching or turned 40. My first story was
published in January 2010, and I've had another 96 accepted for publication
since then. I won't turn 40 for a couple more years, and I'm still teaching
full-time. Doesn't look like I'll be retiring anytime soon!
2. How did you
create the character Charlie Madison?
When I was a kid,
I learned to type on an old-school manual typewriter. That's where I learned to
write, too. My first novels were messy, full of typos and plot holes. But they
were fun. And at age 15, that's what it was all about for me. Private eye
Charlie Madison was one of the first characters I created, based on Box 13 and
Dixon Hill, and The Double Murder was his big debut. By the end of it, I had
over a hundred pages of snappy banter, mob hits, double-crossing dames, car
chases, and even some alligators on leashes. It was a horrible parody, and I
knew it.
Halfway through
http://www.write1sub1.com/Write1Sub1 2011, I came up with the first Charlie
Madison story I'd written in decades:
Girl of Great Price. It wasn't anything like his original case, but he
was the same quick-witted, intrepid detective I'd known before. I transplanted
him into a more serious and gritty "future noir" sci-fi setting, and
once I'd envisioned that world, I knew I'd be back. Immaterial Evidence soon
followed, and Yakuza Territory will be available from Musa Publishing on
November 7th.
3. Are you
working on more Charlie Madison stories?
I'm outlining the
follow-up to Yakuza Territory, and it's going to be full of assassinations,
kidnappings, killer robots, and maybe even a mad scientist. The working title
is The Gifted Ones, and it follows the origins of the mysterious suprahumans
who have appeared in all three Charlie Madison detective stories so far.
Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day and a
speculative fictioneer by night. When he's not grading papers, he's imagining
what the world might be like in a dozen alternate realities. He is an active
SFWA member, and his work has appeared in more than 90 publications, including
AE SciFi, Cosmos, Daily Science Fiction, Nature, Shimmer, and the Wastelands 2
anthology.
Visit www.milojamesfowler.com
And, join The
Crew: http://milojamesfowler.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=d70fbcd662992b2d85e27797d&id=34c4e36431
for updates about
new releases as well as exclusive promotions.
You can also pick
up a copy of Yakuza Territory here:
***
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