Tag: book-review

Savages and Beasts

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excerpt

With the help of the two constables they placed the body
in a plastic bag and carried it to their car. Soon they drove away to
the lab. The two constables left in their cruiser after Ron promised
to come back next day for a more detailed examination. They
still had to find the knife in question. Soon as they left Sister
Gladys with the help of Mary cleaned up the floor off the blood
stains. Father Jerome advised everyone to go and lie down it was
a very hectic day full of sadness and the unexpected passing of
Father Thomas at the hands of a brute.
George the cook reached Anton’s house in five minutes
of a fast walk. Not wanting to risk waking up Anton’s parents he
walked to the back and knocked at the basement door. Anton
opened. He looked at the cook with surprise written on his eyes.
The cook walked inside and in one breath, as if he had recanted
in his mind the whole sentence many times he informed Anton
about Father Thomas’ killing and who the killer was and where
he along with his sister were this very moment.
Anton was dumbfounded. He knew the youth, Marcus,
would someday take revenge on the misfortunes and abuses him
and his sister suffered under the rules of the Residential School,
however he didn’t expected it to happen so soon.
George told him the youth had thrown the knife he took
from George’s kitchen in the water of Thompson River and asked
what they could do for the two youths. Anton didn’t know what to
do and looking at George he realized he didn’t have a clue either.
Then as if an epiphany struck Anton he said,
“Let’s go; I know where to take them,” and with that they
both got in Anton’s truck and drove back to George’s place. They
found the two youths who looked scared and cold.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

In Turbulent Times

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excerpt

‘Oh I’m in for the long haul, Caitlin. I’ve signed up for twenty-five years. Army life suits me.’
‘You won’t go back to the fishing then?’
‘No,’ Tom replied. ‘The Drumard Maid, your father’s old boat, the one my father bought, she has long since gone. Sold for scrap and probably did her bit for the war effort. No, I’m going to stay in the army.’ Then he turned to his companion. ‘Do you remember Gerard Sweeney, Caitlin? I know you do, Seamus.’
‘I don’t know if I would have recognised you, Gerard,’ Caitlin declared. ‘You’ve been in America a long time.’
‘Not too long,’ said Gerard. ‘Ten years. I was eighteen. Finbar got the farm, and I got sent out to the colonies.’
‘Better not let any Yank hear you say that,’ Seamus warned light-heartedly. ‘You wanted to go to America, if I remember rightly.’
‘Best decision I ever made, Seamus. I love it out there. Married a beautiful woman. I’ve a son aged six and a daughter aged four, a house, a car, a good job when I go back. I’m one lucky guy.’
‘Gerard likes that chick that Michael’s dancing with,’ Tom said. ‘He wants an introduction.’
‘You’re married, Gerard Sweeney,’ Caitlin scolded mockingly. ‘And so is she.’
‘And she’s here with her husband,’ Seamus added.
Tom slapped his friend on the back. ‘Too bad, Gerry, old sod. You’ll have to wait till you’re back in California.’
‘Lots of time, Tommy, my bold soldier laddie,’ Gerard said. ‘As Caitlin has pointed out, this party could go on all night, and what chick can resist a man in uniform?’
‘You’re a reprobate, Gerard Sweeney.’ Tom looked at Caitlin. ‘Don’t listen to him, Caitlin. He’s big-headed like most Yanks. They think they’re God’s gift to humanity.’ Tom paused to pull a swig from his bottle of beer. ‘Well, we just came over to say hello. I’ll call up to the house, Caitlin, before I leave. Have a chat with you and Michael, if he ever let’s go of that girl. And I want to see Nora as well.’
‘She’ll be happy to see you, Tom. And bring Gerard with you.’
‘I don’t know if I should introduce Gerry to Nora. She’s much too pretty.’
‘She’s married too, Tom. Remember.’

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

The Circle

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excerpt

It’s evening in Baghdad and Ibrahim is in his study talking to Rassan about what
they have to attend to the next day. Ibrahim is not feeling his best since the morning
and wonders why. He has finished taking the new drugs, it’s not the
side-effects that are bothering him, but he has not been his regular self since this
morning. Something is bothering him and he doesn’t know what.
The week has gone by. Talal and Emily have taken another trip to Falluza,
where Talal visited his family once more as promised and met with Aesha’s
fiancée and his grandfather. Emily had the opportunity to see the condition of
his family home; Talal showed her exactly where he found the charred bodies of
his mother and father in the spring of 2004, and she now has a better
understanding of what it means to lose both parents at the same time and Talal’s
reason to hate. She knows it comes to everybody quite naturally when they get
hurt. She loves Talal dearly and loves the idea of helping him in whatever way
possible, but she doesn’t know how. She only knows she wants to stay with him
as long as it lasts, no matter what.
They don’t plan to go anywhere for the next few days unless they go with
Rassan when he goes to do his shopping for the party Ibrahim has arranged for
Wednesday. They’re to leave for Los Angeles on Friday afternoon. Most of their
time is spent relaxing in lounge chairs in the sunshine, gathering rays, as Talal
says, or getting some tan, as Emily calls it. She looks forward to showing off her
tan to Cathy when they return home. She’s already a bit brown; somewhat darker
than the day she came to Iraq. Talal has warned her several times not to stay in
the sun too long, but she doesn’t listen to him; fortunately, the sun is not as
strong this time of year.
They have had their dinner a couple of hours earlier and are sitting on the
balcony enjoying the peaceful sounds of the night which is approaching slowly
like a dark shroud, covering the plains and sand dunes one by one. A feeling of
peace takes over the whole area; this is the peace that everyone wishes for and
wants to keep for the rest of their lives.
“Well, my sweet Emily, what’s on your mind?”
“Oh Talal, this has been the most beautiful holiday of my life. It truly has
touched me in a variety of ways; it is a different world here and a different way of
life. I just cannot express it in words.”
“Then you are happy we took this trip?”
“More than happy, I’m elated. I love you so much.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

In Turbulent Times

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excerpt

Nora never let Joe know that they had been espied that night. She continued to write her long letters every week, letters in which she tried to hide her sadness and her melancholy and her bitter disappointment. Three months after Joe’s departure she was pregnant again, and that added to her bitterness. But she hid her gall from Joe. She did not want him to think she was accusing him of failing her. Joe wrote sad, serious letters with only an occasional light or amusing remark. But they were letters full of tenderness and love, like those he used to write before he learned of Nora’s marriage. It was almost as if the marriage had never happened, as if Joe and Nora were the lovers they had been before, with their own marriage to look forward to when the war was over. Nora realised that this was a fantasy to which Joe clung to help him through the bloody butcher days of war, the black, tense nights of watch and wait and pray. She gave him what he needed. She wrote what he wanted to read. She almost came to believe in it herself. Nor was it difficult. That they were both as deeply in love as ever was true and needed no deception. That they could ever enjoy that love outside of their passionate letters was where they lived in a soothing fantasy.
As time passed Joe’s letters became more morbid. He was losing his friends one by one but kept referring to a very old companion who was with him still, who never left his side. This old companion was never named, and it was some time before Nora realised who the companion was. In one of his letters Joe wrote:
He’s been with me since that day your father pulled me out of the harbour. He fought over me with Dr Starkey when I had pneumonia and he lost that time. He wants me to go with him somewhere, but I just turn to him and say, “I’m sorry, friend; but I have this girl back in Ireland and I’m going to her first. We have a lot to do, this girl and I. I hope you can wait a bit longer.” He’s waiting, my darling, but he’s becoming impatient. How long can this war last?’
Joe was excited about a posting to a Buckley-class frigate, the HMS Bullen. On 6 December 1944, the Bullen was torpedoed by U-Boat U-775, in the frigid waters of Pentland Firth, northwest of Scotland. The Bullen broke in two and sank in two hours. Of the one hundred and sixty-eight crew members on board, seventy-one went down with the ship. One of those lost was Chief Petty Officer Joseph Ignatius Carney. His turn had come. And this time there was no Michael Carrick to pull him out of the icy water.
A few weeks later Nora gave birth to a daughter whom she christened Josephine Siobhan.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

In Turbulent Times

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excerpt

‘You’re too smart for them, Joe.’ Michael gulped a mouthful of tea that was still quite warm. ‘Your mother says you’ve been in America.’
‘Yes. I did a bit of travelling there.’
‘Must be a great country.’
‘Yes, it is. I loved what I saw of it. I told Nora that I was going to live in the States when the war was over.’
‘That’ll prepare her,’ Caitlin said in a heavy voice.
‘So you’re going to become a Yank, Joe?’ Michael said.
‘I think so.
‘Good for you. That’s where the future is, I’d say.’
‘Yes,’ Joe agreed. ‘That’s where the future is. In fact I’d say the future was already there.’
‘Grab your share of it, Joe. And good luck to you, son.’
҂
Nora waited anxiously as the days passed. She hoped heart and soul, more fervently than she had ever hoped for anything, that Joe had made her pregnant. She even prayed for it in church, pleading with God, who had robbed her of so much, to grant her this one compensating favour. And then she remembered that God did not reward sin but punished it. Would He punish her? Could He, who had already punished her so cruelly, continue to show only heartless vindictive ness towards her? The time of the month, as Nora reckoned it, had been most propitious for conception. The occasion itself, so beautiful, so transcendental, so highly infused with the passion of pure and overpowering love, could not have been other than providential. If she never had another possession in her life, Nora wanted Joe’s child with a ferocity that almost choked her.
‘If I can’t have him,’ she prayed, ‘allow me to have his son or his daughter, to love and care for as I would have loved and cared for Joe himself. Oh God Almighty, harden not Your heart this time. Wipe from Your mind all memory of the wrong we did to attain this end and give to our undying love, so true that only You could have inspired it, the divine consummation it deserves.’
Nora was tense, anxious, irritable and easily upset. She had a violent row with her mother that began with a purely innocent and casual remark from Caitlin about Owen Joe’s being too warmly dressed.
‘You’re one to be giving advice about looking after babies,’ Nora shouted heartlessly. ‘I’m surprised your incompetence as a mother didn’t kill me.’

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

In Turbulent Times

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excerpt

…about his belief that there were two St Patricks. He has historical evidence that he says supports his theory. He won’t be home till tomorrow evening.’
Joe turned his head away from her in indecision and stared into the red-hot heart of the fire in the range.
‘Joe, I want to have your baby.’
His head jerked round, and he looked at her with confused incredulity in his eyes, unsure of himself. ‘Nora, think of Liam, your husband.’
‘Why must you be always so considerate of others, Joe?’ Nora asked. ‘Think of me now. I love you. I want to have your baby. I want something that is yours to hold on to and to cherish for the rest of my life, something that is part of you and part of me that will be a living memorial of our love. Please, Joe. I need this.’
He placed an open palm on each side of her face and looked into her deep, dark eyes where tears glimmered like raindrops on a leaf. He knew that what she was asking him to do was sinful, and part of him recoiled from it. But his moral reluctance was brushed aside by the strong, sexual urges of a twenty-nine- year-old male, more especially of a male who spent most of his time at sea. ‘All right, I’ll stay,’ he said quietly and kissed her on the forehead.
‘I’ll put Owen Joe in his cot and wet a pot of tea,’ Nora said. ‘You can sample the barmbrack I baked this afternoon. We even have home-churned butter to put on it. A gift from Janet’s mother.’
They sat quietly by the fire, Joe in the rocking chair, Nora at his feet, her back against his legs, a book open in her hands. Upstairs the baby slept in the cot at the foot of Nora and Liam’s bed. Outside, the sky was still bright, the setting of the sun delayed by the manipulation of the British war-time summer clock. The limpid blue of the daytime sky was gently suffused with a pale golden glow that spread from the west. A couple of early stars glittered in the east, and Venus shone with a steady gleam in the wake of the lowering sun.
‘You’re going to read me a bedtime story, are you?’ Joe gently stroked Nora’s soft black hair.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want you to read to me.’
‘You do, do you?’ Joe said lightly. ‘What have you got there?’ He took the open book that Nora reached to him and flicked the cover over. ‘J.M. Synge.’
‘Yes. Poor Synge,’ Nora said sadly. ‘He was thirty-five when he fell in love with a girl of nineteen, an actress called Molly All good, the daughter of a “Dour Orangeman” who objected to his children’s being brought up…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Fury of the Wind

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excerpt

“Quite right, my dear, and if you don’t mind me saying so, I wish
you would take that responsibility a little more seriously and keep
the things we hear in confidence to yourself.” Robert Carson folded
his hands, placed them on the desk in front of him, and smiled at
Emily as if to atone for the harshness of his words. “Having said
that,” he continued in a gentler tone, “I will tell you what Ben wanted.
You would have to know in a day or so, anyway. Ben’s getting
married on Friday.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. She had been about to take offence
at his inference that she was a gossip, but his last words erased every
other thought from her mind. And she certainly paid no heed to his
advice because, within five minutes, she was on the phone to Molly
Andrews, her best friend in Nimkus.
As in most small communities, a class system existed amongst
the residents of Nimkus. The town matrons would have denied it
but the divisions, although very subtle, did exist. There was no doctor
in town, no dentist and no lawyer. For services supplied by these
professionals one had to travel to the neighbouring larger town of
Bradshaw. With the absence of such elite families as these, the responsibility
of maintaining the position of upper crust fell to the
wives of the banker, the minister, the station agent, the town clerk,
the druggist … and on it went.
Had the principal of the three room school on the outskirts of
town been a man, his wife would certainly have been included in
this group. But the principal of Nimkus School happened to be,
and had been for some time, a single woman. Although well regarded
by the parents of the children she taught, Miss Donna Carrington
had no status in town because she had no husband. And a
single woman, no matter how brilliant and ambitious, was secretly
regarded as a nonentity by the town matrons.
Immediately following Ben Fielding’s visit to the vicar, Mrs. Carson
telephoned Mrs. Andrews. The station agent’s wife then called
Jean McKinnon, the banker’s wife. Mrs. McKinnon just happened
to be on her way to do her grocery shopping. And, of course, she let
slip the astounding news she had just heard as soon as she began
to give her grocery order to Mr. Stratton, the owner of Stratton’s…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

The Qliphoth

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Version 1.0.0

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…wheeler-dealer in twentieth century wreckage, the magus who re-discovered
the Lore of the Brazen Head.
Even now I must pay for my faery-land humours, for Jago will be soon lumbering
over with his medical mafiosi, to wake up the sleeping beauties; to make
a special brain check on ugly old pseudo-Rabbinical Freakbeard.
For fuck’s sake, Wolfbane! I’d only just got Jago off my back. And then you
came across to peer over my shoulder, you burst into a sniggering fit, your
greaselocks whirling . . .
“Why waste your time inventing a new religion?” you shouted, so that the
whole Day Room could hear, even poor Eamonn, who looked up anxiously
from his week-old Catholic Herald, thinking more new sins for Eamonn,
omigod . . .
“The teachings channeled via the Order of the Brazen Head are not a religion.
They’re fragments of a system for magically transforming reality. I’m
well on the way to rediscovering it.” I was angry but remained in full control.
He obviously wasn’t accustomed to dealing with an authentic adept.
“Sounds like Harry Houdini to me. All these old blokes in robes climbing
into magic compartments. The disappearing cabinet gimmick. Mummy case,
magic casket, fakirs in igloos, it’s all the same. Ancient stuff. I’ve been doing it
for years. Watch me now. I can mash potato, I can do the twist . . .”
He did a little sing-song dance routine, not the head banging heroics everyone
associated with the Hrothgar videos, more like a twirly number from some
old Motown tour. He spun so fast he was a blur of hair.
“Why are you in here, Wolfbane? ”
“It was headline news,” he muttered, “and everybody in the business knew
about it.” He seemed offended that I didn’t know. “Anyway, I know all about
you now. You’ve abandoned your wife and child, right? Abandoned them, to
be lost in space, on the dead planet, to be eaten alive by robots. While you
bummed off to write letters to aliens. What kind of an alibi is that, I ask you? I
was a dragon-slayer. You were just a worm . . .”
He’d never suffered under PP, the All-Devourer, She Who Hath Gnawed
Out the Sweetness of My Entrails.
“When you see the finished Book of the Lore, Wolfbane, you’ll see I was
given no choice, I made the best decision in the circumstances, and when I’ve
finished my life’s work, you’ll see . . .”
“You’ll never finish it. That’s your bloody alibi, isn’t it? Just do it to death.”
He repeated it several times—do it to death—wrote it across the wall…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562839

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186508

Jazz with Ella

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excerpt

Was he not getting on this very plane to Moscow looking like one of the foreign tourists and wearing a handsome leather jacket? On the other hand, what if they had tricked him into doing something illegal? The authorities could revoke all his travel privileges. Normally, he wouldn’t have any qualms about sidestepping the authorities but it was just so important that he go to Moscow right now.
All these thoughts and more passed through Sergei Ivanovich’s brain as the group from Canada traipsed slowly across the tarmac.
★
“The first thing I’m doing when we reach the hotel is to find a telegraph office and send a message to Volodya,” said Jennifer, seated behind David and Maria on the tour bus, her chin hanging over the headrest. The teacher-student wall had completely crumbled; they were her friends. She was grateful for their help.
“I thought you’d already done that,” answered David. Maria’s head was nodding, more concerned with sleep than planning. “You mean you didn’t wire him from Kazan?”
“No. You saw how Chopyk dogged us the whole time, plus I couldn’t confirm anything. What if, all of a sudden, they’d decided to take us out of the country through Kiev instead of Moscow? You know there’s no logic to the itinerary.”
“It’s always Moscow. I told you that,” David said. “We’re here for less than two days. That’s not long enough to get Volodya from Leningrad and up to speed.”
“There’s the rest of today…”
“Oh, no, not at all,” interrupted Maria suddenly, her eyes still closed. “According to Natasha we have an action-packed evening ahead.” She looked around quickly as if expecting their tour guide to hear her name. But while the group had been given a late lunch in the airport dining room, Natasha had gone on ahead to make arrangements and would meet them at the hotel. “After check-in, we’re to squeeze in dinner and some of us have tickets for the ballet. And remember when we were in Moscow last time you said that the juniors would be having a last lesson here and maybe taking a guided tour of St. Basil’s Cathedral?”
David’s grin waned. Jennifer sighed.There was another thought nagging at her.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

In the Quiet After Slaughter

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excerpt

I possessed neither the strength to stop the torment nor the courage
to try.
– I’m going for more wood.
When I return Larry is flicking lighted matches at Lenore. Her
cheeks are stained with tears.
– Burn, witch!
Larry exits for a pee. Lenore and I face each other across the campfire.
I wonder what it would take to make the poor girl smile, so I use
my roasting stick to scratch a happy face in the dirt. Lenore uses hers
to erase the upturned mouth and replace it with a frown.
– Fee-fi-fo-fum, we hear Larry carolling. Wisely, Lenore retires.
Larry and I decide to sleep outside. We arrange our sleeping bags
around the fire.
– I’m going to move to the States one day, Larry says.
– That would be neat.
– I’m going to join the Marines. Special Forces, probably.
– Wow!
A log tumbles into the flames; a glowing ash disappears into
the star-spangled Washington night. People disappear from our
lives all the time. They move away, promise to write, don’t. They
go wacko, drop dead, find God. You say something stupid and
you’re ostracized for life. It doesn’t take much for us to abandon
each other.
When we were young my mother enrolled Burt and me in free
swim lessons in Stanley Park. The bus ride took an hour each way;
the lessons lasted 20 minutes. Hundreds of kids from East Van sat
shivering on the seawall at Lumberman’s Arch waiting their turn to
blow bubbles in the frigid surf. My brother always pissed in the
water. Later Mom would buy us fish and chips.
– I dreamed about Marilyn Monroe last night, Larry says. His
hands are folded behind his head.
– She’s something, that’s for sure.
– She was bare naked, he said. Just standing there with a tube of
coconut butter, begging, Do my thighs, Larry.
The next day we saw Cindy and Corrine riding in a convertible with
some older guys. They were racing along one of the back roads.
Cindy was standing up in the front seat, arms outstretched,

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971