Jenry chuckled a fat chuckle that went with his snowy beard and generous belly.
“Sup big man?”
“Them lot is looking for aliens. Again.”
“But they don’t see us?”
“They ain’t yet and we been here since before they crawled out of the fragging water.”
Jenry’s wife put aside her knitting. “Do we want them to notice us?”
“Well… I guess…”
“It’d be a lot of work, calling home planet and all that stuff, and I haven’t nearly finished this jumper.”
“You’re right missis. Better to be thought of as garden gnomes than to communicate with the horrid pink things.”

Jane Jago

What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted…

When the final invitee eventually arrived it was not a face familiar to Grim, but he had a feeling it probably should have been. She was a woman in late middle age with the precision presentation of someone used to living her life perpetually exposed to media scrutiny and in the ferocious glare of public life. Grim could see her as the kind of person who always went about pre-armed with a deadly sound-bite, ready to deliver it to camera at a moment’s notice. In other words: a politician.
Jecks greeted her with something a shade or two more familiar than pure formality. They might not be friends, Grim decided, but they were obviously used to working together. Once she had taken her seat beside Jecks the lighting shifted slightly and it was finally show time.
Sitting back in his seat, Grim started wondering why he had been included. For him to be given an invite to this kind of high-powered party, there had to be some tie in somewhere to his past cases, his present skill-set or his known interests. So, as much as taking in the information, he was sifting through it for clues as to why he was here.
He knew the two people they were being told about. Chola and Baldrik. Well, he knew of them. Anyone who had lived or operated in or around the milieu of Thuringen’s Starcity — the criminal capital so infamous it was just ‘the ‘City’ — in recent years would have heard of them. These were both men you’d have found in a ‘City listing for the criminal aristocracy, if such a thing had ever existed.
One was a crime syndicate leader, or what they called a Name in the ‘City. A powermonger, controlling the wealth and lives of those who lived and worked in the geographical area he claimed for his own. The other was his Head of Security, the man he employed to do violence on his behalf — usually not so much the general of his armies as the terroriser of his troops.
Theirs were the two faces placed on either side of the images of the horrific murder. Genuine ‘City celebrities. Except that Grim was not into romanticising such things or giving criminals any slight hint of status. To him, the ‘City was a sewer and these two were rats. One was a sly, manipulative, criminal ringleader and the other, a particularly vicious and dangerous thug.
After the initial shock of the mutilated body, they were shown a large number of historical images and the data nerd droned on. It was depressingly vague as usual. All the important stuff like names, places, dates and details were flashed up beside the images so fast no one could absorb it all. Fortunately, it would all no doubt be tagged onto some document cluttering up the inbox of his work link-profile, together with reams of statistics on everything from the two men’s social networks to their eating patterns, so he would have to spend the next few days trying to unscramble all that into something he could actually make sense of and use.
The data chasers seemed convinced that any kind of analysis — indeed anything other than the most basic of facts — would be simply beyond the wit of regular CSF operatives like himself. The information was so dumbed down that it became an effort to focus on the droning voice to see if there was anything he didn’t already know being offered in the narration.
“Durban Chola. Arrived in the ‘City four years ago. No previous record. Not so surprising as he came from an ultra low-tech non-Coalition, Periphery world, which is presently under a cultural protection order. The day he arrived, he moved in on the Shame Cullen group, the largest and most successful of the criminal organisations then operating in the ‘City. Chola shut that down almost immediately, then soon after outmanoeuvred and replaced Sarnai Altan, one of the two Cullen successors, taking over her holdings.”
How? No one bothered explaining. They were more concerned with the what than the why. But random strangers didn’t just arrive in the ‘City and overthrow the existing order. That was bizarre. And the place he came from? Grim could think of somewhere he knew that would fit that description. And for a lot of very personal reasons, he hoped he was wrong.

From Iconoclast: Mistrust and Treason a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook – which is only 0.99 to buy for a limited period.

Spring was getting going which meant The Owners took longer walks so Bowzer and Bubbles could too.
Bowzer checked the peemails on the oaktree which he hadn’t got to visit since the end of summer.
“Ohhh, Daisy had another litter,” he told Bubbles.
“Anything from Old Pogle?”
Bowzer sniffed.
“Nothing in a while.”
“Guess that means…”
“Mebbe.”
They trotted on, lost in sad speculation. Pogle had lived the other side of Muddy Wood, they’d only met on long walk days.
“Pogle liked spring.”
“I’ll miss him.”
“Wait!”
Bowzer caught a familiar scent on the breeze and ran forward barking happily.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Murder Mystery Monday celebrates some of the best indie murder mystery fiction that we’ve found. This week we look at The Lakeland Murders by JJ Salkeld

The Lakeland Murders are set in Cumbria, the beautiful Lake District in the north west of England. But if the setting is wonderfully scenic the stories are hard-nosed and gripping.
They are police procedurals and have a very contemporary ‘of their time’ feel as the author reflects the issues of the day such as the squeeze on police funding and tackling such tricky topics as county lines (where children and young people are used by criminal gangs to sell drugs in small towns and villages).

To quote the author: ‘If plot is what piques our interest in a crime novel it’s the characters that keep us reading’. The real strength of this series – and indeed of all this author’s other series – lies in the characters. Characters such as:

DI Andy Hall – Andy is not a man of action and well into middle age (he is 48 at the start of the series), but he has a high EQ as well as a high IQ and that makes him able to both empathise and to deduce. He is known to be cleverer than his superiors and gets into trouble for being so.

Jane Francis – who joins the team at the beginning of the series from her previous career as a research scientist and is a counterpoint to Andy Hall. He works more on the classic ‘gut’ backed up by police work where Jane is trained in all the latest methods of crime-busting.

Ian Mann – ex-marine special forces, Ian is the tough guy who is from the same kind of background as most of the criminals he has to deal with but chose a very different path in life.

Sandy Smith – the go-to CSI for our Kendal cops who is best approached bearing coffee and doughnuts unless you want your head bitten off.

Abla Khan – who joins the series later on and has both an incisive mind and a fearless approach to getting into dangerous situations.

The books are a wonderful mix of mystery, action, human engagement and humour and you read on as much to follow the characters from book to book as to enjoy each case, all of which are complex, multilayered and thought-provoking.

The writing is not pristine. There are faults and flaws you might not find in books produced by a publisher. Typos occasionally creep on the page, now and then we hop heads and sometimes you wonder why when only two people are in a conversation they have to keep calling each other by name. But these are truly minor issues set against the sweep of the drama and mystery.

If you enjoy whodunnits and great characters this is a series you should take a closer look at.

You can start the series with any book, but the best introduction to the series is probably through the series prequel The Two Towns which is novella length, and reading them in order gives the full sweep of the characters’ stories as well.

The biggers were behaving very oddly. None of them were leaving the homestead, and only the house biggers came into the garden. Even the cement pond shining bluely in the sunshine wasn’t attracting its usual crowd of screaming divers.
The gnomes wouldn’t have bothered, had not the small biggers come out into the garden and put paper masks on all their faces.
The head bigger laughed.
“Don’t want the little folks getting Covid 19.”
The next morning the biggers discovered the gnomes gathered together on the island in the middle of the duckpond.
Eric’s placard read.
“Social distancing. Keep away.”

Jane Jago

Roguing Thieves is a previously unpublished Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook.

It was another cycle before Dekker made good on his offer. A cycle during which Pan kept herself focused on being what they wanted her to be. She realised that the pirates were not so very different from the freetraders they prayed upon. They lurched from payday to payday making enough to get by and always dreaming of the big one that would let them retire. But unlike most freetraders they didn’t mind killing to get there.
By half way through that second cycle, she was no longer watched by human eyes at least, but she did nothing untoward.
The upgrades on the interceptor were as good as she could get them and the burnt planet hopper had been repaired to space worthy status. Most ships were worth next to nothing to these pirates. Handling stolen vessels was a highly skilled trade. But Pan had been able to peel off this ship’s command ID and fit a masking one. It would need a specialist to finish the work, but Dekker was delighted as it meant they could sell it on for a better price than usual.
When he returned from doing so he was in such a good mood that he clapped Tolin and herself hard on the back.
“Go and have fun, children. Find us something worth hunting.”

Pan hadn’t realised it before, but she was beginning to feel at home in FTL space. It was safe. Nothing could reach into the womb of the ship to threaten her. Not even link communications could disturb her until they dropped out into the traffic stream of their destination world. And when they did, the first communication was from Jennay updating her with family news. Kiona was nearing the end of her time in education and looking to use her qualification in social-neurocology to make a career in public relations. The twins were reviewing their options whether or not to go into higher education and Jennay and her wife were expecting a baby. That last was the one thing that brought a genuine smile to Pan’s face. Having raised four children already, she was very sure Jennay would make a wonderful mother for a child of her own.
She had been sitting at the small table in the social area, eating a quick meal from the synth as she watched the message and glanced up as Tolin joined her.
“Good news?”
She shrugged and cancelled the screen, suddenly unwilling to share those she cared most about any longer with this man. A man with whom she was so intimate and yet had always been a total stranger. “Just family stuff.”
“You’re lucky to have them.”
He had told her he had no family. That he had inherited his ship from his grandfather, his father having vanished before he was born and his mother having died when he was young. But now Pan wasn’t sure any of that was true. It might well have been made up for her consumption. She no longer cared if it was or not.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked, to move the topic on.
“We do what we always did. Trade some ourselves, chat to the freetraders find out who is going where with what and when, and pass it on to Dek. He’ll maybe pick up one in eight of those we offer, but that’s his call. None of our business.” Tolin smiled and reached over the table to squeeze her hand.
A sudden wave of nausea choked in her throat and she pulled her hand sharply away, covering by faking a coughing fit. It worked that time, but she knew it wasn’t going to fool Tolin for long. He had already wondered why she was avoiding sex and she was running out of excuses.
She had to get away.
But that was easier said than done.
She could go to the CSF and tell them her story. If she was willing to give evidence against Dekker and his crew she might get off lightly herself. Maybe even completely. The problem was, just as she couldn’t send a hapless freetrader to certain doom, she couldn’t bring herself to do the same to Tolin and the others. She might despise them and want to stop them, but it was more than her conscience could bear to have their blood on her hands.
To have anyone’s blood on her hands.
Except if she didn’t stop them, the blood of every freetrader they ever ambushed would be. Ongoing.
It was an impossible dilemma and she resolved it by focusing on the most important first step: she had to get away.
If she didn’t then sooner or later she was going to betray herself and she had little doubt from what she had seen in Dekker’s eyes what that would mean. After she was free, she could think about the second part.

There will be more Roguing Thieves next Sunday…

This isn’t what you think it is
It isn’t an appeal
It doesn’t ask for anything
It’s really no big deal
But if you have a moment
Needs no penny in your purse
There might be better causes
But there are many worse
You could consider gifting
Or giving in charity
You could consider helping out
Or sharing what you see
You might even come to think
This matters just a bit
But not enough to give some more
Or precious time commit
So I’m not asking that you do
I’m only asking for
Two mouse clicks and an autofill
And simply nothing more.

E.M. Swift-Hook

It had got dark and by the time Dai had picked up Bryn it was well past time for the evening meal.
“Don’t worry, Bard, we’ll grab some chips and garum when we’ve done this,” Bryn said cheerfully. “So this woman is a real patrician and she was married to one of the sleaziest of sleazebag bad-boy Romans you could ever come across? You have to wonder how that could happen. I thought them families had all kinds of laws that said unless the entire gens agreed, three augurs all peed purple piss on the kalends and the lares farted ‘Salve Oh Divine Augustus’ in harmony, the marriage wasn’t valid?”
Dai grinned. After the day he had just been through it was good to have Bryn’s caustic humour.
“Something like that,” he agreed. “But maybe our friend Rufus just bribed, conned or blackmailed them all.”
“Poor bloody bitch, if so. Would mean she’d been sold off to a wrong ‘un, a real bad boy.”
This apartment block was almost the twin of the one Dai had visited with Julia earlier that day. The same placid exterior, the same mosaic floors with the same designs. It was like having a bad repeating dream. Except this time there was no corpse to welcome them at the door.  Instead, there was a slightly sleepy looking, extremely beautiful girl. She had light brown hair piled up in a very fashionable style, and the most exquisite blue eyes which were set off by the lapis jewellery she was wearing. Dai regretted that so far they could only see her face on the screen by the door.
“Vigiles?” She barely glanced at the ID Dai offered and did not even ask their names. Dai had the feeling this was something of a routine event in her life. “What’s Roo-Roo done now?”
“Can we come in please, domina?” Dai asked politely. “This is something we need to talk about in person.”
“Well, you could,” she said smiling and then put a ripe strawberry in her mouth and licked the juice off her fingers.
“Uh, thank you,” Dai said, a little uncertain when the door remained closed. The face on the small screen smiled at him.
“You could,” she repeated, “but Roo-Roo would kill me if I had any men in the house when he was away.” She looked very serious.
“This is a very important matter concerning Roo-Roo – concerning your husband, domina. Please let me in, or if you insist I can send for a female vigiles to speak with you?”
Her expression changed and she screwed up her nose as if the very idea disgusted her. It seemed an extreme reaction.
“I’d better hope Roo-Roo doesn’t come home whilst you are here then.”
The apartment was less opulent on the inside than it appeared from outside. There was fine furniture and a couple of pieces of wall art, but it all had a worn look about it. Only the small niche where the lares sat gleamed with what looked to be several gold items, and one penate holding a cornucopia with jewels pouring from it. Dai wondered if he had interrupted her private devotions; as there was a small offering bowl visible and the slight smell of incense.
Octavia must have seen the direction of his gaze, because she walked quickly over to the niche and closed the doors, pulling the beautifully embroidered hanging over them. Then she turned to face the men, standing with her hands clasped behind her, almost looking defiant, as if engaging in the worship of her own household gods in her own house was something less than acceptable.
“I know you’ll think it all silly superstition,” she said, lowering her gaze demurely, “but I find it very comforting.”
Dai felt Bryn stir behind him and give a soft cough of embarrassment.
“Not at all, domina,” Dai told her, wondering how such a naive innocent could have wound up with a cunnus like Urbanus Hostilius Rufus. “Perhaps you would sit down and we can talk, there is something we need to tell you about your husband.”
She smiled and moved to one of the couches, arranging her stola with an easy grace and reclining on it completely, cradling her head on one arm as she looked at them with sky blue eyes.
“He’s in trouble again?”
“I am afraid it is a bit more serious than that. Do you have any friends or family near by? Anyone you could ask to stay with you for a few days?”
Octavia’s eyes glanced involuntarily at one of the inner doors and then looked back to Dai. She had coloured very slightly.
Deo Damnatus, Dai thought and exchanged a brief look with Bryn, she has a lover in the bedroom.
“He’s been arrested?” she sounded surprised.
“No,” Dai said, his tone flat. “I’m afraid he’s been murdered.”
Her mouth opened and she uttered a low cry came which picked up in pitch and intensity until it was a full-blown scream.
Dai found himself beside her, unsure whether he should slap her or hold her. She made the decision for him, sitting up and pulling him close, her hands gripping into his tunic as she almost stifled his face in her bosom.
“My Roo-Roo! My poor Roo-Roo!” she wailed.
With some difficulty, Dai disentangled himself and managed to hand her off to Bryn, who was not at all averse to having a beautiful young woman pressing herself against him as she sobbed.
“I’ll find you some tissues,” Dai said vaguely and moved to the door that Octavia had glanced at before. He was about to open it when she squealed.
“No! Not in there.”
Trusting Bryn to keep her from getting in the way, Dai opened the door to what he fully expected to be a lavish bedroom and a naked young man. Instead it was an undecorated room, with a simple double bed and cardboard boxes stacked up with clothes visible neatly folded in them. On the bed sat an elegantly dressed woman, who got to her feet as soon as she saw Dai. Her designer stola was draped in soft folds of silk about her. It took him a moment to place her, to think where he had seen her before. Then he realised he hadn’t, but he had seen pictures of her and the odd moment on TV when the news was covering some swish event. She had been on the arm of Tribune Decimus Lucius Didero.
Instinctively he bowed his head.
“Domina.”

From Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook 

How can you ask where the years have fled
Have you not felt their wings
Touching like feathers the hair on your head
Have you not heard the music they sing
Do you not remember each sorrow and joy
The textures of pleasure and pain
The leap of the heart when a girl loves a boy
The feeling of winter and rain
Right now you stand in your old person’s skin
A tortoise too far from its shell
Whose mind rattles round like a pea in a tin
And whose voice is as cracked as a bell
I wonder my friend if you ever did find
One hour when you truly did feel
As if you were strong, not the servant of time
That you may have stepped off of the wheel
But no, you were busy, you never looked out
At springtime and wanted to run
You never grasped pain to defiantly shout
Nor stole just a moment for fun
I look at you, old person, alone and bemused
And I’m sad that you wasted your years
That you never had time to be cross, or amused
Or for hope, or for laughter or fears
I will tell you right now where the years have fled
Though you’ll hate me for what I must say
You forgot about life, and the clock in your head
And you just let your time slip away

©️jj 2022

Take a peek into The Lizard Lords of Jupiter the latest masterpiece from the pen of the self-proclaimed queen of exotic sci-fi, Venus N. Uranus.

It seemed that they were only just in time as the doors opened fully. The round-faced woman entered and bowed all but double.
“The Mushir Szzrt.”
Cyrus bowed and Clea curtseyed.
Kerenza kept her eyes on the floor.
“Look at me,” the voice was oddly sibilant, but commanding.
She lifted her eyes and had her first sight of a lizard soldier. Her mouth went dry with fear. He was about seven feet tall with blue scaly skin and a thick muscular neck supporting a narrow reptilian head. He was dressed from neck to ankles in black silk bound with gold, and twin sword hilts were visible over the massive width of his shoulders. The eyes that regarded her with cold antipathy were so light as to be almost white, with vertical pupils and nictating membranes that constantly moved across their surface. He stared at her in silence and she felt a blush rise from her neck to her forehead. After what seemed a very long time the mushir turned his attention to Cyrus.
“Have the high lord’s instructions been obeyed?”
“To the letter, Mushir.”
“And what are your observations, flesh trader?”
“She is a ripe little thing. It would be an honour and a pleasure to break that one to harness.”
“Ssskrrt,” the lizard made a strange noise in his throat. “Indeed.” The sibilant voice was dry. “Is it intact?”
“Yes lord.”
“Display it. I am ordered to ascertain its condition.”
Cyrus snapped his fingers…

A Bite Of… Venus N. Uranus 

We had three questions only to learn a little more of this enigmatic lady.

Question one: How much of yourself is in the heroines of your so-loved books?

Very little. But had you asked how much of my villains lives in my own breast the answer might have been more illuminating.

Question two: What is your favourite indulgence?

Ah. Champagne, I guess. Or possibly silken underwear.

Question three: Chips or doughnuts?

Neither child. One has an aversion to calorific snacks. The figure is above all importances.

At which point we had to retreat to the door as she began throwing shoes at us – shoes with sharpened six-inch stiletto heels…

Other works by Venus:

Animal Passions on the Ark
As the Ark flees a dying earth Captain Twerk and his crew are sucked into a dark sensual vortex from which only the prayers of a thousand virgins can rescue them. As far as we know they are still there… 

Boinking for Freedom
Captain Tumescent Schlong and his Martian sidekick Wan Ka Dribblefloop save the universe with nothing more than KY Jelly and a swivelling hip action

Candles for Callisto 
Two nuns and a redundant space cowboy carry the Candles of Callisto from their hiding place on earth to the Venusian temple where their ignition begins a multiverse-wide orgy that lasts a thousand years

Dominant Destroyer 
Captain Selfie the Daandehoopian Dom and his faithful retainer Whippin’ Winnie beat the universe into submission with the aid of a bullwhip and a large silicone appliance

Katie the Qlingon Kleptomaniac 
Aboard the prison cruiser Thrust, the only way Katie can avoid the attentions of Big Brenda and her blue banana is if she can become the prey of Captain Rutt Bigthong and his dog Sniffa

Marianna and the Testicles of Mars
How a silicone-enhanced glamour model saved the known universe using only the power of her ‘mind’ and a secondhand toothbrush

Neptune’s Nymphos
When the good ship Sphincta lands on Neptune, the male crew members quickly find themselves sold as sex slaves. Heaven? Or Hell? You decide…

Pulling Poseidon 
The starship Donkey Parts is pulled into the orbit of a dark planet. Only the pulchritudinous Petunia Petals and her Venusian nose flute can save the day

Saturnalia on Saturn
Space explorer Thea Throbscuttle may have bitten off more than she can chew when she crash lands her flitter in the middle of a very rowdy midsummer party. Only the satyr Longtongue can save her, but what can she offer him to secure his aid?

The Virgins of Venus
Deep underground in the Caverns of Hi’Men live a thousand young women who have never seen a male in their lives. When the tunnelling machine breaks through the wall of their prison even the prodigious Throb Loverage is forced to flee for his life

Venus is a retired pole dancer and rectal explorer who now earns a living by writing, and knitting decorative merkins for ladies who are bored of their Brazilian. You won’t find her on social media because she is too busy penning her next exotic sci-fi bestseller or participating in the SETI program…

((WTB Ed. Note – We think the underling who put this piece together might have made a repeated typo in their use of  ‘exotic’))