What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted…

“Jazatar Baldrik was released from the Special Legion to serve with the defence force based on Thuringen, but resigned within a cycle following a violent fracas with three other members of the unit. He remained on Thuringen a while doing nothing much that we could see, then we lost sight of him for a few cycles before he reappeared in the ‘City right around the same time that Chola arrived. There were some unconfirmed reports that he was involved with the explosion that destroyed the infamous Voltz hangout, killing over two hundred people. But if it was him, it certainly did nothing to damage his reputation.
“He was working as head of security for Sarnai Altan soon after, then switched his loyalty to Durban Chola when he took over from her. You saw an example of Baldrik’s handiwork at the start. He is a killer of the most dangerous kind: not just vicious and ruthless, but intelligent enough to be highly effective as well. That said, bringing him to account for it would be a challenge as he — so far as we know — restricted his nasty habits to the ‘City.”
Which was the real irony of it, Grim reflected. The main reason the ‘City was seen as crime capital of the Coalition was not so much because it had more criminals than anywhere else, as because it had a legal framework which meant the criminal leaders were almost sovereign — their people could literally act with impunity. In the ‘City, organised crime was not treated in the way it was elsewhere in the Coalition.
“We believe he was personally responsible for the murder of at least five of our own operatives in the course of one year and any number of others on behalf of his employers. That said, he was not very loyal to any of them. He was reputedly selling information on Chola to other Names and for a time we even had him on our books as an informer — at his own instigation.”
Now Grim began to see where there might be some reason for his inclusion in this briefing. This man sounded exactly the kind of unpleasant individual he had made his career out of pursuing. He straightened up in his chair and tried to pay more attention. There was quite a bit more on various possible, suspected and proven crimes involving the two men and it was all beginning to sound pretty intriguing. Admittedly, Chola was not the kind of criminal he was much used to hunting down, but Baldrik fitted his preferred profile perfectly.
The only aspect of this he was not liking so much, was the idea of having to work in the ‘City. He knew it well enough. Like most of his generation of CSF operatives, he had trained there, cutting his teeth on the hard carapace of ‘City criminality. But he could not be comfortable in a place where all the normal rules were blurred and the idea of protecting the innocent from the guilty was warped by the fact that innocent and guilty were decided by forces other than the legal structures he served. Even so, for the chance to bring down an animal like Baldrik, it could be worth it. So as the initial survey was coming to a close, he watched the images with growing speculation.

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.

The meeting finished and Erica found herself frustrated as usual.
“It’s like the blind men and the elephant,” she told Rosie, her cat as she served up a tin of sardines. “They all only see their own problem, not how it fits the whole.”
At the next meeting she tried to explain this to her colleagues.
“It’s like you’re all holding onto part of an elephant and not realising they are all bits of the same thing.”
There was an odd silence then someone cleared their throat.
“So is this the elephant in the room – or is that another elephant?”

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 Homeswappers by Adriana Licio

The Homeswappers series is a humorous cosy mystery series set in various locations around Europe from historic Prague to the Highlands of Scotland. As well as the murder mystery itself there is also a wonderful element of travelogue as all the places are clearly known and loved by the author as personal experience of them shines from every page.

Our companions in these adventures are Etta and Dora, two retired teachers who have moved in together to share a house in their Italian island home and who decide to go travelling by home swapping their way around Europe.

Etta is the more classically clever and deductive but Dora has insights and inspirations and can do her share of deduction too. They make a great team, usually supportive, sometimes competitive and on occasions falling out.

And one of the first things they fall out over is Napoleon, a soulful basset hound they encounter in their first home swapping adventure in Rothenburg. Dora knows he is part of the team, the more practical and pragmatic Etta takes a bit more persuading that it is going to be possible to travel with a basset. You can guess who wins this one…

This is a series you can dive into at any point, but is probably best appreciated from either the first home swap The Watchman of Rothenburg Dies or from the series prequel Castelmezzano, The Witch Is Dead where Dora and Etta meet and before Napoleon is a twinkle in their eyes…

For an indie offering these books are very well presented and professional, from the wonderful covers to the immaculate editing, so much so it is hard to guess they are indeed indie. If you enjoy cosy mysteries with a bit of an edge and a good serving of humour and like to have immersively described interesting settings then this is going to be a series for you to enjoy.

The gnomes watched furtively while some strange biggers dug, sweated, swore and laboured at building a big pond. A pond with square sides and blue tiles. Late at night, when the garden folk had the place to themselves they strolled over to stare.
It was, as Big Sid declared, a bloody big hole.
But then it was finished and filled with water, and the household biggers jumped in and out squealing gleefully.
The party to christen the pool might have been less successful if the guests had seen a line of grinning gnomes pissing into the water in the moonlight.

Jane Jago

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

Things had been happening so fast she felt numbed by it and it was a few moments later that she remembered she was supposed to be watching the count. The door to the hygiene room opened again, making her jump and flatten herself instinctively against the wall. She didn’t recognise the woman who came in, but the look she got from her told Pan exactly how she must appear.
Muttering an apology, Pan forgot about the count and went back out into the bar. The way was blocked by a slowly moving wholesaler’s delivery cart, which shielded her from being seen by Tolin. So she walked beside it to the door. But there the cart stopped, its AI detecting people trying to come in. The trailer door was slightly open and without even thinking of the consequences of shutting herself in a cool store trailer, she stepped in and slid the door closed behind her.
Almost at once the cart moved on and she was jolted around in the pitch black. She was just starting to think that perhaps this had not been the best idea when the cart stopped and the doors unlocked again. Pan slid them open enough to see the trailer was backed up close to the wall of a retail booth, no doubt to make another delivery.
She slipped out and took a moment to get her bearings. The bar was away to her right on the other side of the delivery cart. She caught sight of Ducky walking briskly towards the docking bays and was about to cross over to follow, when she saw the freetrader approached by a pair of spaceport security personnel.
Pan wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying and so she turned her attention to the nearest legitimate distraction, the retail booth. It was a local speciality food stall.
“Panvia? Must be years. I’d heard you’d got a job in Central. How’s your aunt?”
Startled, she met the eyes of the trader and recognised them as someone she knew from school. Their name escaped her and she stuttered some reply. At least it provided her with both distraction and cover, answering the questions asking the right ones in return. She kept half an eye on Ducky and then on the security people who seemed satisfied by their ID check and were walking towards the booth. For a moment she felt time slip into a frozen tableau.
She kept her gaze on the old school friend who was talking about a prank they had pulled off back in the day. The skin on her back crawled and she fought the urge to turn round. From the corner of her eye she could see more uniformed figures with drones moving in to cover the exits to the bar.
“Did you see anyone head this way from the bar?” The two security guards were talking to her companion in an easy way that suggested they knew each other. And they probably did. This place was the kind where anyone working in the spaceport would grab their meal breaks.
“Only that woman you already spoke to. I’d have seen if anyone else came by. It’s a bit of a bottle neck here, part of what makes it such a good spot for me.”
There was laughter, which Pan joined in, before the security team walked off. But a few moments later they broke into a run as there was some kind of disturbance going on in the bar. Pan could see something was happening behind the plexiglass windows but was too far away to make out what. Then the door opened and Tolin was running out. It was hard to be sure whether it was one of the drones, or the woman with the metallic blonde hair who was out of the door right behind him, but a shot was fired. The energy burn hit him in the back and he dropped instantly.
Pan found she had brought both her hands to her face, palms pressed hard over her mouth and cheeks, holding in a scream. The blonde woman had reached Tolin and crouched briefly beside him then got up and started talking to the security guards who had closed up.
There was no rush, no sense of urgency. No one linking for medical assistance.
Pan turned away, fighting nausea. Her school friend looked stunned, pale, mouth open in shock.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to be…” Pan stumbled off, barely aware of where she was going, only that it was away and out of sight of the horror. She vomited up the food she had been eating only a short time before, sitting in the bar with Tolin… Some deep level of survival instinct seemed to kick in once her stomach was empty. They would be looking for her now. She had to move and keep moving.

There will be more Roguing Thieves next Sunday…

I already know my place
within this world of ours
I know tis now technology
That holds all the powers

My phone demands attention
With a soft vibrating hum
My laundry is demanding
Singing to me it is done

By beeps and shrills and warbling
Their commands us enslave
I leap at once upon my feet
Summoned by microwave

I thought these things were once designed
To serve the needs of humankind
Instead, it seems that now we find
We must obey their calls

E.M. Swift-Hook

Being of the wizard race in a world where magic wasn’t supposed to exist wasn’t easy.
Any shop that sold supposedly occult books and magical paraphernalia was a source of amusement to Brandon Grey and having time to kill he’d gone inside. He was browsing in the bookshop, smiling at what he found, when a soft female voice with an accent that he had never come across before had gently interrupted his thoughts
“Is there something in particular you were looking for?”
Brandon had turned, curious to see the speaker, already very conscious of the carefully guarded psyche, something vanishingly rare amongst regular humans which his extended senses told him that this was.
He turned to see a woman who was neither tall nor short, was slender but not slight, with a face that seemed to hold both the wisdom of age and the promise of youth. Her black hair was long, curly and touched with silver, which seemed to gild its richness rather than diminish it in any way. But what commanded his instant attention were the arresting cornflower-blue eyes that met his gaze with a steady near-challenge.
For a moment he was left without anything to say. The psychic strength in this compact and self-possessed individual was unheard of. Such careful shielding bespoke someone who was skilled well beyond the norm and not just a rogue natural talent. But this was no wizard.
The woman smiled very slightly at his reaction and spoke again.
“I was just wondering if you needed help finding a book.”
Brandon shook his head, intrigued by this discovery. Words found him. “That’s kind of you but I’m fine thanks. Just browsing.”
“Ah, you are American.” The woman made it sound more like an explanation than an observation and that had made him smile.
“You have the advantage of me there. My nationality is in my accent, but I can not place you from yours.”
The woman’s blue eyes softened slightly and Brandon noticed the slightest dimple appear on one cheek.
“I am from Scotland – a Highlander.”
Brandon’s surprise must have been very visible because the promised smile appeared in response.
“I have never heard any Scots speak as you do.”
“Well, that will be because most you will hear are from Glasgow or the Lowlands – not true Gaels. And their accents owe as much to the English of the north as to any Celtic tongue.”
That was how he met Ishbel McCrae. It had certainly been unexpected and Brandon had no real ideas as to where he needed to take things.
Over the next few weeks, he had cause to visit the Old Town a few times and he always took the opportunity to call in at the shop. Ishbel had been a source of local information and had helped him find a few books of real value and interest rather than the volumes on candle magic, tarot cards and crystals, or reprints of sixteenth-century grimoires which seemed to be the most popular books she sold.
The spring was still holding summer at bay and although daffodils had turned the roundabouts and embankments to bright yellow, they were worn and weary flags in the brisk wind that blew in from the sea. The Old Town was wakening slowly from its winter near-hibernation and one or two of the tourist shops were only just getting themselves ready for the Easter trade soon to come.
Brandon walked past a few art shops and the inevitable antiquarian book shops exchanging the odd greeting with a few familiar faces who he had come to know in the last couple of months.
He even stopped to help an elderly lady wearing a tweed coat and tracksuit bottoms, fight her basket on wheels and small yappy dog down the small flight of stairs from one of the raised sections of pavement and was rewarded by a short conversation about the weather and the price of things in the shops today as he shared her walk to the post office. Normally such an encounter would have been a delight of human interaction for Brandon to savour, but today it had more about it of habit than pleasure and as soon as they had parted company he forgot about it completely.
His thoughts were fixed on his destination and if he were entirely honest, despite the preparation and the planning he was more than slightly apprehensive. Pausing by the shop door he stared’ without really seeing them’ at the book displays in the window and the trays of jewellery and wondered if he was going to regret this day. So much had changed so fast and now, what had seemed such a good idea last week was beginning to seem more and more hazardous.
But some calls came louder than others and this one Brandon felt the need to answer.
He pushed open the door and pushed his doubts firmly away as he crossed the threshold. A girl in her teens was putting some books on the shelves and turned to see who had come in. Her smile of recognition was cheerful and easy.
“Oh, Mr Grey! Did you enjoy that book? Have you read it already?”
“It’s Brandon,” he insisted gently and not for the first time. “Yes, thank you. I have been enjoying it and no I have not quite finished it yet.”
The girl was uncontrite.
“Ooops! Sorry Mr Grey – I’ll try and remember”
Then she was saying something else, but she no longer held his attention for his focus had gone to the back of the shop where he now saw Ishbel was standing, watching him.
Brandon wondered what she really saw. His lanky body, the rough and greying sandy hair, the eyes one lover had told him were the colour of lapis. It was not a bad body, even if it had seen out nearly five decades – two for its previous occupant and three for himself – and he did his best to keep it in trim.
Ishbel saw his attention shift to her and for a moment she held his look with her clear blue eyes. Then they softened with the warmth of a smile.
“It’s yourself Brandon!” There was a slight lilt in her accent which provoked a responding smile as she came forward to greet him.
“I’m not sure who else I could be.”
She laughed although the true irony could not be known to her.
“And what can we do for you today?”
Branon took the plunge.
“I was hoping you might do me the honour of letting me take you out for lunch. You have been so helpful these last few weeks I wanted to say ‘thank you’.”
He was rewarded by the faintest blush of colour and even through the high guards of her psyche he felt her shock and delight and allowed himself to know relief. It had been a long campaign and one he had been far from certain of winning. He noticed the girl smirking like a Cheshire cat and had a certainty that he had been the subject of more than one discussion between the two women and that this event was one that had been anticipated by at least one of them.
It was the girl who replied as well.
“That would be great. You go and have lunch. No need to hurry back either, I can finish things off and lock up.”
But Ishbel herself looked suddenly uncertain.
“Well, I have those orders to pack and get to the post and some more of those incenses to mix for Steph and Brian…”
The girl made a dismissive gesture.
“I’ll get the stuff in the post and you already said you can’t finish that incense until we get a new delivery of dittany. You go do lunch!”
Out of excuses and outflanked Ishbel finally gave in gracefully. She treated Brandon to a smile of genuine warmth and depth which illuminated her whole being. Brandon felt his heart pause at the beauty before him and something of him cried out for what he was doing.
Steeling himself against that, he led her to his car – and although she didn’t know it yet, to the beginning of a new life.

E.M. Swift-Hook

They burn and bomb
In their own name
There is no truth
But only blame
Our children cry
Their soldiers bleed
To die and kill
For an old man’s greed
Their broken promise
No surprise
When you look into
His dead fish eyes

©️jj 2022

You may well ask how one ever came upon this ‘literary classic’, as it is undoubtedly aimed at pre-pubescent females. However, it can also be aimed in a wholly different set of circumstances at the nodding cranium of a son who dares to fall into slumber when his beloved Mumsie is watching Kramer vs Kramer for around the four millionth time. One had been inveighed into the parlour by the promise of Mama Mia, and then let down with a bump by one’s perfidious parent so that one was unhappy, to say the least, but not stupid enough to attempt escape whist the turgid trash droned on and on and Mumsie sniffed and snotted unbecomingly. One had briefly succumbed to all but terminal boredom and allowed ones head to drop for a moment when ‘thwack’, a heavy leather-bound volume hit one’s forehead corner first, causing a large and purple contusion.

“You, Moons, are an awful little shit,” Mumsie declared in tones of doom. “You can just fecking well sit there and read quietly and stop spoiling my film.”

And thus I became acquainted with Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.

Now.

My Review

Four sisters living in poverty during the American Civil War hardly seems a recipe for riveting entertainment, and in truth it isn’t a thundering good story. But it has some sort of something, because one was unable to discard the tome until it was read. The four girls have different characters, different dreams, different problems, but all are dealt with in some clever way so as to keep one reading. It seems dreadfully plain and unadorned. An yet… Motherly Meg, tomboy Jo, sickly Beth and beautiful Amy. Not all survive. Not all prosper. One laughed. One even cried.

One’s  mater actually accused one of becoming ‘almost human’ as one read this old-fashioned morality story with sympathetic tears staining one’s cheek.

As she remarked. Perhaps one is closer to nineteenth-century female children than to one’s own contemporaries. Who understands.

Three stars reduced from four because of the bump on one’s cranium.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Very little the biggers got up to passed without notice. The gnomes knew what the alpha male did to the female that used the writing machine, and what games Mother played in the dark shed.
They saw it as their place to say nothing.
But.
When the fat bigger with the hairy chest cornered a frightened young female, their neutrality deserted them.
They erupted from every bush and tree, biting and scratching and emitting eerie eldritch sounds. The fat bigger ran away as fast as he could with his garment around his knees.
The female kissed Big Eric, who blushed….

Jane Jago