It’s easy, they said, you’ll be able to keep in touch, they said. So she bought the bloody thing. Laid out a grand and…

Nothing.

Her nephew came along and set it up for her. That was a little better, though not much. It still sat unopened on the dresser smirking at her.

They bought her a course of one-to-one lessons for her birthday. 

A skinny young man with multiple tattoos turned up bang on time. 

She didn’t learn to use her computer, but she had a lot of fun teaching him how to interface with a woman…

©️Jane Jago

‘Spy will get caught in city. Will talk to save own skin. No deal.’ The little man with brown teeth spoke stubbornly, before he spat a stream of malodorous tobacco juice onto the sand between the feet of the person he had come to meet.
 ‘You are being stupid on a lot of levels Hakim. Not the least of which is spitting so close to my favourite boots.’
Hakim squirmed under an icy blue gaze.
‘Better. Now mind your own business. Our representative has all necessary identification, and will not know your name anyway. All we require from you is a train ticket.’
‘If you got papers and identity, why you need me to get train ticket?’ 
‘You don’t want to know. If you knew I’d have to cut out your tongue to ensure your silence.’
Hakim eyed him narrowly. ‘Isn’t so smart to threaten me.’
‘Oh’ the man said mildly. ‘I ain’t threatening.’ 
A heavily veiled woman, who occupied a curtained litter surrounded by the eunuchs who would carry the ornate conveyance, beckoned to her negotiator with one long, gloved finger. He went to her side, and she whispered something in his ear. 
‘My lady loses patience. Do we have a deal?’ 
Hakim scratched his unlovely armpit. 
‘Ticket from Tashkent to the city. Just one?’ 
‘In a manner of speaking. A ticket for a private first-class compartment.’ 
Hakim looked impressed. ‘Will be expensive.’ 
‘So noted. Do we have a deal?’ 
‘We do. Names?’ ‘No. We’ll fill the names in ourselves. You just get the ticket. For the first day of Maj. You have a week. Meet me here with the ticket.’ 
The negotiator turned away, but not before he had seen the crafty gleam in Hakim’s eyes. ‘Don’t double-cross me’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘It takes a long time to die on a cross.’ He had the satisfaction of hearing Hakim swallow audibly.  
The party from the west mounted their horses, and the bearers picked up the lady’s litter. Hakim watched them with equal amounts of loathing and fascination before climbing out of the wadi to where his own men awaited him. He sat on the ground beside his resting camel and folded another wad of tobacco into his left cheek. Nobody spoke. It was many minutes before a couple of men appeared as if from nowhere. 
‘Well?’ Hakim asked. 
‘Forty men. Dozen veiled women. Went back towards oasis at Binti Hammam. Black ninjas with them. Lot of black ninjas.’ The man shuddered. 
‘Makes easy then. We take their money, do their business, and keep our mouths shut.’ 
‘Tightly shut.’
Hakim nodded briskly. ‘Anybody has ideas about making some moneys. Don’t. I promise slow painful death to anyone betraying our honoured clients. And that means all; includes Hanif, and his witch of a mother.’ 
The man so addressed met his boss’ eyes for a moment. He must have seen something there that gave him pause because he paled under his tan, before nodding his assent. ‘Understood my Father. I’ll behave. So will Mother, or I’ll cut out her tongue.’ 
The party prodded its grumpy, sleepy camels onto their feet and mounted up. When they had all disappeared over the horizon, a figure unfolded itself from the middle of a stand of prickly pear and other cactus. It swore briefly, before whistling on two notes. Another man and two horses came quietly over the edge of the wadi. The original man grunted and mounted up. ‘Fucking job. Fucking thorns. Fucking desert. Fucking Hakim. Let’s go get a fucking big drink.’ 
His friend grunted out a laugh and they turned their horses towards the west.

From Billion Dollar Mountain by Jane Jago

Rex had been through several homes so he had no great expectations when he was chosen at the pound that this one would be any different. The woman who had stared at him in his run with an intense piercing look had not seemed that pleased to take him. She wore hard heels that tapped along the floor and didn’t say anything as she put him into the car and drove home.
The man who sat alone in the garden looked very sad until he saw Rex. Then he smiled.
“Charlie? My Charlie!”
Rex decided he liked his new name.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. If you would like to listen as you read, or instead of reading you can on YouTube.

Anno Diocletiani MDCCLXXVII Maius

“Notebook entry. Confirm date, Post Ides, Maius. Time, night watch, at two twenty three, and location Augusta Arena, Londinium, Britannia Maxima. Looks like the report of a murder was not wrong. He seems pretty deceased to me.”
Under the brilliant lights of the pitch, which turned night into day, the body would have looked gruesome anyway. It had no face. But laid out as it was on a white sheet, the injuries seemed to stand out more. There was no blood but…
Dai wished he had not put quite so much garum on the chips he had been eating less than an hour ago. Even after more than eight years in the job he still found he had little stomach for the messier end of it. At least the hands seemed to still be intact, which made part of the process a lot easier. He pressed the touchscreen of his identipad against one finger and then entered the other necessary details. DNA and fingerprint checks both came up. Which was unusual as most murder victims were unregistered on either database. But when he saw the image he knew why this one was different.
This had once been Treno Bellicus ‘Big Belly’: one of the leading lights of the Caledonian Game team here in Londinium for the Games. That had to be more than ironic.
Dai, like every schoolkid in Britannia, knew that an arena had stood here since before the Divine Diocletian had rebuilt the Empire under his heavy hand, spreading his brand of Romanisation as far as his arms would reach and at the same time snatching back the privilege of being a full citizen from all born outside Italia. Back then, the arena had staged the kind of barbaric and bloody spectacles ex-patriot Romans expected. And now? In all honesty, Dai could not say it was too much different. It might include a ball as a sop to those who wanted to call it sport, but the brutality remained the same. The Games in all their unrelenting savagery. Those who couldn’t be there in person to taste the dust and smell the blood could freely watch the spectacle on the screens on every street corner and in every public building. Bread and Circuses.

The prize that lured the finest athletes of the provinces to risk life and limb was otherwise unattainable Roman Citizenship, and this poor bastard had been a star player. A broad-featured face looked out of the screen on Dai’s wristphone, wearing a manufactured snarl; behind him was a virtual backdrop with sports drink logos and other product placements. Well, those sponsors had just lost one of their money-spinning assets.
Reluctantly, he returned his attention to the body and bent over it to peer at the visible injuries as he made his initial informal observations. It was as much talking himself through coping with the gruesome scene as anything of real value.
“Victim ID biometrics confirmed. Body is supine. Been dead the last four hours. He looks like he has been laid out all ready for anointing and Charon’s obol. But placed on a white cloth that I’m willing to bet half my next salary is going to be a bed sheet. Body was bled out, through the throat – ugly gash there – and cleaned up before being put here. The other half of my pay is going on the certainty there will be nothing on the body we can use to ID the killer. Other injuries I can see -”
One of the disadvantages of being a plainclothes investigator was it seemed to lead to less respect from civilians, especially from Roman civilians.
“Llewellyn?” the voice was coolly condescending.
Even though he had told his decanus to keep everyone away, Dai was grateful for the excuse to straighten up and stop looking at the corpse.
The woman who stood there was in her thirties, with classic Roman features; she wore her fashionably short stola over close-fitting leggings and boots. For someone who must have been dragged out of bed in the small hours, she looked very well turned out and made Dai wish he could cover the small stain on his tunic where he had dropped a chip when the call to attend this crime came through. Her name badge declared her to be ‘Annia Belonia Flavia’ and said she was Curatrix Prima. No doubt in charge of this arena. She was frowning at him and he realised he must be staring.
“That is indeed who I am, domina.”
Behind her back he could see Bryn, his decanus, looking guilty. So he should, but Dai had the feeling this woman was not the kind to be easily put off.
“Do you you know how this happened?” she demanded, as if it was Dai’s fault the body had been left in the middle of her pitch.
“Investigations are already underway,” he told her smoothly. “We have identified the victim and my people are questioning everyone who might have seen anything here.”
He had tried to put himself between her and the body, but she sidestepped and looked. Her hands went up to her face and the skin behind them looked almost as pale as the corpse, leaching into a light hint of green. To her credit, she recovered without vomiting, but she stepped back and took a breath before restoring the gravitas expected of a Roman matron.

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

He waited, wondering if she would come. Anna, his wife, the torment of his days and the delight of his life. She had been visiting her terminally sick father. He could not resent the old man, but he feared the creature comforts of Anna’s old life and worried that his love might not be enough to make her return.

He looked at his work worn hands, and prayed for her return.

The train whooshed to a halt and the gate opened. Anna stood there quietly, almost as if unsure of her welcome. 

He opened his arms and she came home…

©️Jane Jago

Avilon half-woke into a new flood of memory – disjointed images painted in something of the quality of dream or nightmare, which slowly coalesced into a narrative of distinct scenes, vivid and real.
He had been on a strike – no – the strike. The strike that was intended to destroy the CSF communications and data collection capacity across an entire sector of the Middle and Peripheral worlds and would, at the very least, cripple all Coalition activities in that sector for years to come and at best allow some planets there the chance to throw off the Coalition yoke for good. He had the best of the Legacy’s young freedom-fighters and the help of Jazatar Baldrik, a good friend and a mercenary with solid military experience. It should have been straightforward, with only a little real fighting involved, against a small unit of regular troops, which was why Jaz had been there.
But it had gone horribly wrong.
They had walked right into an ambush.
Avilon had been manning the command centre on the ship and had seen the full horror unfold. Coalition marines had appeared as if from nowhere – and not regulars but the Special Legion: violent criminals, fighting under an impossible promise of freedom if they survived five years service in the toughest battles of the Coalition. Brutalised soldiers who excelled in vicious close quarters fighting and were renowned for giving no mercy to their foes, making them more feared than any regular troops. Avilon’s guerrilla units had collapsed under the sudden assault.
There had been no chance to evacuate more than a handful and then the ship itself came under attack and he had tried to flee into free space. Only space had not been free – a cruiser and its escort of frigates had come out from hiding behind the planet’s moon to swoop in for the kill. They had made it into FTL, but only after taking the damage that would eventually prove fatal for the ship.
Somehow, by someone, they had been betrayed.
It was the pain of that realisation that woke Avilon fully, a hollow sense of loss, of failure and self-blame, like a vacuum in his stomach.
The ground was rocking and creaking beneath him. He could hear sounds of men shouting, the dull clatter of hooves on stone and the grating groans of heavy wheels rumbling overland. Still half-wrapped in the haze of dream, he could make no sense of that. All he could think about was that he had been betrayed and did not even know by whom – and he had lost an entire strike team. Young lives wasted – and their loss severe to the Legacy.
And he had left Jaz behind.
He had left the man who called him ‘brother’ to die. Jaz, who had never been of the Legacy, who had still moved with a slight limp from being tortured by the bounty hunter Elias Bazath, because he had refused to betray where Avilon could be found.
The mercenary’s last report had been that he was slowed by the need to ‘baby sit’ and was heading back to the ship as fast as he could. But it had made no difference. Avilon could not have waited even one more moment for anyone, or the ship would have been destroyed. And now Jaz’s woman and two sons would be waiting in vain for him to come home. The knowledge bit deep into his psyche, bitter and dark. With an extreme effort of will, he banished it, aware of the rising nausea that cost.

From The Fated Sky part one of Fortune’s Fools Transgressor Trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook

Because life happens…

I’m doing an authoring course
From an online reputable source
It’s really a bargain
And teaches the jargon
I’ll be famous – and rich as a horse

Jane Jago

When journalist Grace Rampling falls over a corpse in a darkened church, she opens the door to a world of different possibilities.

Who killed the bishop?

Why is Grace herself attacked?

What is it about Detective Sergeant Adam Davis that sets her blood singing in her veins?

The answer to these questions is skilfully revealed strand by strand in a well-written mystery that’s a surprisingly easy read – for all the issues it deals with.

Grace and Adam are engaging and we quickly want them to find their answers and their happy ever after.

With just enough red herrings to keep the mind engaged as well as the emotions I’d heartily recommend a not-quite-cozy mystery.

Four fat stars.

Jane Jago

A Great Start To A New Whodunit Series

Grace Rampling, reporter at the StarPheonix in Saskatoon, finds herself uwittingly first a key witness in a murder case and then the potential victim of attempted murder. DS Adam Davis has to solve the case whilst grappling with his real attraction to the woman who seems to be at the heart of it.

Adam’s Witness by J.C. Paulson is a great police based murder mystery bringing together the investigative talents of a journalist and a police officer. The two main characters are really worth getting to know and I look forward to meeting them again in future books in the series. They are ably supported by a very well written supporting cast.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book aside from two aspects of it. The first being the fact that the author seemed to equate signs of poverty and deprivation with being criminal – the bad guys smell, are poor housekeepers, struggle to form relationships and have mental and physical health issues. I find reinforcing such stereotypes very sad. I also wished the author would realise that when in conversation with one other person, people do not keep saying each other’s names. That broke my reading immersion over and over again.

Aside from these issues – which are my own preferences and might not trouble another reader at all – this is a well written and enjoyable whodunit and recommended for any who like reading such.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

In the surgery of a doctor who looked to be about fourteen years old – okay, I may have been being uncooperative because he called for reinforcements.
Says to the occupant of the next room: “I have an elderly lady here refusing blood pressure medication.”
I couldn’t resist: “I can hear you. And I ain’t no lady.”
I don’t guess I’ll be seeing that doctor again. 
But I was cross. The term elderly lady is both patronising and pejorative. Had he said cackling crone I’d have laughed. And I might even have taken his fucking tablets. As it was. I walked… 

Because life can be interesting when you are a character in a video game…

“Nice belt that.”
Milla looked round at Glory then down at the belt. It had a definite shimmer to it. Small motes of coloured mulit-coloured light danced around it, so close in as to seem part of the fabric itself. Her heart swelled with affection and gratitude, One Eye Rye had given her a magic item.
But there was no time to wonder what it might do, the boat had arrived and a couple of Visitors got off it, giving Milla odd looks as the three of them scrambled on. She held her head high and gripped Pew’s hand tightly as the ship pulled away from the dock almost immediately. It had to be a magical vessel as there was no crew and the sails seemed to manage themselves.
But the view as they slipped from the shore and out into the bay was incredible. For the first time Milla could see the whole of Wrathburnt Sands, from the far end of the beach, on one side to the palm trees that surrounded the pyramid on the other. She was so taken by the scene that she didn’t notice when they sailed over the Boundary only that in the next moment she was feeling very sick and the view had changed completely.
Above, clouds scudded across the sky, and sometimes darkened it. The land ahead of them was green and the sea more grey than blue. Almost completely green. So many trees and bushes and even the ground itself was covered in low growing grass and flowers. So very different from the familiar yellows and browns of home that she drew in a sharp breath of surprise and delight.
“You alright?” Pew was still gripping her hand and there was real anxiety on his face. He was worried for her. That made her feel warm inside and she found she was smiling back at him.
“I’m fine. But this place.” She gestured to the approaching coastline with a sweep of her free arm. “It’s amazing.”
Glory made a very unelven snorting noise. “Not so amazing when you have to spend day after day grinding here.”
“I like Barren Steppes,” Pew said. “It’s kind of like where I live.”
Milla blinked. “You live in Barren Steppes?”
“No. Of course not. I just meant…”
But whatever he just meant Milla didn’t find out as Glory was suddenly shouting and reaching for her bow.
“Incoming! Firedrakes! Don’t let them get close!”
Milla instinctively clutched at her pendant and looked up to see half-a-dozen dark shapes with leathery wings circling around the top of the mast. They looked much too small to be dangerous. Then one opened it’s oddly shaped beak and a massive gout of flame shot out, engulfing the rigging and setting it alight.
A moment later the flying creature shrieked and plummeted to the deck, pierced through by the shaft of an arrow. It vanished before it landed. The others swooped down to attack in a tight V formation. Milla found herself being pushed roughly behind the other two by Pew as Glory drew her sword.
“By the power of My Skull!” she yodeled, slashing at the nearest one and slicing into it. Pew had raised his hands and pushed them outwards, just as the drakes breathed their fire. It hit Pew’s invisible shield and barely any of the flames got through, enough to singe Glory’s eyebrows. But Pew’s shoulder’s were slumping with the effort of maintaining the shield
“Powerfeed me, Milla!”
Without really thinking, Milla grabbed her pendant and sent the magical energy it contained towards Pew. He straightened up almost immediately and keeping the invisible shield raised with one hand he threw out a series of small fireballs with the others.
A few moments later the last of the drakes had exploded into nothing and Glory was counting coins she had found somewhere. Pew wiped his brow.
“Where the frack did those firedrakes come from? I’ve never been attacked zoning here from WBS before.”
Glory looked up. “Oh yeah. Sorry about that. Just a class quest I’m on. I get randomly attacked now and then until I’ve finished.” She tipped the coins into her pouch and looked about as un-sorry as it was possible to be.
Pew drew a breath and Milla thought he might be about to say something very rude, but at the last moment he closed his jaw with an audible snap. She felt oddly proud of him and squeezed his hand to tell him so.

We will return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook next Sunday.

Return to Wrathburnt Sands was first published in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.