Harry Harmon is a mutant. A few days ago, he was just a rookie cop on Luna. Now, he’s been drafted into the Near Earth Xenogenesis Utility Service, a newly formed interplanetary special agency under the command of the Offworld Nations and deployed across the entire solar system.
Harmon is pulled straight into his first agency assignment in the vast orbital metropolis of New Tokyo. An ancient, revered Buddhist relic has been stolen, and Harmon’s new boss, Supervising Agent Noriko Hamada, must find it before a bloody gang war erupts between Yakuza factions controlling part of the Old City.
Agent Hamada holds a secret: she is the daughter of the most influential Yakuza Oyabun in the Old City - and plays the role of unofficial peacekeeper between the interplanetary police force and the powerful Yakuza syndicates operating across five planets.
Along the way, Harry is introduced to his new partner and task supervisor, special agent Tori Houston -whose boosted psychic capabilities are even more powerful than his own. Houston is a rising star in the agency, smart and ruthlessly efficient. She also happens to be Harmon’s jilted high school ex-girlfriend.
Hamada takes Harmon into the old city, and he meets the high priestess of the temple where the artefact was stolen. Harmon’s genetic modification vastly amplifies his natural ability to manipulate energy and obtain information about people or objects just by making contact with a small fragment of something related to the subject.
But finding the stolen relic is the least of Harmon’s problems. Something is trying to kill him, and as he uncovers the truth about the stolen relic, he realizes that an old, implacable enemy is rising from the darkness of the past.
Humanity itself is in the crosshairs - and Harry Harmon happens to be standing in the way.
VITRUVIAN MAN is coming soon!
SATYRDAY NIGHT FEVER
When you’re a once-hot journalist who’s just been fired - and blacklisted by pretty much everyone - life’s not supposed to get any more difficult than it already is.
And it’s especially not supposed to get weird.
For Lew Carter, weird is about to become the new normal. Apocryphal dreams, half-glimpsed monsters, crazy cash from a psycho client, and a woman who glitches his reality.
And, of course, a Satyr. With a sense of humor.
Satyrday Night Fever
Lew Carter is an out-of-work, out-of-luck investigative journalist living in San Francisco. His twin brother is dying, and Lew is running out of options, with no way to pay for the stem cell treatment Lionel needs.
Then - an offer he can't refuse.
The money is great, along with the opportunity to settle an old score. But there are complications. A string of gruesome, inexplicable murders. Weird coincidences and unsettling warps in reality. And a corrupt, psychopathic employer who wants his wife dead - with Lew's help.
A seemingly nondescript artefact appears in Lew’s apartment after a midnight quake, placed there by somebody – or something – who, it seems, is sending him a message. Then, a horrifyingly surreal encounter with a laconically humorous Satyr, a myth suddenly become all too real. And a cryptic directive for Lew from the ancient world, as the electric urban energy of San Francisco gives way to dark, secret spaces where the supernatural manifests, terrifyingly and without warning.
The more Lew uncovers, the more he realizes that the woman he’s been tasked with following is not who she appears to be. But to find the answers he needs, Lew will have to do the unthinkable, and become just like the man he hates the most.
Things are unravelling fast. The FBI is closing in. His best friend is in the crosshairs of the criminal underworld. And, as legend roars into full-blown life, Lew is faced with love, violence, deception, revenge - and the explosive discovery of his own secret past.
Satyrday Night Fever is the first book in the Lew Carter trilogy.
Get it now on Kindle or in paperback.
IT’S A WINNER!
On impulse, I decided to enter the NOVA short story competition hosted by Science Fiction and Fantasy South Africa, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021.
The quirky story I wrote ended up winning the competition, to my great delight.
Professor Dierdre Byrne, chief judge, described the story as “remarkably elegant” and “brilliant”. Want to read it?
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