Welcome to my stop on Michael Shean's Virtual Tour for Bone Wires. Please be sure to leave a comment or question below to let Michael know you stopped by.
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Title: Bone Wires
Author:
Michael Shean
Genre:
Dark, Mystery, Science Fiction,
Publisher:
Curiosity Quills/Whampa, LLC
Paperback/Ebook
Pages: 380
(paperback)
Purchase:
Book
Description:
In the wasteland of commercial culture that is
future America,
police are operated not by government but by private companies.
In Seattle,
that role is filled by Civil Protection, and Daniel Gray is a detective in
Homicide Solutions. What used to be considered an important - even glamorous -
department for public police is very different for the corporate species, and
Gray finds himself stuck in a dead end job. That is, until the Spine Thief
arrives.
When a serial killer begins harvesting the spinal
tissue of corporate employees all over the city, Detective Gray finds himself
plunged into the first truly major case of his career. Caught in a dangerous
mix of murder, betrayal and conflicting corporate interest, Gray will find
himself not only matching wits with a diabolical murderer but grapple with his
growing doubt toward his employers in the dawning months of the American
tricentennial.
A thrilling mystery set in the same world as the
Wonderland Cycle, Bone Wires is a grim trip into the streets of the empty
future.
Excerpt:
The scene of the crime was an alleyway behind an abandoned Roziara Deli.
Crowding the street outside the deli were a pair of patrol cars, white wedges
of steel with ribbon lights that stained the nearby buildings red and blue.
Street officers clustered around the mouth, black body armor over blue uniform
fatigues; unlike the sidearms that Gray and Carter carried, the streeties
carried the blunt, brutal shapes of sub machine guns close to their plated
chests. A cordon had been set up; the narrow yellow band of holographic tape
that stretched across the alley mouth glowed as it cycled through baleful
warning messages.
“They used to have good subs here,” said Carter as they pulled up in
front of the moldering delicatessen. “Slabs of capicola as thick as Annie
Cruz’s ass. Just incredible.”
“Don’t know that name,” said Gray.
“Porn star,” said Carter, who produced his badge and flashed it at a
streeter who was approaching them. “Way before your time. Put on your war face,
here comes the Pacifier.”
Carter’s Amber Shield glowed like the very words of God Almighty in the
low light. “Carter and Gray,” said Carter, keeping his identification held up
so that the streeter could see it. “Homicide Solutions.”
“Lem Martin,” replied the streeter. “Pacification Officer, patrol region
927.”
“This is your beat then,” said Gray, who produced from the inside pocket
of his suit coat a slim Sony microcomp and engaged its holographic display.
Data from the Nexus sprang to life above the palm-sized slab. “What do you have
for us, Martin?”
Martin winced a bit at the lack of ‘Officer’ before his surname – you
got a lot of that with Pacification Services, of which street patrol was the
biggest group. They didn’t like being talked down to. Gray outranked him,
however, and didn’t give a shit besides. “Nasty stuff,” Martin said, jerking
his head toward the alley mouth. “Victim’s name is Anderson, Ronald P..
Administration. His panic implant was set off about an hour ago and flat lined
soon after; me and my partner were in the area, and when we found him…well.
Real horror show back there, is all I can say. I called for backup. Dunno what
they used, but…well. You’ll see.”
Carter and Gray looked at each other – streeters saw all sorts of
things. If they said it was a nasty scene, they’d probably do well to get
smocks and rain boots. “All right, Officer,” Carter said, at which Martin
seemed to relax a bit. “Were there any witnesses, security footage, anything
like that?”
“Nothing we could find,” said Martin. “This area’s been abandoned for
years. Anyone who lives here cleared out as soon as they heard us coming. You
know how it is.”
“Yeah,” said Gray. Don’t want to get arrested for just being around.
“All right, thanks, Officer. If you and…”
“Conklin and Peavey,” Martin replied. “In the other car. Patel’s with
me.”
“…Right,” Carter replied with a nod. “If you fellas can keep up the
cordon on either side of the alley, we’ll have a look. Call the coroner while
you’re at it.”
“On it,” barked Martin, who stepped away from the alley mouth while
touching the side of his throat where a sub vocal mic, standard issue for street
patrol, had been implanted. Carter waited until Martin had backed up a few
steps and was well into conversation before he gestured for Gray to follow him.
The two men passed through the holographic cordon, the barrier no more solid
than the air around it, and took a few steps into the feebly-lit alleyway. The
space behind the deli was dark and thick with shadows, lit only by the dying
bulb of a lamp set over the shop’s sealed back door. A figure slumped or lay in
the cone of dim light that spilled across the building’s crumbling facade. The
air was faintly tinged with the smell of ozone and cooked meat. The two men
approached; Gray held his computer in one hand while Carter fished the flat,
card-sized shape of a palm lamp from a coat pocket. Cupping the lamp in his
hand, Carter threw a beam of bright blue- white light across the alleyway and
clearly illuminated the corpse.
Lean and muscular in life, that which had been Ronald Anderson
half-crouched, half-sprawled across the alleyway, his handsome face pointing
down toward the filthy concrete. The corpse’s posture reminded Gray of an old
girlfriend; she was a yoga fanatic and used to do something similar called the
Child’s Pose. Anderson’s formerly clean white dress shirt had been cut open,
straight down the back from collar to waist, and his belted slacks had also
been cut down to the base of the pelvis. His back had been tattooed with a
medieval Japanese wave scene.
Anderson’s flesh had been laid open. Arching upward and away in a v-shaped
furrow, a deep channel now butterflied the man’s back half from the base of his
skull to the top of his pelvis. Where his spine should have been there was only
a bloodless, grayish-red channel. The red and ivory of cleanly clipped bone and
cooked organs were clearly visible in its absence, his heart a gray and veined
lump. It was as if the tattooed sea had somehow come alive, restless and
roaring, and attempted to rise away from its host who could never have survived
its rebellion.
Without the slightest drop of blood, Ronald Anderson had been boned like
a fish.
“Damn,” muttered Carter, stepping forward so he could track with his
light the awful wound. “Never seen that before. What do you make of it, Dan?”
For Gray, who had only experienced the more pedestrian horrors of stranglings,
stabbings and gunshot wounds in his brief career, there was no clean reply.
“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he breathed instead, staring down
at the carved gutter. Gray had said ‘strangest’ – however, what he had truly
wanted to say was ‘most horrible’. Looking down at the murdered man, Gray knew
that his ‘sexy’ case had arrived, just as he had wished for it, but the only
thing he could wish for now was to be anywhere else.
As if sensing the truth behind Gray’s words, Carter snorted softly.
“Lucky you, kid,” he replied in a wry and vaguely weary tone. “Lucky you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
About
the Author:
Michael Shean was born
amongst the sleepy hills and coal mines of southern West Virginia in 1978. Taught to read by his
parents at a very early age, he has had a great love of the written word since
the very beginning of his life. Growing up, he was often plagued with feelings
of isolation and loneliness; he began writing off and on to help deflect this,
though these themes are often explored in his work as a consequence. At the age
of 16, Michael began to experience a chain of vivid nightmares that has
continued to this day; it is from these aberrant dreams that he draws
inspiration.
In 2001 Michael left West Virginia to pursue a career in the tech
industry, and he settled in the Washington,
DC area as a web designer and
graphic artist. As a result his writing was put aside and not revisited until
five years later. In 2006 he met his current fiancee, who urged him to pick up
his writing once more. Several years of work and experimentation yielded the
core of what would become his first novel, Shadow of a Dead Star (2011).
Michael is currently signed with Curiosity Quills Press, who has overtaken
publication of Shadow of a Dead Star and the other books of his Wonderland
Cycle.
Find
the Author:
Interesting take on the future. Sounds like an intriguing story.
ReplyDeletenancyg5997 at gmail dot com