Today I’m featuring my good friend RLL and his recently published, Mira E. Take a look!
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REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE. Welcome to my mini-self-publishing imprint for collected blog posts. These posts are bundled with fiction. Each volume contains a novel running to at least 75,000 words. Blog material runs to at least 30,000 words.
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VOLUME 1. MIRA E.
I am known for my pyrotechnic ways. Fire is my friend. Though I have a long history of fire-raising, flame-creation, incinerating behaviour, and combustible mischievousness, I admit to being shielded by the fascist pig cop conspiracy at the heart of organised cop-robber crime in the parish.
This collusion with the law was my shield. If you wanted a place torched for the insurance, no questions asked, I was the man. And if you wanted a place torched so the owners were under no illusions over the solid wisdom of coughing up folding green, hell, that could be arranged for a fee also.
Outside the police jurisdiction in which I operated as a state-sanctioned arsonist, I murdered men and women who fell into my clutches. Acid was my stock-in-trade. I like to burn, whether by fiery means or foul – and acid is most definitely foul.
Lately I’ve killed too many. An orgy of destruction could never sate my flame-filled lust.
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Marisol waited for the cruisers to finish their wheel-spinning display in the small field next door.
This pointless chase was on again.
Grass-stained white sneakers faced the country cop cars. Marisol sensed a greening of her clothes in the immediate future. Hands on hips, breathless, she looked to her ankles for comfort. No luck. Grass and mud danced a tango across her socks. And over the lower half of her faded blue jeans. Her white short-sleeved T-shirt was in for a beating, then. Should have bought the green one, after all.
She tossed her head, a retort to the approaching bulls, and wondered how much of her elbow-length black hair would stain green. The not-iron symbol at her throat jiggled on its leather thong. Two of the five points said hello to her skin as the starfish began a pirouette.
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Zeke, slumping, pasted another body-dump story into his scrapbook with the loving care of someone who felt deeply for dead strangers. He sat back and popped the last square of white chocolate into his teeth. The ration rebounded and landed on the story of a woman found in shrubbery. Woman. Girl, really. Not much older than the crime-obsessed Zeke.
He placed the chocolate inside his mouth, on his dry tongue, and let the food melt as he read the incomplete jigsaw. Detectives had high hopes. There were strong leads. High hopes wouldn’t bring the woman back to life. Girl, really.
“Zeke.”
This was his informal mother, who detested all maternal appellations with the sideswipe that appellation is not a mountain range.
“We’re doing the cheese thing.”
“Not fondue.”
“Hell no. Scrapbook?”
“The latest news. They think she might be Miriam, two towns over. The one who ran off.”
“Surely they’d know.”
“Yeah, I guess. They’ll want to let her parents know for sure, before it’s splashed all over the papers. Though if you read between the lines of what this journalist says…”
“It’s pretty obvious. Well, don’t get too caught up in it.”
“You said that about the President.”
“He’s gone now, Zeke. We have a new President.”
“Don’t get too caught up in the new President’s business either?”
“After he just pardoned the last guy? I don’t see that leading to an election result worth mentioning.”
“Okay. I’ll do the cheese thing. And I’ll still go around saying I like President Nixon.”
“Not my favourite cake on the stand. Still, you have different tastes.”
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An inquisitive young guy stumbles on an entirely different conspiracy in post-Watergate America. No one can find Mira E. Everyone wants to. As the decades unfurl, the real truth about aliens never quite comes out. Too many competing parties with conflicting interests see to that.
190,000 words, plus notes. Previously-published blog posts account for 41,000 words, and the novel runs to 149,000 words.
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON KINDLE HERE.
@RLL_author.
Signpost blog, RLL AUTHOR.
Blog, REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE. (THOUGHTS ON PUBLISHING BY AN AUTHOR ON THE RUN.) See the HALLOWE’EN INAUGURATION page for a free story – The Chalice in the Snow. Also available – TWICE AROUND THE LIGHTHOUSE. A complete Doctor Who novel, released as fan fiction on my blog.
Author of…
Neon Gods Brought Down by Swords.
INCOMPLETE UNCOLLECTED SHORT WORKS.
REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE SERIES…
REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE. VOLUME 1. MIRA E.
And in the FICTION FACTORY line…
All for Amazon Kindle.