Because, exclusively in today’s column, I’ve posted a clip of my good self reading the book’s prologue. In addition today, because I’ve got lots more to report in this second half of 2024, I’ll be intro’ing two new novellas I have out by offering you, in each case, the official blurb from the book’s back cover, and a couple of choice snippets.
Hopefully, you’ll find all this sufficiently interesting to stick around for a few minutes. However, I know that time is often short, and so, without further ado, let's get cracking with the ...
Those who are eagerly awaiting ROGUE - and I’m really delighted that you’ve made yourself known to me, because it proves that there is still a sizeable chunk of readers out there who are dying to know what happens next in the Heck universe - should be pleased to hear that as the final proof-read is now complete (here it is above, in progress), the book has now gone off to be typeset and the production wheels are rolling.
Anyway, there’s been enough teasing done about this. Let’s get into the meat ...
Here is ROGUE, the (four-minute) Prologue ...
Hope you all enjoyed that.
There is still a bit of time to go between now and publication - we haven’t got an actual pre-order date yet, but rest assured, it’ll be on here at torpedo speed when we do. However, you can now buy either or both of my two new novellas this autumn.
I’ll start with a blurb, and after that a juicy snippet:
When a frantic burglar tells Heck that he’s found photographs of ghastly crime scenes in a privately-owned cellar, Heck initially treats it with scepticism ... but then remembers that there are many gruesome murders in the unsolved file.
Alarmed, he wonders if the Serial Crimes Unit has missed a particularly vicious assailant. And yet none of this sickening evidence marries up. The locations are different, the implements are different, the methods used, though in all cases terrifying, range widely across the spectrum of tortured insanity.
These can’t all be victims of the same perpetrator. But if that isn’t the case, what in God’s name is going on here?
And now the snippet ...
ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE, from Absinthe Books, is a project I haven’t spoken about very much, because all discussions were embargoed until last month, when it was launched at Worldcon in Glasgow. This one is another cop story, but it’s a cop story with a difference. While it has the trappings of a crime thriller, it’s actually, as you may deduce from Greg Chapman’s amazing artwork, an occult horror.
I won’t say anything else about it at present, except that, here’s the official blurb, and following that, a choice extract:
Cynical London cop, Dora “Mac” McDougal, of the Metropolitan Police’s elite Organised Crime Command, has a strike-rate that is second-to-none, mainly because of her cavalier approach to rules and regulations. However, when Mac discovers the whereabouts of a cop-killer whom she has a personal beef with, she literally throws caution to the wind.
This animal in human form took out the only guy she ever cared about. And only one response is possible to that.
However, when Mac’s off-the-books revenge mission takes her north, she finds herself in a woe-begotten town, itself in the grip of supernatural evil. And uncovers a devilish plot to unleash torturous death on an epic scale.
Throughout her twenty-year war against the nation’s deadliest criminals, Mac could never have dreamed how many lower levels of darkness there still are, all just waiting to unleash their malevolent forces.
And here’s the sneak preview I mentioned ...
With a sweeping right hand, it struck her across the face. It wasn’t a punch so much as a raking talon, the extended nails on their shrivelled, stick fingers rending her cheek open. With frantic squeals, she kicked and punched. Another shot went wild above their heads before she released the weapon, and forced herself through the next gate into the garden itself.
Here, it was all knee-deep thorns and bracken, which tangled her legs and threw her down. As she scrambled to her feet, the thing caught up with her again, the fog of its foetor overwhelming as it clenched its fist in the collar of her jacket and hurled her sideways. She flew through the undergrowth, slamming hard into a solid upright beam or post, which knocked all the breath and stuffing from her, the blow to her ribs so fierce that she thought she’d pass out. She had to wrap her arms around it just to stay on her feet.
Again, she sensed the thing looming up behind. She swung around, fists balled, but already it was onto her, those wiry talons clamped on her throat as it shoved her back into the post. The face was an inch from hers. Even in the red-tinged gloom, she saw those lifeless, sunken orbs, the nasal gap where the nose had fallen away, the sagging lower jaw hanging from wasted, string-like muscles ...
Metal clattered again, and a pair of headlamps sprang into life. With a low, clunky rumble, a vehicle emerged along the shadowy passage. A white high-sided van, battered, rusty and dented, an empty steel rack occupying its roof.
It halted at the alley entrance, signalling to go right. It was difficult to see who was behind the wheel, but in truth it could only be one person. Heck hurried around the first of the idling taxis and leaned in at the passenger window.
‘Do you take card?’
The driver, a hefty bloke wearing a khaki jacket and a flat cap, nodded. ‘Sure do.’
‘Good. I’ll give you two hundred minimum …’ across the road, the van turned right, ‘if you follow that van.’
The driver pulled a face. ‘Don’t waste my time, mate.’
‘I guarantee you I’m not, but we’ve got to go now, or we’ll lose him.’
Along the road, the van stopped at a red light. The driver meanwhile gave Heck a long, quizzical look. ‘This really happens?’
‘It’s a first for me too.’
‘I dunno. Who are you?’
Heck showed his warrant card. ‘Police.’
‘Two hundred?’ The driver pursed his lip. ‘Make it three and we’re on.’
‘Deal.’ Heck jumped in.
It halted at the alley entrance, signalling to go right. It was difficult to see who was behind the wheel, but in truth it could only be one person. Heck hurried around the first of the idling taxis and leaned in at the passenger window.
‘Do you take card?’
The driver, a hefty bloke wearing a khaki jacket and a flat cap, nodded. ‘Sure do.’
‘Good. I’ll give you two hundred minimum …’ across the road, the van turned right, ‘if you follow that van.’
The driver pulled a face. ‘Don’t waste my time, mate.’
‘I guarantee you I’m not, but we’ve got to go now, or we’ll lose him.’
Along the road, the van stopped at a red light. The driver meanwhile gave Heck a long, quizzical look. ‘This really happens?’
‘It’s a first for me too.’
‘I dunno. Who are you?’
Heck showed his warrant card. ‘Police.’
‘Two hundred?’ The driver pursed his lip. ‘Make it three and we’re on.’
‘Deal.’ Heck jumped in.
The van left Upminster by zigzagging its way through several residential housing estates before hitting the open countryside.
‘The hell?’ the taxi driver muttered. ‘Is he lost?’
‘Far from it,’ Heck replied.
‘This a real bad boy, then?’
‘To be honest … I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Never can tell,’ Heck said. ‘So, stay on him. But keep it nice and steady, eh? Let’s not give him a heads-up.’
‘Bloody hell.’ The driver looked shaken, as though it had taken him this long to realise what it was he’d undertaken. ‘Is he armed?’
‘Again, I don’t know.’
‘Lord help us! And I only charged you three hundred ...’
‘The hell?’ the taxi driver muttered. ‘Is he lost?’
‘Far from it,’ Heck replied.
‘This a real bad boy, then?’
‘To be honest … I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Never can tell,’ Heck said. ‘So, stay on him. But keep it nice and steady, eh? Let’s not give him a heads-up.’
‘Bloody hell.’ The driver looked shaken, as though it had taken him this long to realise what it was he’d undertaken. ‘Is he armed?’
‘Again, I don’t know.’
‘Lord help us! And I only charged you three hundred ...’
Still with us? Good, because here is the next of the year’s new releases.
ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE, from Absinthe Books, is a project I haven’t spoken about very much, because all discussions were embargoed until last month, when it was launched at Worldcon in Glasgow. This one is another cop story, but it’s a cop story with a difference. While it has the trappings of a crime thriller, it’s actually, as you may deduce from Greg Chapman’s amazing artwork, an occult horror.
I won’t say anything else about it at present, except that, here’s the official blurb, and following that, a choice extract:
The midnight cathedral filled with fire
The leather-clad monstrosity that kills with a spiked mace
The unholy pact between man and demon
Cynical London cop, Dora “Mac” McDougal, of the Metropolitan Police’s elite Organised Crime Command, has a strike-rate that is second-to-none, mainly because of her cavalier approach to rules and regulations. However, when Mac discovers the whereabouts of a cop-killer whom she has a personal beef with, she literally throws caution to the wind.
This animal in human form took out the only guy she ever cared about. And only one response is possible to that.
However, when Mac’s off-the-books revenge mission takes her north, she finds herself in a woe-begotten town, itself in the grip of supernatural evil. And uncovers a devilish plot to unleash torturous death on an epic scale.
Throughout her twenty-year war against the nation’s deadliest criminals, Mac could never have dreamed how many lower levels of darkness there still are, all just waiting to unleash their malevolent forces.
And here’s the sneak preview I mentioned ...
With a sweeping right hand, it struck her across the face. It wasn’t a punch so much as a raking talon, the extended nails on their shrivelled, stick fingers rending her cheek open. With frantic squeals, she kicked and punched. Another shot went wild above their heads before she released the weapon, and forced herself through the next gate into the garden itself.
Here, it was all knee-deep thorns and bracken, which tangled her legs and threw her down. As she scrambled to her feet, the thing caught up with her again, the fog of its foetor overwhelming as it clenched its fist in the collar of her jacket and hurled her sideways. She flew through the undergrowth, slamming hard into a solid upright beam or post, which knocked all the breath and stuffing from her, the blow to her ribs so fierce that she thought she’d pass out. She had to wrap her arms around it just to stay on her feet.
Again, she sensed the thing looming up behind. She swung around, fists balled, but already it was onto her, those wiry talons clamped on her throat as it shoved her back into the post. The face was an inch from hers. Even in the red-tinged gloom, she saw those lifeless, sunken orbs, the nasal gap where the nose had fallen away, the sagging lower jaw hanging from wasted, string-like muscles ...
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