A Cupboard Full of Skeletons: May 2011

The Devil's Register

‘Who would poke a stick in the Balkans and risk starting
World War III?’ Victor Strong asked his reflection in the mirror.

‘I would!’ he told it.

Hasan Acar decides to abandon his final exams at Cardiff University and go in search of Meryem, his young sister, who has gone missing in the vastness of Turkey. He is her only family. Their parents are dead.

Trapped in Happy House, Pretty Flower, a child prostitute in Hong Kong, hates being a commodity, forced to take mauling after mauling to keep Mamma-san Wong’s fat arse on a stool and Van Slaag in perfume and gold. She will flee this place, where each body-shattering day is a replica of the one before. So, when Bin Satyr offers her a British Passport and a free trip to ‘England’ to meet a rich husband, she jumps at the chance. But Yee Sin, the pimp, knows that Satyr could say that he is anyone from anywhere, for the foreigner is a dealer in passports, as well as goods and people of all kinds. Pretty Flower soon finds that Happy House was indeed happy compared with what she has let herself in for.

Captain Chris Goodman, a Ship Inspector working for the British Government, is determined to find out what lies behind the undercover operations of a Balkan Flag of Convenience
whose ships use a berth in a remote scrap-yard in West Wales.

When Goodman is reported to have fallen overboard and been swept away by the tide while inspecting a ship, his daughter, Faith, suspects foul play and enlists the help of Captain Victor Strong, her ex-fiancé.

Working together, Victor and Faith find themselves confronting a web of impenetrable evil, compounded by the blind eyes, fear and self-interest of government officials.

Price: UK-£2.06 USA-$3.20 EUR-3.09 CDN$-3.97

The Judas Consignment

The Judas Consignment is a tale of love and complex relationships set against a background of racial violence.

Danny has been set up for blackmail. These people want to use the radio station, where he is the under-manager, to home two ships onto each other in some kind of smuggling operation. If he does not comply he will die. Worse, his fiancé, Terry Ann, and Shona, the girl he rescued from the mysterious sex predator, will also die.

Struggling to make sense of his predicament, he finds more questions than answers...
What are they dragging him into? Who killed the guard and hijacked that consignment of rare whisky? What is the TLN? What are its aims? Where does this girl, Freya, fit in? Who is this guy Zitsar, who travelled from Ireland in a fishing boat? What is the nationality of the mysterious ship that Danny must contact? What are the cargoes that these people intend to exchange at sea? Why all the secrecy and threats?

Unwilling to take any more punishment, Danny goes on the attack. His actions lead him into a web of intrigue and collusion. Then, as he attempts to rain retribution on his tormentors and extricate himself and his friends from a tangle of racist violence, he finds that freedom comes at a
terrible price.

A Cupboard Full of Skeletons

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A Cupboard Full of Skeletons

Saturday, 14 May 2011

EARWAKER PRIZE