Michael Logan's Blog

Hell’s Detective, my latest novel, is now 99 cents on kindle in the US. To find out why you should give it a go, below are what people are saying about it:

“More fun than a barrel of flying monkeys. A fiendishly clever mash-up of noir and horror with a soupçon of hard-boiled humor. Set in a superbly realized corner of hell known as Lost Angeles, Logan has delivered a helluva great read.”

―Eric Van Lustbader, New York Times bestselling author of Any Minute Now

“I took Hell’s Detective down to the beach. It was a perfect splash of shade on a sunny day. Michael Logan has created a sinfully good noir mystery. Think Raymond Chandler meets Stephen King. Highly recommended!”

―Rebecca Cantrell, New York Times bestselling author

“[An] entertaining mystery…Logan has a knack for crating lines that will gratify noir fans.”

―Publishers Weekly

“Logan creates a world of the dead rich with details.”

―Kirkus Reviews

“Logan’s vision of hell is violent, gritty, and filled with evil. Incorporated into an action-packed mystery, this extreme universe should delight fans of Simon R. Green or Jim Butcher’s ‘Dresden Files.'”

―Library Journal

“Logan takes readers on a dark-comedy tour of a Hell beyond our wildest dreams with this unpredictable detective novel.”

―Booklist

“This is a most entertaining novel with a definitely unique plot…It’s an unusual and imaginative story with some creative viewpoints about guilt, punishment, and redemption, and some mythological references thrown in for good measure…Hell’s Detective is an enjoyable story with a surprisingly happy ending for a narrative set in hell. Kudos to author Logan for an inventive approach to an age-old subject.”

―New York Journal of Books

“Intriguing, action-packed.”

―Mystery Scene Magazine

“This is a fun read and is well written and put together well. A mystery that is a little naughty on the side…Regardless if you are a die-hard horror fan or a fantasy fan you will love this book…If you’re looking for a new kind of mystery, check out award-winning author Michael Logan.”

―Night Owl Reviews

“A helluva romp…an action-packed ripsnorter pounded out in big pulpy strokes that makes me hope the author visits our genre again.”

―The Thrilling Detective

The post Hell’s Detective 99 cents on Kindle appeared first on Michael Logan.

Forty-seven years ago today, Jimi Hendrix died. If you want to find out who killed him, you can read the below sample chapter from my novel Wannabes, available for much cheapness at the Amazons.

12

The 1960s

At Murmur’s leaving party, his drinking buddies from Souls Receiving filled him so full of harpy piss that when he teleported to an unoccupied toilet cubicle in New York’s Biltmore Hotel the next morning, his first act as a field agent was to vomit into the bowl. He stayed there for thirty minutes, groaning and listening to his acidic bile sizzle through the porcelain, before he managed to get his feet under him and stagger out into the lobby. He checked in under the name of Brad Pine—identity and reservations provided by the travel office—and flopped into bed to sleep it off.

When he woke disoriented in the darkness, he found his molecules had snapped back into demon form while he slept. He would have to pay for the sheets his talons had shredded, which wouldn’t be a problem, although explaining the damage might. Under the bed sat a suitcase stuffed with $50,000 in used bills, which he had to account for through expense forms. Even field agents couldn’t escape paperwork.

He reassumed his human shape to avoid further damage to the upholstery and pulled back the curtains. His pulse raced as he drank in the alien environment. Light-studded buildings, so different to Hell’s ragged stalactites and stalagmites, rose straight and true above vehicles that trundled along a grid of roads in orderly fashion. As he followed the lines of one of the tallest buildings to its pointed spire, he became aware of the yawning vastness of the sky above. He dropped his gaze to dampen the dizziness.

Across the busy junction, people streamed in and out of Grand Central Terminal, maintaining an invisible compact to behave in a regularized manner, rather than snapping and tearing at each other as demons were wont to do in similar situations. In Hell, he only saw humans through the viewing screens at torture chambers, a popular pastime amongst the low-borns. His personal favourite was the shit pit. Generally the viewing screen revealed blank brown sludge, but occasionally a human would float against the glass to scrabble goggle-eyed and frantic. To see humans free of torment now felt wrong, but it emphasized the wonderful strangeness of this new world. Here was the clockwork conformity to a system that Satan craved. Yet Murmur felt a giddy sensation of freedom, for he didn’t have to conform to this system. Out in that sprawling human world, he could do anything, go anywhere—as long as it involved killing musicians.

Reminded of his mission, he flicked on a light and reached for the radio to sample his first taste of the forbidden fruit. The sense of incredible possibility evaporated as the chunky device unleashed a cacophony that forced him to curl up in a ball, hands clapped over his ears. The din, imbued with unrestrained joy and energy, bludgeoned through his defences. His soul seemed to be trying to claw its way out of his body. It took every ounce of will to uncover his ears so he could reach up with a shaky hand to stab at the “Off” button. Once the music died, the immediate agony vanished. In its place came an indefinable sense of loss and longing. He sat on the carpet, hugging his knees and staring out of the window at the night sky, searching for what, he didn’t know.

He spent the next few days in near-constant torment. As he wandered the streets to buy clothes to combat the biting cold, music ambushed him from the doors of bars and restaurants, clobbered him from passing cars and assaulted his senses from the lips of people humming and singing their favourite hits. Only earplugs and a steady intake of sense-dulling whisky allowed him to function as he set about identifying and tracking his first victim. Elvis had been pencilled in as a top target, but Murmur had discovered that he was on military service and all the records being released had already been recorded. There seemed no point killing him, especially since the name on everybody’s lips was that of Holly. His choice to kill the bespectacled guitarist proved the right one. The deaths of Holly and his friends caused a huge outburst of grief and despondency and showed the disruptive force his tinkering could bring to bear. When a delighted Satan handed him a six-year mandate in response to the instant success, Murmur set to work laying the groundwork for his long-term campaign.

With the immediate pressure to prove his worth eased, Murmur began carving himself a niche in New York. Despite the music, he found the mad energy of the city exhilarating, particularly after two hundred years in which losing a paper clip counted as drama. His innate demon ability of speaking in tongues allowed him to carry out daily interactions such as finding an apartment, although initially he hid away as much as possible: he still struggled to control the fire that longed to burst from his face. In keeping with his solitude, he assumed the identity of a struggling writer and morphed his human shape to look more appropriate to the role—tousled black hair, pale skin, soulful brown eyes behind thick glasses, and a set of perfect teeth in contrast to his real dental chaos.

Cooped up at home, he engrossed himself in television and radio to familiarize himself with the music scene and thus formulate a longer-term target list. He’d accepted that he would have to listen to music in order to understand it, although he kept the volume low and tried to limit his exposure to an hour a day initially. Like nerve endings deadened by repeated trauma, his soul adjusted and the visceral initial reaction faded. The aching sadness didn’t, however. After two months, he managed to get his emotions largely in check and the molecular itch of maintaining the human shape receded to manageable levels, although it never went away. Every time he went to sleep, he woke up in his true shape as his mind and body relaxed. He even began to adjust to the cold, which was a blessing since his heating bill had been eating up a large chunk of petty cash. Finally, he felt ready to pick up where he’d left off with Holly.

As the bewildering number of bands popping up testified, rock music was taking off. Yet only when he began attending concerts, earplugs in place, did he understand the power of music to inspire humanity. Time and again, he felt the collective lifting of woes and worries as the music reached a part of the human spirit inaccessible to the long talons of Hell. Their spirits strained upwards and they began to glimpse the possibilities of change and beauty in their own lives. The afterglow could last for days and be reignited by the simple act of placing a particular song on the turntable and letting the conscious mind, normally so locked-in to the day-to-day grind, unfurl in the soft swirl of melody. Music, he realized, would permit humanity to rise beyond Hell’s clutches should they be allowed unfettered access to its buoying swell. He set to his sabotage with grim purpose.

At first, he focused on Rock’n’Roll, careful not to take too many high-profile targets and thus start people asking questions. Jesse Belvin bought the farm in 1960 in an opportunistic moment of tampering with the steering of his car. A blown-out tyre, helped along by Murmur’s sharp talons, took out Eddie Cochrane in the same year. Yet the more music he listened to, the more he realized that he couldn’t focus on this one strand alone. R’n’B, Blues, Jazz, Soul and many other old and new musical styles were causing similar amounts of enlightenment. He broadened his focus to include them, first sending Patsy Cline down in another plane crash. People killed people all the time, with or without Hell’s proddings, so in 1964 he set up a stooge to shoot Sam Cooke. In the same vein of varying his MO, a gaggle of cancer cells implanted into John Coltrane’s liver took care of the jazz legend. Then another plane crash, for old times’ sake, put paid to Otis Redding. Murmur again toyed with the idea of killing Elvis, but by this point the singer was making formulaic Hollywood films and seemed to be a spent force.

He made no effort to deal with classical music, even though the pain he felt when listening to swelling strings indicated just how powerful it was. Most musicians appeared to be playing music by composers who’d been dead for a long time, and it appealed to such a small group of people that the effort-benefit ratio didn’t justify diverting his limited time and resources—although the large size of orchestras would have made it easy to ramp up his body count by collapsing a roof or starting a fire during a concert.

While Baal had warned of Heaven’s behind-the-scenes role, Murmur saw nothing to support these fears until 1966, when he killed Paul McCartney in a car crash in an effort to halt the meteoric rise of The Beatles. Murmur had stood over the bloodied corpse, yet two weeks later McCartney was back shaking his mop top as though nothing had happened. Whether Heaven reincarnated Lennon’s partner-in-crime or sent down an equally talented doppelganger, Murmur didn’t know. But he knew for sure that other forces were at work and so didn’t try to kill the new McCartney. While he didn’t believe Heaven was on to him, hitting the same target twice would definitely alert them to his machinations. The day would no doubt come when they discovered him, but there was no point in hurrying it along. There were plenty more targets; the new talent that kept popping up far outstripped the pile of bodies he’d created. It was that last fact that made it clear he couldn’t manage on his own, so when Satan called him down for a face-to-face performance review at the end of 1965, he resolved to ask for some help.

***

On the morning of the meeting, Murmur popped into his old office to catch up with his former workmates. Within two minutes of gathering round the water cooler with his two closest friends, Gergaroth and Tarsis, and the rest of his old crew, his jaw ached from the strain of clamping his mouth shut to stop blurting out the details of his mission. With his reticence apparent, the conversation soon turned to the standard old tales of the juicy sins contained in that day’s admission forms. Little fires crackled up as laughter rippled around the group, and Murmur felt a burst of homesickness. It lasted until the section boss popped up to herd everyone back to work. His friends slumped in unison and the fires fizzled out. He watched them file back to their desks, all individuality swallowed up the moment they sat down. The injustice he’d nursed down his years as a clerk returned, this time for his friends. He’d escaped, while the others remained trapped in Hell’s rigid social structures like flies caught for all eternity in an abandoned spider’s web. As he listened to the scribble of pen on paper and the thump of stamps, sounds that sometimes still haunted his dreams, it occurred to him that he could be the claw that cut through that web.

He left the office, mind churning with new possibilities, and flew over to meet Satan on the golf course modelled on Gleneagles, with fire pits instead of bunkers and boiling tar replacing water hazards. Satan was wearing a pair of plus fours in black and yellow tartan and a matching cap. Despite the jaunty headgear, jammed awkwardly between his long horns, Satan looked as morose as ever. In response to Murmur’s formal greeting asking after his health, he didn’t hesitate to have a good moan.

‘I am exhausted,’ Satan said, rubbing his eyes to emphasize the point. ‘I cannot remember the last time I had a holiday, but nobody from this disorganized rabble can run the operation in my absence.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, my Lord.’

Satan let loose another of his sighs, so old and weary it turned the hair of his human caddy instantly grey.

‘We need more demons like you,’ he said. ‘Demons with a can-do attitude.’

Murmur hid a smile behind his hand. He knew several demons just like him.

After Satan swiped his ball straight into a fire pit, Murmur stepped up to the tee. He’d never played golf, but it seemed simple enough once you figured out the best way to hold the club was to dig your talons into the rubber sleeve rather than try to grasp the slippery metal shaft. His ball sailed onto the green of the par three. They tromped around the course, Murmur filling Satan in on developments upstairs. The boss’s mood worsened as Murmur detailed the explosion of new bands and styles, laying it on thick to support his case. By the time they reached the fifth hole, Satan had fallen into a glowering silence. After he’d hacked another ball into the rough, he tossed his club over his shoulder, catching the caddy full in the face. The human began to weep.

‘Why does he love them so much?’ Satan said softly.

‘Sorry?’

Satan snapped his head round, his lips twitching. ‘I said, “Why do they love this so much.” Humans. This game. There’s no combat, no drama. Only lots of walking. I loathe it.’

A faint picture formed in Murmur’s mind, like the flickering images amid the static just before his television locked into the channel he was searching for. Satan began to talk again, far louder than usual, and the coming insight slipped back into fuzz. ‘Yet play it we must, for so many of the decisions that matter are taken on golf courses. We need to understand it, so we can understand those who govern the world above.’

The by-rote recap of Hell’s standard position on Satan’s obsession with all things human didn’t ring true. Murmur filed the exchange away for later examination and lined up his shot. Satan coughed. Out of the corner of his eye, Murmur saw an avatar drop to the ground, turn green to camouflage itself, and set off in the direction of its master’s stranded ball. Murmur pretended not to notice. He’d hoped to wait until Satan played a few good shots before tackling the day’s business. That didn’t look like happening. So, as they set off in pursuit of the errant ball, he launched into his pitch.

‘About the humans, Sir. I could do a lot more if I had some minions.’

Satan looked at him askance. ‘You know only Lords of Hell have minions. You are doing a good job, but you are asking me to change millennia of tradition and give a low-born command.’

‘I understand that, my Lord, but I can do much more with some help. There are tens of thousands of musicians up there, all of them making people disgustingly happy. I can’t tackle them all by myself.’

‘What do you propose to do with these resources?’

‘We can’t kill all of the big stars, but we can take out the next generation before they become big, as well as the best session musicians, managers, agents, everyone who is involved. We don’t even have to kill them. We can addict them to drugs, mislead them and otherwise sabotage their careers.’

‘I suppose that is a good idea.’

They reached Satan’s ball, which unsurprisingly lay on the edge of the fairway. Satan glanced at Murmur, who said nothing. The King of Hell pulled out a five iron, settled into a powerful crouch, and hacked at the ball. It travelled all of thirty yards.

‘Execrable human game!’ Satan roared. Six-foot-high pillars of flame burst from his horns, setting his hat smouldering. He tossed it to the ground and pounded it with his club. When the hat was suitably chastised, Satan turned to Murmur. ‘Fine. I will give you a score of demons to do your bidding. I will take them from Lucifer’s house. He has been even more annoying than usual lately, demanding we destroy this and pulverize that. He needs put in his place.’

The mention of Lucifer set Murmur’s skin crawling. He hadn’t forgotten the boardroom confrontation, if you could dignify his cowering submission to Lucifer’s aggression with such a word. Nor had Lucifer. Earlier that year, Murmur had woken to find a pair of red eyes floating in the darkness of his bedroom. Lucifer had said nothing, merely staying there for a few more seconds before vanishing. The message was clear: I’m watching you. Having the minions comes from Lucifer’s legions would give the demon another reason to want to make good on his threat of multiple Filofax insertion, which Murmur supposed at least gave him added motivation to succeed and keep in Satan’s good books.

‘That would be wonderful, Sir, although I do have one request. There are two demons I used to work with, Gergaroth and Tarsis, who I believe would be valuable additions to the team.’

‘More low-borns unattached to a great house? I am not sure.’

‘We low-borns are hungry, and that makes us hard-working. I guarantee they will do a great job, as I have done. You did say you needed more demons like me.’

Satan prodded at his charred hat with a yellow toe talon. ‘I will release them. Just be aware that this does not make you a Lord of Hell. You are still a low-born, if a capable one. Now, let us proceed directly to the nineteenth hole. We shall call this round a draw, yes?’

Satan stomped off without waiting for an answer and Murmur followed, fire playing around his lips. Yes, he wasn’t a Lord, and a score of minions didn’t constitute a legion, but it represented another rung up the ladder. And he couldn’t wait to see the looks on his friends’ faces when he told them they would be joining him upstairs.

***

As expected, Gergaroth and Tarsis were grateful and far more active than Lucifer’s lot, who resented being placed under the command of a low-born. Lucifer’s minions—who reminded Murmur of snobby English butlers from movies, servants themselves but somehow believing they were better than everyone else—still did what was asked of them, although far slower and more sloppily than his friends. As well as providing him with drinking buddies, Gergaroth and Tarsis’ dedication freed Murmur up to devote more time to research. He began attending as many music festivals as he could. At the 1967 Monterey Festival he finally saw one extraordinary individual whose name he’d been hearing for some time.

He started the evening watching The Who from the back of the crowd, wondering if he could arrange for an electrical fault to fry the lot of them. Inertia brought on by the four joints he’d smoked, a habit he’d initially taken up in the hope it might dull the impact of the music only to find the drug intensified it, stopped him. He couldn’t be bothered elbowing his way to the front or sending out an avatar to scuttle through the forest of legs. That all changed when a wild-haired man with God in his hands, sporting a pink feather boa, took to the stage. Murmur found himself edging forward. As the guitar, bass and drums drove out their frenetic and mesmerizing sound, Murmur looked at the rapturous faces of the audience. They’d been transported away from their miserable lives, eyes glowing and tawdry souls reaching out for Heaven. He felt a seductive upward tug on his own soul that made him want to give in to the beauty of the music. Somewhere deep within him, he heard the ancient chime of harps and felt an appalling sadness.

He teleported away from the concert with renewed conviction that Heaven was at work through musicians such as Hendrix. Yes, they had a very public policy of non-intervention, but Murmur had learned in his short time on Earth that governing bodies were adept at saying one thing and doing another. If God created mankind in his own image it stood to reason that Heaven could be just as dishonest.

Murmur bought Are You Experienced? and listened to it repeatedly on his Moerch turntable, hurting from the pain the sweet music brought but unable to stop. As soon as Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland were released, he snapped up copies. Each record drove home the message that Hendrix needed to go. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do the needful. Instead, he made increasingly half-hearted attempts to snuff out other artists. At the Altamont Festival in 1969, he whispered in the ear of a drunk and paranoid Meredith Hunter before passing him a gun to take out as many of The Rolling Stones as he could. A Hells Angel stabbed the assassin before he got a shot off, and Murmur didn’t feel as disappointed at the failure as he probably should have.

He may have been better possessing Hunter, but taking full charge of a human wasn’t as simple as stuffing your hand up a puppet’s behind, as movies and books seemed to portray. The human mind’s intricate networks of neurons, conflicting emotions and hidden desires made it more akin to controlling a feisty, uncooperative puppet with a thousand unlabelled strings that kept getting tangled. It was hard enough sober; drunk possessing was damn near impossible. So, Murmur always preferred to use his powers of suggestion. It wasn’t a complete loss, however. It only took a firm boot to the side of a Hells Angel’s motorbike to turn the atmosphere sour. There wasn’t much peace and love that weekend.

After Altamont, he took the decision to move to London. It made more sense given the number of bands sprouting up in England. He bought a house in St. John’s Wood with the stash of money Satan sent up and filled it with all the latest gadgets and trendy furniture, which he used with pleasure now he no longer had to contend with claws and scaly buttocks in his human form. Gergaroth and Tarsis moved in with him, while the other minions were despatched to less salubrious digs in the East End. He kept the cover of a struggling writer, but changed his appearance to bring more of a British feel to go with his accent. He selected dodgy teeth, a shaggy shoulder-length mop, pasty skin and a gangly body, and assumed the name of David Ainsworth. The cold bothered him less than he’d imagined it would, although he still kept the heating in his apartment at full blast for much of the year.

Then in 1970 the moment came when he could no longer put off dealing with Hendrix. Despite his growing record collection, he hadn’t killed anybody high-profile for a while, and Lucifer’s minions kept asking him why such an obvious target remained unharmed. Concerns would be raised downstairs if he didn’t carry out his duty and that could lead to him being recalled in disgrace to Hell, where Lucifer would be waiting. To avoid being ripped apart, he had to ensure he returned a hero. And that meant sticking to his task.

And so, one September night, Murmur stood across from the Samarkand Hotel in Notting Hill as Hendrix and his girlfriend pulled up outside the building’s stone façade and intricate black railings. The musician looked haggard and leaned on Monika Dannemann as they stumbled down to the basement flat. Murmur waited another thirty minutes before teleporting into the bedroom, where they were both asleep. An uncapped container of sleeping pills beckoned to him from the table at Dannemann’s side of the bed.

When Murmur placed his hand on Hendrix’s chiselled cheeks and squeezed to open his mouth, the guitarist woke with a start. Murmur stared into his eyes, rocking his head until Hendrix followed suit and his eyes glazed over. He paused for a moment to inspect the guitarist’s long fingers, searching for some residual trace of heavenly tinkering—a white glow or angelic symbol perhaps.

He rattled the pills in his cupped hand and then sighed.

‘I’m afraid you’re just too good,’ he said.

Faint traces of fire lit up the frown lines on Murmur’s face as the pills went in. He waited, the only sound the soft whoosh of Dannemann’s breathing, until Hendrix arched his head back. Murmur put his hand over the guitarist’s mouth, feeling vomit gurgle up against his palm. Hendrix began to choke, his eyes open and panicked now that the hypnotic effect of Murmur’s gaze had worn off.

When Hendrix went still, Murmur teleported home. He poured himself a Jack Daniels and pulled out Axis: Bold as Love. The warm crackle of vinyl hissed through the speakers before the intro to Little Wing soared through the living room. He imagined Hendrix’s fingers racing up and down the fretboard like a possessed spider to produce the impossibly complicated and gorgeous riff. Then he thought of Satan, staring upward from Hell’s caverns and hating the man who’d banished him and the music he’d created. He knew he should hate it too, if only for the pain it brought him. And yet, although his fingers hovered over the arm of the turntable, he couldn’t bring himself to turn the record off.

The post Who killed Jimi Hendrix? appeared first on Michael Logan.

Tomorrow (13 June 2017), my new book, Hell's Detective: A Mystery, beloved by at least six people, claws its way into the world.

To mark this world-shaking event, which will no doubt eclipse every major global happening on the day unless aliens invade, I am having an online launch event on my Facebook page.

I will read the first chapter, take questions and give away a free signed hardcover to the best question (adjudged by me).

It's at 9pm CEST. Details are here.

Come join the fun!

I have a problem with the term ‘white privilege’, but not for the reasons you imagine a middle-aged white man may have.

It implies that white people are receiving special bonuses that are above and beyond what should the norm. In fact, it is people of colour who are being treating in manner worse than should be the norm. Everybody deserves to be treated with respect, judged on who they are, not how they look, and to be given the same opportunities. This is a fundamental human right, not a privilege, but it is one that is largely being accorded to white people.

My concern is that there is a sizeable chunk of white people, frankly the majority, who bristle at the term currently being used. This is because a lot of white people don’t feel privileged. One of the most common arguments brought up is that there are plenty of white people who are struggling to get by. They don’t understand the basic advantage they are being given, because they have never experienced discrimination based on their appearance and are so hemmed in by their own problems.

When we talk about ending white privilege, these people automatically feel like something is going to be taken away from them, when that isn’t the case. The real goal, surely, is to raise other groups up, and I just don’t think that’s clear at the moment.

So, is there a better word or term that could be used? One that wouldn’t automatically make this segment of white people — the very group that needs to be engaged to bring about meaningful change — go immediately on the defensive and close their ears? Or am I just getting too hung up on semantics?

I guess I’m thinking about this because I’m increasingly seeing a lot of entrenched positions on both sides. Something has to change for progress to be made. Maybe changing the words we use won’t make all the difference. But it might be a start.

The post Should we rethink the use of the term ‘white privilege’? appeared first on Michael Logan.

I’ll be hosting a Facebook Live reading and Q&A at 2000 UTC on June 13 to celebrate the release of Hell’s Detective.

I’ll read the first chapter, then you can ask me whatever you like. I will give away a signed copy to the asker of a randomly selected question.

As I will be sitting down, I may not wear any trousers, which means I won’t be able to stand up should there be a child invasion in the style of the unfortunate BBC interview that got so much attention.

It’s BYOB. If you don’t have any, you can watch me drink instead.

There will be no subtitles, so I hope you can understand Scottish accents.

Full details are here.

The post Online launch of Hell’s Detective appeared first on Michael Logan.

I wrote the short story linked to below specifically in response to a call by The Book Smugglers for superhero fiction. It made the longlist, but not the final cut. Now, I could shop it around, but I lack the patience. So I am posting it here.

Consider it a teaser for the upcoming paperback release of Wannabes, which deals with similar themes.

Enjoy, share, and encourage people to buy my books before I need to sell a child on the black market.

Altered Ego

The post Altered Ego – another new short story appeared first on Michael Logan.

I’ve been struggling to write over the last eight months, a period coinciding neatly with the arrival of my third child and rapidly accelerating hair loss. Nonetheless, I have managed to write a few short stories. You can find one of them – A New You – here.

That is all.

The post A New You – a new short story appeared first on Michael Logan.

It’s December. The trees are up, your wallets are emptying and the turkeys are wondering why they’re getting so much food all of a sudden. Christmas is almost upon us. To get you in the mood, here is a festive flash. Merry Christmas to one and all!

He Knows



You have forgotten him.



You have extinguished your hearth and bricked up your chimney. Now your fragile bones cleave to the radiator for warmth as the freezing wind drives snow against the windowpanes.



You have neglected the ancient offerings, those your forebears furnished when his restless shadow flitted over their rooftops. Now these appeasements nestle in your own bloated stomach.



You have cast him aside in favour of the new Gods of commerce, who care naught for the health of your soul when your purse is fat. Now your gifts arrive cloaked in stiff cardboard, for good and bad alike.



Once, rosy-cheeked youth lay abed in anticipatory fever, straining to hear tinkling bells and clopping hooves. Once, their happiness unfurled into tendrils of energy that nourished him, their benefactor.  Now he is hungry. And if your children will not feed him with their love, their adulation, their joy, what will he eat?



He knows.



In the thick of night, he will slip under your door, as thin as a shadow thanks to your neglect. Beneath your tree—beneath every tree across the land—he will place an oaken box, lid held fast with mouldy twine. Something will stir inside, the scuttle of a creature that lives in the dark crevices where you dare not look.



In the morning, while you rub the milky film of sleep from your eyes, your firstborn will open the box. Then you will remember him. Then, at last, he will eat his fill.

 


 

The post He Knows – a cheery Christmas flash appeared first on Michael Logan.

The cows are dead. Long live the cows!

I’ve noticed that quite a few people who read World War Moo are assuming there will be a third instalment. I guess that’s understandable, given that three is the thing (a trend also observable over the last few thousand years in certain big religions).

However, barring a drastic change of heart, there will not be a third cow novel. Yes, the ending of World War Moo is somewhat open, but that’s because I like open endings. I like to leave it up to the reader to figure out what comes next, to build new stories in their heads for the characters. Hell, if anybody wants to go off and write what happens next, feel free. I’d be interested to see where you think Geldof and chums end up, providing they avoid being fried to a crisp. I’d like to think they live happily ever after in a cave, growing their own herbal entertainment and foraging for mushrooms.

I have too many other stories in my head that need to come out. They will come, once they stop wrestling with each other for dominance, and once I find a way to silence the inner voice assuring me that my writing is shit and I may as well pack it in.

Anyway, even if I did want to write a third one, my publisher wouldn’t touch it given the pitiful sales of World War Moo. Readers of that novel are few, so, if you have taken the plunge, give yourself a pat on the back for becoming part of an elite clique.

So, there we are. Sorry if anybody feels let down, but the cows need to go out to pasture.

The post Putting the cows out to pasture appeared first on Michael Logan.

Ready to get spooked? Perfect for the most bone-chilling time of the year: six thrillers from six bestselling authors, each with a paranormal or psychic twist. Best of all? They’re each just $0.99. Fill your e-reader for less than $6!

FAREWELL TO DREAMS (Fatal Insomnia Book 1) by CJ Lyons

In the chaos of the ER, functioning without sleep is a prized skill. But even Dr. Angela Rossi will admit that five months is far too long. Then a dead nun speaks directly into Angela’s brain while Angela is holding the nun’s heart in her hand. “Find the girl,” the nun commands. “Save the girl.”

Aided by a police detective fallen from grace, Angela searches the midnight catacombs beneath the city, facing down a ruthless gang leader and stumbling onto a serial killer’s lair. As her symptoms escalate in bizarre and disturbing ways, Angie realizes exactly how serious her illness is.

She might be dying, but she’s finally choosing how to live…

Learn more and get FAREWELL TO DREAMS on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo for only $0.99.

THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH (Joe Tesla Series, Book 3) by Rebecca Cantrell

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me…or can they?

In the third thrilling installment of this award winning series from New York Times bestseller Rebecca Cantrell, tortured genius Joe Tesla is on the trail of a sadistic serial killer who charms his victims into the bowels of the Manhattan subway system–and who holds the keys to Joe’s crippling condition. Can Joe stop the murderous rampage of this silver-tongued killer, or will he become the next victim?

Learn more and get THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo for only $0.99.

LINGER (A Linger Thriller, Volume 1) by Edward Fallon

Veteran major crimes detective Kate Messenger has a problem on her hands: a family, slaughtered in their own home, with not a single clue or a shred of DNA that points to the butcher who killed them.

Every crime scene has a smell. A look. A trail of DNA.

It also has a feel. An emotional residue that lingers, just waiting to be absorbed. To be experienced. To be interpreted.

Only the man and boy know this. And now Kate will discover why.

Learn more and get LINGER exclusively on Amazon for only $0.99.

THE KEEP (The Adversary Cycle Book 1) by F. Paul Wilson

“Something is murdering my men.”

Thus reads the message received from a German commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. And when an elite Nazi SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find a something that’s both powerful and terrifying. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims. Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folklore–who just happens to be Jewish–to shed some light on the mysterious happenings. And unbeknownst to anyone, there is another visitor on his way–a man who awoke from a nightmare and immediately set out to meet his destiny.

The battle has begun: On one side, the ultimate evil created by man, and on the other… the unthinkable, unstoppable, unknowable terror that man has inevitably awakened.

Learn more and get THE KEEP exclusively on Amazon for only $0.99.

WANNABES by Michael Logan

Celebrities are mobbing London’s laser clinics as a deranged wannabe bumps off A-listers, believing he can absorb their powers and become famous by taping their tattoos to his body.

Washed-up pop star Jackie Thunder isn’t joining the stampede. Jackie figures that if he can get on the killer’s hit list, without the inconvenience of actually being murdered, he’ll gain the publicity needed to reignite his career.

But there’s more at stake than Jackie can possibly imagine.

With humanity’s collective soul at stake, how far will Jackie go to reach the top?

Learn more and get WANNABES exclusively on Amazon (and Amazon UK) for only $0.99.

BONE DEEP by Debra Webb

Jill Ellington’s twin sister hasn’t spoken a word since she allegedly murdered her husband, and her three-year-old son is missing. No one in the small, idyllic town of Paradise saw or heard a single thing. Jill is going to need a miracle to uncover the truth.

Dr. Paul Phillips has a gift or a curse depending upon how sober he is when ask. He agrees to review Jill’s case to settle an old debt but five minutes in Paradise and he knows he has made a monumental mistake. Yet somehow Jill makes him yearn to be the miracle she desperately needs.

Together, they uncover bone deep secrets that will rock the town of Paradise—if they can survive long enough to tell.

Learn more and get BONE DEEP exclusively on Amazon for only $0.99.

Happy reading! Don’t forget to leave the lights on…just in case. 

The post Thriller Spookfest Bargains appeared first on Michael Logan.