What do you think?
Rate this book
Veritas: Concubine
How far would you go to find the truth? Shale Veritas is not his real name, but that's not important. What's important is why he's taken an interest in you - and what you've done to deserve it...
This dark, atmospheric tale of revenge, justice, and redemption is not for the faint-hearted. You have been warned.
This dark, atmospheric tale of revenge, justice, and redemption is not for the faint-hearted. You have been warned.
32 pages, Kindle Edition
1 person is currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
R.S. Guthrie
15 books319 followersR. S. Guthrie has been writing fiction for several years.
Black Beast
is the first in the series of Detective Bobby Mac Thriller books featuring Denver detective Bobby Mac.
L O S T is the second book in the popular Paranormal Mystery-Detective series; the third book, Reckoning, is now out that closes out the Detective Bobby Mac Thriller trilogy (though it is not the final Detective Bobby Mac book).
Guthrie finished his Mystery/Thriller novel set in Wyoming that has been beset by Big Oil, the millions of dollars that come with them, and the murder of a lawman's wife entitled Blood Land . The story takes place in a fictional town in his home state of Wyoming and was published in 2012. A pre-release excerpt was featured in the June 2011 issue of New West magazine. Money Land, second in the Sheriff James Pruett series, continued the saga of the Wyoming lawman and was published in late 2012; Honor Land, next in the series is scheduled for release is Summer of 2013.
The author currently lives in Colorado with his beautiful wife, Amy, three Australian Shepherds, and a Chihuahua who thinks she is a forty-pound Aussie. It is a widely known fact that the canines rule the Guthrie household.
L O S T is the second book in the popular Paranormal Mystery-Detective series; the third book, Reckoning, is now out that closes out the Detective Bobby Mac Thriller trilogy (though it is not the final Detective Bobby Mac book).
Guthrie finished his Mystery/Thriller novel set in Wyoming that has been beset by Big Oil, the millions of dollars that come with them, and the murder of a lawman's wife entitled Blood Land . The story takes place in a fictional town in his home state of Wyoming and was published in 2012. A pre-release excerpt was featured in the June 2011 issue of New West magazine. Money Land, second in the Sheriff James Pruett series, continued the saga of the Wyoming lawman and was published in late 2012; Honor Land, next in the series is scheduled for release is Summer of 2013.
The author currently lives in Colorado with his beautiful wife, Amy, three Australian Shepherds, and a Chihuahua who thinks she is a forty-pound Aussie. It is a widely known fact that the canines rule the Guthrie household.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 18, 2016
Journalist Francis Constantine arranges to meet Shale Veritas in prison for an interview. He’s a vigilante killer who has taken the lives of thirty seven people. And then he gave himself up to an old Texas ranger and went to jail.
***
This is part of a box-set deal titled ‘Eight the hard way’. I prefer to list and review each story separately.
Okay, what is it with the over description?
cream-colored journalist? Onyx hair? What the…?
What? What does that mean?
She’s here for a story but she tries to make him tell it her way. This is clearly going to fail.
And then there’s a flashback pov. He’s back in the army. He’s a bad corporal if he can’t stand when his colonel does.
Colonel Cobra Treanor??? Snorts. Cobra trainer? Whoever, he tells him to apply for Delta. Isn’t he still in training? He CAN’T apply until he’s finished training. It doesn’t matter if the colonel already signed the papers.
Now we’re back… wait…
What the hell? Her kid was a victim? There is NO way she would be allowed access to this guy.
Of course he got hate mail. He, as a vigilante killer, stole the legal right to trial from the victim’s families. What if he got it wrong? How can those families ever know? They get NO closure. Nor do they get the killer to say where the victim’s body is. He’s hijacked their grief.
Oh no, editor brain. You didn’t ‘snap’, you snapped. Lose the random apostrophes.
His wife was killed by a drunk driver? But he didn’t kill the guy who set him on this path of killing thirty seven others. Why not? It makes no sense.
[My brain wonders how he’d feel about some random dude popping in and murdering his wife’s killer instead? Bet he’d be angry.]
And it’s yet another instance of a woman fridged to provide pain for the male character. The reader has no emotional resonance with this woman. We didn’t see how he loved her. Not a single moment of them together - the kiss goodbye to hear the bang at the intersection, or whatever. Nothing. So it MEANS nothing to the reader. It’s a waste of her death.
She doesn’t even have a name. Paragraphs of info about the drunk driver, what jail he was in, how many months his sentence was but not even the woman’s NAME. (God, I am so sick of this crap)
Now he says he’s okay with the death sentence as the law of the land. But you killed thirty seven people OUTSIDE of the laws of the land so don’t argue that you respect it.
His penance is to allow his story to be told. *eyes narrow* No, no it isn’t. That’s no penance at all, dude.
Now we switch to a another pov. The evil sociopath’s pov. Why?
God this is hard to read, it’s full of passive voice. Ugh. And that should be ‘a prelude’.
Yes, I’ve often thought of myself as the owner of my nipples.
No… just no.
If there is one thing I’ve learnt from this box set, it’s that I hate vigilante stories.
1 star
***
This is part of a box-set deal titled ‘Eight the hard way’. I prefer to list and review each story separately.
Okay, what is it with the over description?
The beefy officers of the State sat Veritas down across from the too-thin, cream-colored journalist with the onyx hair so striking it had provided a thousand conversation starters over her twenty-seven years in the field.(Kindle Locations 1990-1992).
cream-colored journalist? Onyx hair? What the…?
He locked horns with her gaze.
What? What does that mean?
She’s here for a story but she tries to make him tell it her way. This is clearly going to fail.
And then there’s a flashback pov. He’s back in the army. He’s a bad corporal if he can’t stand when his colonel does.
Colonel Cobra Treanor??? Snorts. Cobra trainer? Whoever, he tells him to apply for Delta. Isn’t he still in training? He CAN’T apply until he’s finished training. It doesn’t matter if the colonel already signed the papers.
Now we’re back… wait…
Had she ever really answered her own questions about the man who had tortured and murdered the man who kidnapped, drugged, and sold her precious child into a life of human sex trafficking, drug abuse, and eventually, death?
What the hell? Her kid was a victim? There is NO way she would be allowed access to this guy.
Of course he got hate mail. He, as a vigilante killer, stole the legal right to trial from the victim’s families. What if he got it wrong? How can those families ever know? They get NO closure. Nor do they get the killer to say where the victim’s body is. He’s hijacked their grief.
Oh no, editor brain. You didn’t ‘snap’, you snapped. Lose the random apostrophes.
His wife was killed by a drunk driver? But he didn’t kill the guy who set him on this path of killing thirty seven others. Why not? It makes no sense.
[My brain wonders how he’d feel about some random dude popping in and murdering his wife’s killer instead? Bet he’d be angry.]
And it’s yet another instance of a woman fridged to provide pain for the male character. The reader has no emotional resonance with this woman. We didn’t see how he loved her. Not a single moment of them together - the kiss goodbye to hear the bang at the intersection, or whatever. Nothing. So it MEANS nothing to the reader. It’s a waste of her death.
She doesn’t even have a name. Paragraphs of info about the drunk driver, what jail he was in, how many months his sentence was but not even the woman’s NAME. (God, I am so sick of this crap)
Now he says he’s okay with the death sentence as the law of the land. But you killed thirty seven people OUTSIDE of the laws of the land so don’t argue that you respect it.
His penance is to allow his story to be told. *eyes narrow* No, no it isn’t. That’s no penance at all, dude.
Now we switch to a another pov. The evil sociopath’s pov. Why?
But Drew did hear the unusual sound, and as he began to turn silently and reach for the Glock 9 millimeter in the nightstand, he instead felt a quick bee sting in his neck— and before him flashed a moment of pure curiosity, which quickly became prelude to his brand new, promised world fading pleasantly away.
He awoke strapped to a gurney much like the one he avoided by turning Federal witness against the much larger human trafficking ring with which he was accused of having done a great deal of business and made an even larger amount of money.
God this is hard to read, it’s full of passive voice. Ugh. And that should be ‘a prelude’.
Veritas hooked Drew’s left nipple and in one quick movement, severed it from its owner.
Yes, I’ve often thought of myself as the owner of my nipples.
No… just no.
If there is one thing I’ve learnt from this box set, it’s that I hate vigilante stories.
1 star
August 18, 2015
Shale Veritas has ‘chosen’ Francis Constantine to tell his story. A convicted killer, he was chosen as a young recruit and trained in the art of assassination. Veritas: Concubine by R. S. Guthrie is a dark and twisted tale of betrayal, intrigue and human sadness, as it follows Veritas’ recitation to Francis.
Not a bad story overall, but the end left many, many questions unanswered. As a former soldier who spent many years at Ft. Bragg, NC, I must also point out to the author that Corporal Veritas could not have taken Ranger training at that post, as the Ranger School is in Ft. Benning, GA. It is also highly unlikely that he would have been recruited for Delta Force while still a recruit.
I still enjoyed reading it, errors notwithstanding, because of the attention the author pays to character development. It’s easy even to sympathize with Veritas. In order, though, to build a legion of loyal readers of this genre, the author needs to pay more attention to accuracy.
Not a bad story overall, but the end left many, many questions unanswered. As a former soldier who spent many years at Ft. Bragg, NC, I must also point out to the author that Corporal Veritas could not have taken Ranger training at that post, as the Ranger School is in Ft. Benning, GA. It is also highly unlikely that he would have been recruited for Delta Force while still a recruit.
I still enjoyed reading it, errors notwithstanding, because of the attention the author pays to character development. It’s easy even to sympathize with Veritas. In order, though, to build a legion of loyal readers of this genre, the author needs to pay more attention to accuracy.
April 28, 2015
An interesting to start to the Veritas series...beginning with the end.
May 8, 2015
Well written and intriguing into, with a little bit of a carrot to keep us reading. Will definitely look out for the series.
December 12, 2016
Short story
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews