Bu Mon: Island Killer

by Sam Cooke

Julia is almost 16 and enjoying her life, finally away from her abusive mother. She has a stable home with her father, who runs a cafe and has been learning new ways to cook. He's kind and caring, as is her best friend, Jake. They've been best friends for over 10 years, for as long as she can remember knowing happiness.

At school everyone thinks they're dating but they aren't. They just don't hang around much with other people. Their personal secrets are only shared with each other, including how devastated Jake was when his father was killed in a freak accident and he never got the chance to say goodbye or to save him. Jake always said he could have saved him, though never told anyone how. She would have felt the same if her dad was dying - no matter what she would try to save him.

None of this was what adults would call 'normal' teenage thinking but it was normal to them. They trusted each other completely and each would do anything for the other. So 3.12pm, Friday 21st July 2045 was more than a bad time. That was the day Jake died. The day Julia's world changed. The day revenge became the mission in her life, no matter what...

September 2045: Hot on the trail of her psychopathic mother, Julia is being pursued by her father – desperate to get to her before she gets to the global headquarters of Partner, on Bu Mon island. A flotila of underworld ships are heading there too - including the world’s most advanced yacht, the Kinetic Art, with Hunter himself at the helm. An ocean away, the floating castle of HMS Victory 120, displacing 120,000 tons, has been joined by her sister ship, HMS Ark Royal, and the American aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise. Despite greater combined fire-power than some countries, the outcome of their next battle may depend more on the stone-grey man on Victory’s main deck.Right on the edge of space, Fusion is screaming around the Earth faster than the sun, to save the only human she has ever cared Ayrua.

416 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 28, 2020

About the author

Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He later added an "e" onto the end of his name, though the reason for this is disputed.[8] He was one of eight children of Annie Mae and the Reverend Charles Cook, a Baptist minister. He had a brother, L.C., who some years later would become a member of the doo-wop band Johnny Keyes and the Magnificents. The family moved to Chicago in 1933. Cooke attended Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago, the same school that Nat "King" Cole had attended a few years earlier.[8]

Cooke began his career singing gospel with his siblings in a group called The Singing Children when he was nine. He first became known as lead singer with the Highway QC's as a teenager joining at the age of 14. In 1950, Cooke replaced gospel tenor R.H. Harris as lead singer of the landmark gospel group The Soul Stirrers. Under Cooke's leadership, the group signed with Specialty Records and recorded the hits "Peace in the Valley", "How Far Am I From Canaan?", "Jesus Paid the Debt", and "One More River", among many other gospel songs. Cooke was often credited for bringing the attention of gospel music to a younger crowd of listeners, mainly girls who would rush to the stage when the Soul Stirrers hit the stage just to get a glimpse of Cooke.


In 1963, Cooke's 18 month old son, Vincent, wandered away from his mother's supervision and drowned in their front yard pool while Sam was away from the home. With their marriage already in trouble largely due to extramarital affairs by both Sam and his wife, Barbara, the distance between them deepened as Sam blamed Barbara for their son's death. Cooke retreated into a deep depression, and asked that no one wear black to the child's funeral. He found his escape in out-of-town performances, which he agreed to at every opportunity.

Cooke died at the age of thirty-three on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel at 9137 South Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, California via gunshot wound to the torso.