The following is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch: Final Season, available on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

Thick straps knotted around slender wrists. Two hulking orderlies pinned the young woman down until clasps were secured. Screaming through gritted teeth, she lashed out to the limits of her restraints. Cold and sterile, a mirrored window took up one wall of the tiled room. Tables and electrical equipment cluttered the space.

She couldn’t remember a time before the hospital or before the tests. Something made her fight them anyway. Willowy and pale, the young woman was almost anemic. Half her head was shaved, the left side, while the right had been allowed to grow long enough that it reached her throat, dark blonde and unwashed. The orderlies in their white uniforms moved around the room, picking up equipment with gloved hands. One of the men retrieved a metal spike. A handspan in length, thick at the base and then tapered to a blunt point, the spike attached to an insulated cord. He loomed over the young woman and she jerked away, teeth gnashing. She knew it was inevitable, every day it was inevitable, but she battled it all the same.

You awaken on a bench in the middle of what appears to be a large clothing store. Fluorescent lighting glares from the ceiling high overhead. Soft music drifts to your ears from nowhere in particular. Sitting up, you find yourself surrounded by a veritable forest of clothing racks, all filled with women’s outfits of various sizes and styles! White linoleum paths divide the racks and shelves into square grids.

You stand up and look around. You can’t see an entrance or exit. There’s no sign of how you got here. Tall shelves eventually block your view in every direction. All you can see is women’s clothing for hundreds and hundreds of metres. You see people moving around the racks of clothing or along the linoleum paths. Other customers, all shopping by themselves, and people in red and white uniforms that must be staff.

What do you do next?

I’m a great lover of 80s horror, so when a friend of mine, C.T. Phipps, shot me through an advance copy of his latest novel Psycho Killers in Love I was delighted to give it a read (you can check out my review here). The story pays homage to some of the great slasher flicks of the era, particularly Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play and Candyman. But it got me thinking about some of my lesser known favourites from the decade, so I put together a list of eight eighties gems lovers of those same films will enjoy!

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The following is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch and Kill Switch: Serial Escalation, available on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

“Run, rabbit, run rabbit! Run! Run! Run!”

Sweat drips into eye. Hot. Baking in the cave like an oven. Fire crackles orange and fills it with smoke. Man across the fire. Singing.

“Run, rabbit! Run, rabbit, run, run! Run!”

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“We have some countries that are very near collapse… Let’s see if we can prevent that by doing the right thing now. We really can’t wait til 2020.”

Sick of talking about Trump, we gave ourselves a week off to travel south of the border and talk about issues plaguing Central and South America. Record numbers at the US-Mexico Border and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrado. The latest on the Venezuelan Crisis and sanctions on Cuba, Brazil’s rightward turn under Jair Bolsonaro and fears for the Amazon, Argentina’s money troubles, Bolivia, and recovery for Puerto Rico.

LISTEN TO THE SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA SPECIAL HERE.

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The seven of them had gotten three rooms for the night. Oliver and Hunter were sharing one room and the three girls were in another, with the Australians sharing the third. Mia had the keys for their room. It occurred to her she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten actual keys and not a plastic card in a hotel. She tried to smile at the thought but instead shuddered at the memory of when the hotel worker had handed her the key and there had been a wet, malarial warmth to his skin. Continue reading →

The following is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch: Serial Escalation, available on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

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Titama liked the time after Neo Francisco’s frequent rain showers. Neon gleamed off wet asphalt. Grime was washed off of buildings, trash hosed off sidewalks and into gutters, down drains, making everything look clean. Standing under a red and yellow awning, she avoided the last of the drizzle. Continue reading →

I bought this paperback from a secondhand bookstore that also sells knives, swords, and synthetic cannabis. Actually it’s more of a knives, swords, and synthetic cannabis store that also sells books as the books part is new. Inside books are piled all over the shelves and floors in complete disarray except for a few authors, Clive Cussler, Stephen King, Matthew Reilly, who have their own dedicated sections. The Vang: The Military Form by Christopher Rowley was $1 from a stolen shopping cart parked in front of the store. Continue reading →

The following is an excerpt from the Prologue of ‘Kill Switch: Serial Escalation’, you can find the full novel on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

The roar of the crowd filled the cavernous space. It drowned out the grunts of effort from the two competitors and the wet snarls below them. Camera drones circled, capturing every drop of sweat, every strained muscle, and every line of effort on the two men’s faces. Two raised platforms were suspended high above the arena, just barely within striking distance of one another. The round arena floor was dotted with outcroppings of upwardly jagged fake rocks. Baying and snarling, a pack of genetically altered attack dogs circled the raised supports of the two platforms in anticipation of their dinner. The crowd was pushed in tight around the arena cage. The rusty iron stench of blood, sweat and animal stink filled the room.

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The following is a standalone story but operates as a prequel to characters and events seen in Kill Switch, available on Amazon in eBook and paperback form.

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“We’ve got a heat signature in the master bedroom, upper floor, right corner,” the command truck said. “Could be Dawson.”

“Is it Dawson, or is it just a heat signature?” SWAT captain Charlemagne Lewis asked.

“Sorry, heat signature is all we’ve got. Walls are too thick for a better read than that and the windows are shielded.”

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