The
Vampire of Rome continues to be ground out. Here's a sample for you -
“Van
quickly,” said Brother Malachi and we fled. I wasn’t there first,
but not from a lack of trying. I was half-way in when the explosion
“boomed” out. I didn't look back, but concentrated on grabbing my
seat and wishing Brother Tristan was a bit smaller as it took him
extra time to get his bulk in the cramped vehicle.
While
I monkey click with the speed and fury of a thousand drunken sloths,
I have returning to the blog, Janey Mack, who is here to talk about
her second book, Choked-Up.
THE
BLURB
She’s
working undercover–and she’s in way over her head.
Scrappy
Traffic Enforcement agent Maisie McGrane has finally landed her dream
job as a Chicago police officer. There’s just one catch. She must
remain undercover as a meter maid to gather evidence against
Stannislav Renko, a charismatic Serbian mobster running a brutal
multi-million dollar mobile chop-shop operation.
When
Maisie is targeted by a killer who leaves a body slumped against her
car, Renko comes to her rescue and takes her under his wing. From her
perch inside the crime boss’s inner circle, Maisie sets up a daring
sting operation to take down Renko once and for all. But can she pull
it off before her family of overprotective Irish cops and her sexy
ex-Army Ranger boyfriend blow her cover?
THE
EXCERPT - CHAPTER 1
I
punched out at the Traffic Enforcement Bureau, the ca-chunk
of the time stamp putting a bullet in the brain of yet another
workday. I started the five-block hike to my car, feeling lighter
with each step. Only three days and a wake-up until Hank returned.
By
the time I hit Marston Avenue’s squalid stretch of sidewalk, I was
a heel away from skipping. Nothing makes a tomboy feel as deliciously
girly as dating the ultimate alpha male. And with five older brothers
carrying more machismo per square inch than The Wild Bunch, I’m
pretty much an expert.
A
teal Chevy Sonic swerved toward me, window down. “Fuck you, Meter
Bitch!” A white ball flew out, bounced off the sidewalk, and nailed
me in the shin.
The
Sonic’s tires squealed and it tore off up the street.
Gee,
thanks, guy.
Rubbing
my leg, I looked down at the cement. A rolled-up disposable diaper.
Who
does that?
I
picked up the stale diaper rock with two fingers and threw it in a
street can, feeling nothing but lucky it hadn’t hit me in the face.
A typical Thursday.
Infatuation
had me off my game. I was still wearing the “Loogie,” the neon
phlegm yellow-green reflective vest of a Chicago Parking Enforcement
Agent. Idiot. I took it off and shoved it in my backpack as I rounded
the corner onto Fourth Street.
No
raining on my parade—it’s Miller Time.
There
may be blood, though, after I kick the ass of the bum sleeping on the
hood of my– well, Hank’s–perfectly restored Dodge Coronet.
The
guy leaned against the windshield, head lolled back onto the roof.
“Hey.
Buddy!” I called in my best law and order voice from across the
street. “Off the car.”
The
guy didn’t flinch. A couple steps closer and I saw and smelled why.
Oh
jeez.
His
throat was a gaping maw of red. And pink and white gristle. Slashed
from ear to ear.
“Holy
mother of…” I averted my eyes to the car’s grille. Thickening
blood covered the air intakes while a slow trickle of red slid down
the Coronet’s glossy black fender wing and dripped into a puddle on
the pavement.
I
fumbled my iPhone out of my pocket and sent a dozen crime scene snaps
to the Cloud. “Call Hank’s office,” I slurred into the mic,
talking too fast, Siri unable to understand. I started again, “Call–”
“Step
away from the car, ma’am,” a man said over a loudspeaker.
I
slipped my phone down the front of my shirt and glanced over my
shoulder to see a blue and white CPD Tahoe, red lights flashing.
I
raised my hands and backed up.
Officer
Reynolds was about as nice as they came, but even with a blanket and
a Hershey bar, the back of a police car was not a fun place to be. No
amount of Febreze could eradicate the lingering stink of piss and
puke that permeated the leather seats. Reynolds peered at me through
silver-rimmed specs in the rearview mirror.
Please
don’t.
“Where’d
you go to high school, Maisie?”
I
sighed inwardly. “St. Ignatius.”
“Nope.
Not it.” He shook his head. “Where do I know you from?”
“I
just have one of those faces.”
He
kept staring. I rotated my fingers in a circle. “This is where you
say I have the look of an Irish angel.”
“Ha!”
Officer Reynolds twisted awkwardly in his seat and jabbed a finger at
me. “You’re the meter maid. The one that threw up on Coles.”
They
never remember the car bomb I saved the mayor from. Only the puking.
A
Crime Scene van parked in front of us and a couple of techs got out.
One, a pal of my brother Rory’s, spotted me in the back of the
Tahoe and gave me the surprised-point-and-smile. I returned a
halfhearted salute.
“How
do you know–” The young cop’s voice trailed off as the penny
dropped. “Wait. Maisie McGrane as in one of the McGrane McGranes?"
I
nodded.
“Man,
your whole family’s on the force.”
“Half.
The other half’s defense attorneys, to keep it even.” “So why
are you a meter maid?”
“Ouch.
Don’t pull any punches, do you?”
“I…erm.”
Reynolds’s cheeks reddened. “Do you like it?" About as much as teaching blind kids to use a band saw.
“It’s
okay.”
A
couple of beat cops and a detective showed up and started working the
scene. Reynolds drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Think
your brothers’ll show?”
I
sure as hell hope not. “Maybe.”
It
was killing him to miss out on the action. And it was killing me to
have him in the car.
“Are
you sure they don’t need you out there?”
“Well…”
He puffed out his cheeks in a show of consideration while his hand
went straight to the door handle. “I probably should let ’em know
I gotcha in the car.”
I
had my phone out of my shirt before he was all the way out of the
Tahoe. He shut the door and I hit Call.
“Mr.
Bannon’s office,” Hank’s secretary answered in a voice so
smoky-sexy I wanted to wipe my ear off. “How may I help you, Ms.
McGrane?”
“I
need to get a message to him.”
“I’m
afraid that won’t be possible. Mr. Bannon is currently in-country
and unable to receive messages for the next twenty-two hours and
eight minutes.”
“That’s,
um…” Unfortunate. I ran a hand through my hair. “We have kind
of a…situation.”
“Type?”
I
blew out a slow breath. “I drove his car to work today. Now there’s
a dead guy lying on the hood and I’m calling you from the back of a
police car.”
“Will
you be needing a ride home from the police station?”
Why
the heck not?
“Yes,
please,” I said and hung up as Officer Reynolds got back behind the
wheel.
“How
you feeling, Maisie?” His voice was light, but he’d gone a little
green around the gills. “That was a pretty tough thing to see.”
I
suppose it would be if I hadn’t spent my childhood playing
Concentration with crime scene photos.
“I’m
okay.”
Dispatch
came in loud and clear over the Tahoe’s radio. “Car 162, call in,
please.”
The
young cop took his cell from the glove box and called in. “Officer
Brian Reynolds reporting.”
There
was a short silence.
Reynolds
shot upright in his seat. “Yessir, Captain McGrane.”
Aww
for cripes’ sake. Da.
“Yessir.
She’s in the patrol car.” Officer Reynolds practically vibrated
with excitement.
“No
sir. Detective Forman hasn’t interviewed her yet.”
A
tiny window of hope opened before me.
“I’ll
bring her in myself, sir. Thank you, sir.”
And
slammed shut in my face.
Reynolds
smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “You want me to light ’em
up?”
Please
don’t.
I
spent the next half hour ignoring the urge to check the crime scene
photos and playing Zombie Gunship on my phone, cooling my heels in
the frigid gray-on-gray interrogation room.
I
figured I’d waited long enough and raised my phone to the two-way
mirror. I shut it off, stowed it in my pocket, then folded my arms on
the gray Formica table and put my head down. That worked.
Detective
Alan Forman came into the room, all pleasantries and platitudes,
thinking I didn’t know any better. He offered me a soda, which I
declined, then took a seat, turned on a voice recorder and trolled
through the usual questions.
No,
I don’t know the victim. No, Hank has been out of town for the last
ten days. Yes, I currently reside in his home. Yes, I drive his
vehicles on a regular basis. Blah blah blah.
“Hang
on.” The detective tapped his pen against his teeth. “I want to
make sure I got this right. This Bannon guy restores a 1969 Dodge
Super Bee 440 six-pack to cherry and says what– ‘Hey girl, drive
this to work instead of your Accord’?”
“Pretty
much.”
He
gave me a quick once-over and scratched a note on his pad. “I see.”
“What?”
I was chilly, hungry, and getting tired. “You see what?”
The
detective shrugged. “Golden handcuffs.”
“Hardly,”
I said. “Hank believes material things are only that. Things.”
“You’d
know.” He stifled a snort. “So what exactly is Mr. Bannon doing
in Eastern Europe?”
I
rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “About that soda…”
A
female uniformed officer entered the room and whispered something
into the detective’s ear. Whatever she said made my interrogator
click off his recorder and close his notebook with a strained smile.
“I think we’ve finished here, Miss McGrane. Officer Miller will
show you out.”
Officer
Miller, however, did not return me to the main lobby. Instead she
turned right and led me down a series of beige hallways to a tiny
nondescript conference room. “Take a seat,” she said and left.
I
was moving up in the world. The room was warm, beige, and did not
contain a two-way mirror. This would be Da or my brothers–Flynn and
Rory or even Cash–jacking me around for the hell of it and, of
course, for living in sin with my ex–Army Ranger boyfriend.
A
soft knock at the door preceded a lightly tanned man in his early
fifties wearing an expensive gray suit with a silver striped tie and
brown John Lobb shoes. A heavy hitter. Good-looking in a polished,
aristocratic way with a slim, foxy face and flaxen hair. “Do you
have a moment, Miss McGrane?”
I
straightened up. “Yes sir.”
No
matter where he was or what he was doing, Hank always had my six.
Hank’s
Law Number Twenty-One: Never confuse politeness with civility.
The
man slid into the seat, folded his hands on the table, and took a
good long look at me. His eyes, the color of cognac held to light,
were fringed with thick gold lashes and left me feeling as exposed as
a field mouse in a clearing. “My name is Walt Sawyer. I command the
Bureau of Organized Crime’s Special Unit.”
Was
the murder vic Mob connected?
A
thin layer of sweat broke out between my shoulder blades while my
fingers turned to ice.
Easy
now. Don’t spin out.
My
mother, “Hang ’Em High July Pruitt,” was a former prosecutor.
This wouldn’t be my first or worst interrogation. “Nice to meet
you, sir. I’m not sure what I’ll be able to add to what I told
Detective Forman.”
“I
have no interest in that case.”
“Oh?”
“I
am, however, interested in you.”
This
just kept getting better.
“May
I ask why you turned down Mayor Coles’s personal appointment to
join the Chicago Police Department, Miss McGrane?” Hello, left
field. “Yes sir.”
This
was his dance. He could lead.
Sawyer’s
lips twitched. “Yes, as in I may ask but you won’t tell?”
"I’m
guessing as Special Unit commander, you have a pretty good idea
already.” Coles was as dirty as they came. Not even being a cop was
worth working his private security detail.
He
unbuttoned the button of his suit coat. “Have you ever considered
applying to the BOC?”
"No
sir, I haven’t." Gee, you're cute. I can be cute, too. "I didn't imagine the Bureau of Organized Crime would have much use for a police academy washout turned meter maid."
“But
you weren’t really a washout, were you, Miss McGrane? A BS in
Criminal Justice. Top cadet at the Academy.” He gave me a vulpine
smile and said lazily, “Until, of course, your father clipped your
wings.”
I
took a slow breath, unclenched my teeth, and lied. “I don’t know
what you’re referring to, sir.”
“The
pressure Homicide Captain Conn McGrane applied to the police academy
psychologist to falsify your psych report, resulting in your
subsequent expulsion.”
Jaysus
crimeny, he’s been busy.
“I’m
afraid you’re mistaken, sir.”
“No
matter.” Sawyer leaned back in his chair and plucked invisible lint
from his French cuff. “It’s my preference to develop
inexperienced high fliers in Special Unit.” He reached inside his
suit jacket, removed a tri-folded paper, and slid it across the table
to me.
I
opened it.
A
letter. On Police Academy stationery.
Upon
further review of Case #7M-23RC426 re: Cadet Maisie McGrane, I
rescind my previous diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
Ms.
McGrane is fit for duty within the Chicago Police Department.
Dr.
Tom Lucey
The
bullshit Benghazi-style lack of reason and responsibility certified
its legitimacy. My fingers trembled, rattling the paper.
“Miss
McGrane, I want you to work for me as an undercover officer in
Special Unit.”
Blood
pulsed in my ears.
Me?
An undercover cop?
“I
find recruits infinitely more valuable without the indelible imprint
of police work.”
The
cop look. The stance, the stride, the indefinable big-dog attitude.
Eyes continually scanning for weapons while assessing threat level.
Half my family walked around with it. I’d been hoping I’d
acquired it through osmosis, but apparently not.
“As
you can imagine,” he said, “the least desirable action for an
undercover officer is to react as a patrolman. My U.C.s aren’t
merely police working in plainclothes. No short-stint Vice stings.
True undercover agents are infiltrators, going native for months,
even years at a time. Identity on a need-to-know basis only.”
I
cleared my throat, trying hard to stay frosty in the face of serious
Serpico action. I could keep my nerve and my mouth shut, sure. But a
police spook? It wasn’t the way I wanted to be a cop.
“Covert
work is highly stressful and extremely dangerous.” He held out his
hand for the letter. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you
were built for it.”
I
folded it up and handed it back to him, unable to look away as he
returned it to his inside jacket pocket.
Sawyer
cocked his head. “Reservations?”
“Maybe.”
It wasn’t the criminals I was afraid of. It was my family.
“Rather
tortured, aren’t you?” His odd-colored eyes seemed lit from
within. “Shielding the father who betrayed you and dreaming of
becoming a cop while sleeping with a mercenary.”
My
entire life summed up in one smooth sentence. It wasn’t enough to
make me swoon.
“I
won’t go against Hank Bannon or my father. Not ever.”
A
whisper of irritation crossed his face. “Special Unit has little
interest in an ex–Army Ranger operating primarily outside of the
United States. Even less for a decorated police captain exerting his
influence, which I assume he’ll continue to do.”
Yes,
he will, goddammit.
Sawyer
leaned forward. “This is your shot. Are you going to take it?”
“Yes,”
I said. Hell, yes!
He
handed me a small white envelope.
“What’s
this?”
Sawyer’s
mouth quirked at the corner. “Your ticket to the show.” He rose
and walked to the door. “I’ll be in touch.”
Tiny
sparks danced in front of my eyes.
Holy
cat.
Where’s
a paper bag when you need one?
AUTHOR
LINKS:
Philosophical
Issues in Choked Up?
I
think villains are the most interesting characters to write and to
read. And the most difficult. The trick is figuring out how to make a
violent, remorseless killer three-dimensional…charismatic even.
I
knew I was doing it right when I realized I’d painted my heroine,
Maisie, into a corner I wasn’t sure how to get her out of.
Popculture
References?
Too
many. My family is movie and music obsessed. I’m also a crime
fiction freak—my Roku is jammed with British, Scandinavian and
French series subscriptions. Right now I’m completely infatuated
with Korean cop shows—which, naturally, will rear their referenced
heads in TORN UP (Book 4).
What
parts of writing are easiest to you?
Humor
and character development. I fought plotting and outlining for an
cringeworthy length of time until I figured out I could outline a
plot and then <gasp> change it midway. I’m kidding. Kind of.
Which
parts do you struggle with?
On
a Venn diagram I’d be that little piece straddling the middle—an
introverted extrovert. The promotion of self and work is the most
challenging aspect for me.
However,
Kensington’s insistence that I have a social media presence was
without a doubt the very best thing I was asked to do.
I
have met so many people—from soldiers to mechanics to pilots to
police to EMTs, even to…well, criminals, that I can’t imagine
writing a book without them.
What
are you working on next?
I’m
gearing up to start Maisie’s next story, TORN UP, and in mid-April
I start my first joint project: co-writing a thriller with a retired
NYPD detective. I’m freaking out with excitement!
JANEY
MACK is the author of the TIME’S UP and CHOKED UP. The third
book in the series, SHOOT
‘EM UP releases September 27, 2016. If you send her pictures of you
reading her book and leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, she might
just put your name in Maisie’s next adventure.
CHOKED
UP is available now at:
Perhaps
you're still a bit unsure, after all where's the horror? The
darkness? The slow creeping tingle of dread. Fear not my good friends
this book is well worth it. I even gave it five stars
So
after you've read all about Maisie, I bet you'd like to dive back
into the darkness with my stories
Junior
Inquisitor Book One
Amazon - http://goo.gl/D6KrbX
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/mJtTf8
Soulless Monk Book Two
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/5lCyaX
The Witch’s Lair Book Three
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/mJtTf8
5 comments:
Janey Mack creates characters that you love to hate, hate to love, but mostly want to read about in the next installment.
Guilty confession: I would love to walk in the shoes of any of them!
LOVED this book! A compelling story filled with great characters!
Paul, you are walking in them in the next book!
Thank you very much, Jamie! 😇
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