Angkor Cloth Angkor Gold

Cambodia, An ancient Kingdom of Wonder. After the devastation of the Khmer Rouge regime, hundreds of thousands of refugees – victims and Khmer Rouge soldiers – flee into Thailand as the Vietnamese invade Cambodian in 1979. In the disorder of one refugee camp, a killer targets young women. But with so much chaos in the camps, nothing is done and no one seems to care. With many refugees expatriated to France, the killer is among them, and continues to strike, in Paris and across Europe. Three decades later, and two murders in Phnom Penh have the same modus operandi as those previous deaths. Could it be the same killer? Can Brigadier General Chamreun and Lieutenant Sophie Chang discover the murderer's identity before they claim another victim?

Angkor Cloth Angkor Gold (Murder Mystery)

By Steven W. Palmer

Saraswati Publishing Cambodia

ASIN # B07K6MF5YT

Price $5.99 (Kindle)

196 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

Cambodia, 2017: The Minister calls in Brigadier General Hoen Chamreun, a young military man, and introduces him to young police officer, Sopheak Chang. They are being assigned to a recent murder case that may involve the killer of the Minister’s sister four decades earlier. The killer is targeting young Khmer prostitutes, and the modus operandi matches murders committed in Cambodia, Thailand refugee camps, France, and Italy. The minister’s sister was not a prostitute, but also killed by the same person. And he wants closure, and the murderer brought to justice.

This was an interesting case, both a current homicide and a cold case investigation, and the investigators dig into the background of the old murders, hoping to find some clue that will tie the person to the current murders. Chamreun is an experienced soldier who has made a name for himself and his unit, and now working with Sophie, a Cambodian that was raised in America and trained as a homicide detective before returning to Cambodia. Both are experienced and want to bring the case to a close.

Readers are cautioned to pay attention to the dates. I didn’t and was confused through half the story until I decided to go back and look at the dates. The investigators bring in Sue Chapman from Interpol, plus use a computer hacker to help uncover records not easily obtainable, and correlate lists of names into a possible list of suspects. The narrative has two main POVs, that of the murderer, and that of Chamreun, but head hop a few times to Sophie and Sue Chapman. I’ve read numerous murder stories set in Cambodia and Thailand, all set in the sex industry, but this novel is more in-depth than mere sex. It goes deeper into the criminal mind and why the killer is targeting prostitutes. The title gives us a clue, but I won’t go into that. Too much detail could give the story away. There is a nice twist at the end of the story. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of THE MAN IN THE BLACK FEDORA

Road Games and Other Weird Tales

This short story collection is a cocktail of one part Twilight Zone, one part Tales from the Crypt, one part Outer Limits with a splash of just plain weird then blended together smoothly to satisfy the eclectic reader's perusal palate.
Lickety Split: Murder and mayhem kicks off this collection when desperate Coaly Banks strikes an outrageous deal to shed some unwanted pounds.
Life Form: Brenda Vascar and Daniel Bankum make a terrifying discovery in deep space while on the run.
Them: A group of restaurant patrons take matters into their own hands when they discover that space aliens may be right here in their little town.
The Killing Kind: Don't take rides with strangers. Ever.
The Same Old Nightmare: Wake. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
Boucherie: The LAPD takes on some of the most iconic monsters of Hollyweird.
The Agency: Give that guy an Oscar! This is an old, washed—up Hollywood star's last shot.
Lint: Who, or what, is lurking in the shadows of the basement of the Glendale Hotel?
Cracked: Coaly Banks faces her demons once again.
Road Games: With no job, a bleak future, Nathan Wilder is on a path that quickly turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Road Games and Other Weird Tales (Horror & Imaginative Tales)

By Marlin Williams

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN # 978-1977513854

Price $8.47 (Paperback)

Price $2.99 (Kindle)

314 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

This short story collection contains ten stories of road adventures through The Twilight Zone. The first, Lickety Split features a fat woman whishing to instantly dissolve all that fat and become a skinny chick again. When she signs a contract with Lickety Split, she does just that, but she should have read the contract first!

         Life Form is our second short story, and this time we visit the spaceways. When an asteroid slams into their space ship Daniel doesn’t have time to alert the crew and passengers, he awakens Brenda Vascar and they escape in a pod, but they don’t have enough life support to last for long. Sighting a blip on their screen they wait for it to arrive, hoping it might be their salvation.

         Them is our next entry, and it’s all about old men sitting in a diner talking about flying saucers and little gray men, and what they want here. Suspicion is within each as to just who might be an alien.

         Next up is The Killing Kind.. Gracie meets a handsome young man in the Twilight Lounge. He tells her he writes thrillers, but was out for a walk ad twisted his foot and needed a ride home. During the ride he describes his next thriller, about a young handsome man picking up an older woman for romance, but he kills her instead. Now, she wonders if he isn’t writing her epitaph. 

         The Same Old Nightmare was an odd entry that made little sense, except how we are slaves to things in our life.

         Boucherie is set in Hollywood where weird things happen. A patrol unit dispatched to a district to write tickets actually discover a body and chase the killer. They find two puncture marks on the neck, plus a stake driver into the man’s chest. Odd. They report the murder to their boss and are ordered to their original assignment again, but follow a lead to a nightclub and what appears to be a den of vampires. Following more leads they search an old abandoned house that may be haunted and are attacked by vampires. Then their boss shows up again and they discover there are werewolves in the police department.

         The Agency is ready to collect on an actor’s contract. But the actor isn’t ready to die. There’s still a chance for an Oscar, if all goes right.

         Lint can be a problem, it seems. In an old tenement basement where the laundry room is located, tenants come to do their laundry. Sharon is aware that many apartment dwellers have disappeared, but she figures they left for better places. But could there me another reason for their disappearance – like the lint?

         Cracked. Everyone has a phobia, Coaly Banks is afraid of sidewalk cracks.

         Road Games, the final story in this collection is probably the best of the stories. It’s all about a game of death on the highway conducted by the devil using humans as pawns.

In truth, I love short stories, and prefer them to long novels. This collection was fun to read, and gives us a look at things that go bump in the night – or in this case the bumps are on the roads. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of THE COBRA

Ghost In The Asylum

An ambitious reporter looking for her big break. A millionaire recluse looking for a cure. Can they survive a violent, corrupt city?

Vicky Rose is a reporter stuck in the City Hall beat, but she knows she’s destined to cover crime. She sees her chance at a big break when the mayor is murdered in his office.

Reclusive millionaire Brent Gregor has been trapped in a wheelchair since the night a home intruder killed his father. Now, the only thing he cares about is being able to walk again.

The mayor’s murder reeks of mob violence, but all the evidence points to someone else. Vicky knows the only hope of finding the truth rests in Gregor’s hands, but he’s unwilling to help until the one person who might be able to cure him changes his mind…

Ghosts in the Asylum is the first book in the Black Spectre Origins series, detailing the rise of the masked pulp hero The Black Spectre. If you like Agent Carter, the Rocketeer, and The Dark Knight, then you’ll love Roger Alford’s gritty noir mystery that effortlessly combines new pulp with a classic 1930s style.

Ghost In The Asylum (Pulp Hero)

By Roger Alford

Black Hood Press

ISBN # 978-1949352009

Price $9.99 (Paperback)

Price $0.00 (Kindle)

210 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

This is the origin story for The Black Spectre. In 1921 Three-finger Ned Vogal broke into the DA’s home killing the DA and shooting his son. The boy becomes an invalid, no longer able to walk, and his mother is admitted to the local asylum for the insane. Fifteen years later young Brent Gregor is still confined to the wheelchair, and has broken up with the woman he loves, Abigail Wentworth, an aviatrix. Victoria Rose a reporter for the Daily Crusader is struggling to make the newspaper’s crime beat, and constantly sticks her neck out to get a story. A new crime is similar to the one that killed Brent’s father, and Vicky visits him to obtain information, but is run off. Then a gypsy woman, Madame Ouspenskaya brings a magic salvation to Brent in the form of a ring that gives him strength in the legs to walk, as well as mental powers like telekinetic ability and turning invisible. He has his butler call Vicky for another interview and gives her a report he received from a private detective three years before. Vicky reads the report written by the murdered private detective and discovers the truth. Now she must enter the asylum to prove that the killer is being protected. When she fails to show up for a dinner date, her boyfriend calls Brent to see if he knows where she’s at. Now Dennis Morris and The Black Spectre must rescue the girl before something horrible is done to her.

This was a darn good story, featuring an exciting new pulp hero, even if The Black Spectre doesn’t appear until towards the end of the story. The city is controlled by the mob, and mobsters are at war with each other. But police and city officials are in the pockets of the mob bosses. It’s going to take a fighting reporter like Vicky and The Black Spectre to bring the hoods to justice and return their city from corrupt politicians to a crime-free town of descent government and law-abiding citizens. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of CARNIVAL OF DEATH   

Nightscape Double Feature #2

Tales of Terror & Fabled Treasure A literary pulp extravaganza featuring mummified telepaths, ancient machine gods, world-destroying artifacts, undead pirates, voudon elementals and dream-powered treasure ships! The Divine Drowned by Josh Reynolds & David W. Edwards In exploring the underwater remnants of a lost Egyptian City, supernatural adventurer Nolin "Lancer" Quigg and his crew are blasted into an alternate dimension wracked by psychic war. Broken and scattered, the members of integrand General struggle to reunite and return home. Complicating their mission: a prophecy that not only exposes the terrible secret of Lancer's superhuman strength but signals the end of reality itself. Forever the Star Finder by Fianna I. Quigg The doomed South Pacific voyage that made Lancer half a daimon is chronicled at last! Compelled to help the voudon priestess Mama Paris access an interdimensional rift, Liam Quigg and family must contend with alien deathtraps, roving monsters and the return of a vengeful Captain Nemo. What legacy does Liam leave when he makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect his loved ones? Learn the startling truth in this intimate firsthand account.

Nightscape: Double Feature #2 (Fantasy Adventure)

By David W. Edwards and Josh Reynolds

Imperial Entertainment

ISBN #978-0989748758

Price $11.99 (Paperback)

240 Pages

Rating 4-Stars

As noted, this book contains two stories, a short novel & novelette. The Divine Drowned, the longer of the two works begins the adventure. We are introduced to Nolin “Lancer” Quigg and his team of adventurers. They enter the sea in submersibles in search of sunken islands and are separated by a White space and deposited in, perhaps, different dimensions where each meet a black woman guarded by baboon warriors. The story is well written, and the characters are interesting.

The second story, Forever The Star Finder, is shorter and continues the Quigg family story, as recorded by Fianna I Quigg.  It’s in a slightly different format, and includes illustrations.

Although well written, the characters didn’t pull me into the story, and I had no interest in the plot. Numerous monsters, other dimensions, supernatural elements, and wild adventure face the team. Enough material for several novels, but nothing I cared for. However, I think this book will appeal to fantasy readers everywhere. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of CARNIVAL OF DEATH