#murder

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Jay reviews "Rare Vintage" by Dee Rismiller:

"The story is engrossing, and the killer truly horrible... If you enjoy catching serial killers from your armchair with a side helping of romance and the paranormal, you will enjoy this novel! 4 stars."

https://www.queerscifi.com/review-rare-vintage-dee-rismiller/

@LGBTQBookstodon @diversebooks @bookstodon

19. Could you imagine a story in the same world where your MC is the antagonist?

Already have. Mrs Ashton and Braddie started out as the antagonists in a short story - at least, close alt-versions.

They interested me more than the protagonists. after another false start, The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder was born.

I have another story in which the narrator believes they are the bad guys.

Not sending this to the newspaper.

SIL pitching as pitch

"A highly readable Victorian mystery melodrama with a big heart, Sarah Waters meets Richard Osman."

https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

# books

Stephen Cox pulling a face and showing a fan of three books, trees in the background. He's a genial, big, grey hair and beard guy pulling a silly mock serious face. The book alt text is A striking book cover mockup with the title and author name dominating. A rich dark blue background, and a touch of mist. The text appears in gold in a gold rectangular frame, the font is old fashioned implying C19th century. The frame has three rondels or cameos each containing a picture. Top right is a golden bee brooch with the body and one wing streaked with red blood. Middle left is foxgloves, spires of small bell flowers in pink, white and purple. Bottom right is a dark brown medicine bottle, with a pale label. The word LAUDANUM is just visible. There are pink highlights on some of the letters. Taken together it is bold, mysterious, and Victorian.

The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder

Cover reveal this week, blogpost on how I got there.
Preorder links to come!

Here's a visual I did on 4 dominant styles of Victorian

Woman With Back To You
Single ghastly object
Typography Gone Wild
Light Illustration

More info but links not live

https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

Four book covers Highgate Cemetery Murders - woman walks into spooky graveyard at night, dark dress, holding lantern An Act of Mercy - a cut-throat razor on a wooden floor, both bloody Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane - like a shouty Victorian tabloid with a sketch of a man attacking a woman with a hammer The Inspector and Mrs Jeffries - a woman and an inspector in silhouette against a cartoonish house in mauve. "sometimes a housekeeper's job is murder) light hearted feel

The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder is getting love for its research and voice.

"With the perfect mix of meticulous research, emotional depth and a rollicking good story besides, Stephen Cox delivers surprises to the very end."

"the voice is wholly Victorian and delightfully understated and wry."

free eBook if you sub to my newsletter

https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

quoted The Mission by Tim Weiner

Tim Weiner: The Mission (AudiobookFormat, Mariner Books)

Amerine had fresh intelligence that Taliban fighters were preparing to attack from a hideout over the next ridgeline. His air support officer made a careless and catastrophic error when he sent the coordinates to a B-52H Stratofortress bomber ready to attack. He had called in an air strike on his own position.

A two-thousand-pound smart bomb came screaming across the sky and struck Team Echo. "The doors and windows flew out," Karzai recounted six months later to a reporter. "I got injured on my face and my head, and I saw this very good fellow, a very nice man, Greg, jump out of his place and just throw himself on me. It was very remarkable, very remarkable. And the tribal chiefs followed; they all covered me from all around." Dirt and rocks and flesh and bones rained down. Explosions shook the earth, and the stunned and shellshocked Afghans thought that the town was under attack by bin Laden's Arab fighters. But it wasn't al Qaeda; it was Team Echo's arsenal of rocket-propelled grenades cooking off. Dazed and bleeding, Karzai saw scores of dead and wounded outside the compound. He slowly realized that "it was not a rocket attack on our room or an RPG attack on our room. It was something else." It was the worst friendly-fire attack by American forces in the decade since the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. Three American special-forces officers were killed and twenty soldiers and spies were wounded. At least fifty Afghans died.

— The Mission by 

#TimWeiner #CIA #USA #Afghanistan #war #murder #massacre

For book titles, should this murder mystery be entitled

*A* Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder or
*The* Crooked Medium's Guide To Murder

???

Picture: The Golden Witch, George Chapman, a beautiful young woman in a golden dress, period uncertain, against a cloudy sky and with a castle in the distance.

Picture: The Golden Witch, George Chapman, a beautiful young woman in a golden dress, period uncertain - Victorian idea of Renaissance? - against a cloudy sky and with a castle in the distance. She's holding a long twig with perhaps beech leaves?

Thus, Luigi Mangione is considered a terrorist, but white supremacists murdering activists, and cops killing civilians, are not. And, of course, people dying from dangerous products, unsafe workplaces, denied insurance claims, that's just a cost of business.

Noam Chomsky once said the word "terrorism" just means "violence not approved by the state." Things start to make a lot more sense once it's re-framed like that. The State has no problem with violence and death on massive scales. They just want a monopoly over it.