Deception

The world is a dangerous place, and every country has men and women tasked to protect it. These people go by many names: secret agent, intelligence officer, and analyst are just a few. Harry is one such person. He is an analyst. He spends his time reading, researching, and analyzing, followed by writing reports that often never see the light of day.

Harry is well educated with a seemingly important job, but Harry is bored. Bored, because analysts never get to be the hero, never get to order cocktails stirred not shaken, and, never, never, get the girl. Harry is frustrated, frustrated because his superiors told him the report he just spent six months working on is to be tabled, and no, he can’t have a field operative to work with to follow up.

Harry has one very dangerous character flaw, he has an imagination, not something the men on the Top Floor appreciate. Harry needs to prove himself; he needs some excitement in his life, and that excitement comes in a deadly package of intrigue and murder that combines something called the Sister Project with a Russian master spy, H, K. Kyrsa, code name, the Beautiful Rat, and the devastatingly gorgeous Harriet. The question is, is it all just happening in Harry’s head, or is there a real plot that needs to be stopped? Is Harry just plain crazy, or are the Russians out to mess with the West one more time? Harry is on his own, not sure who to trust. Are there any good guys in the world of espionage? The only way to find out is to find Kyrsa, the Beautiful Rat. Join Harry in his search for what may not even be real.

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Delusion: Lucy’s Breath

On a chilly November New York City morning in 1953, a scientist working for the CIA on psychotropic mind-control experiments walked off the tenth-floor balcony of the Statler Hotel. He had become increasingly disenchanted with the bizarre and incredibly dangerous work he had been doing in service to national security. Despite the patriotic rationale, the scientist felt his life’s work was immoral and most certainly illegal. He wanted out, unfortunately, he knew too much, and knowing too much is a very precarious position to be in if you work for a clandestine operation run by America’s very own version of Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death.

The scientist insisted on getting out, and out he got, through the window and off the balcony of the Statler Hotel on that brisk Fall morning in Manhattan. Was suicide his solution for terminating his deal with the devil or did the devil do him in? It’s impossible to say. The evidence although in plain sight is murky and blurred by time and the self-preservation of those responsible.

America has a fundamental flaw, an Achilles heel of perspective and attitude; it fails to understand history and its place in it. In the words of philosopher, George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If you believe it can’t happen here, I urge you to take a look at The Wall Street Putsch of 1933, and the name of one of the participants. You might find it informative. It could happen again. America is under siege by a series of existential threats. It’s not some crackpot conspiracy theory; it’s history. The question I have is: which is more dangerous, the external threat or the internal threat?

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Dilemma

A poisoned accountant, a Chinese painter with an infamous Italian name, the People’s Minister of Science and Technology, his brother the Director of the Enterprise Division of the Ministry of State Security, and Harry, the art dealer who moonlights as a Secret Intelligence Service agent are the players in the search for why D. D. Greyson was poisoned by a seventeenth-century Italian cosmetic favoured by disillusioned wives.

The business of intelligence is often referred to as information gathering. A simple proposition: gather enough data so the politicians can make informed, rational decisions on things like national security, or on whether or not one of the several competing forces in the world is about to go all ballistic on your ass. But the problem is not too little information, but too much. There are cameras everywhere and facial recognition software that allows agencies to track anyone’s movement day and night. The various intelligence services have so much information at their disposal, it becomes difficult to decide what is relevant, actionable, or even real. It is the paradox of choice, paralysis of analysis, or if you prefer, the spy’s dilemma. No one knows what is real, what is noise, or what is purposeful misdirection.

And so our hero, Harry, becomes a player, not because he is particularly brave or expert in the art of manipulation or even killing, but rather because he has an imagination. He is a man who can conjure reality out of abstraction and that particular skill can be a very important asset when it comes to playing three-player Chinese checkers with competing Beijing interests.

The worlds of art and national security collide on the streets of London leaving a trail of burned paintings, dirty payoffs, dead bodies, and corrupted microchips.

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Diversion: Ahab’s Folly

A Tale of Spies, Lies, and Wise‑Guys

Harry is drawn back into the Quandary orbit when his restaurant partner goes missing, and a dead North Korean RGB agent is found murdered on Benten Island under the torii gate of the Itsukushima Shrine, near Matsumae Castle in Hokkaido, Japan. A Japanese Naicho CIRO Agent, a Mossad, Kidon Agent, and twin brother casino operators, join Harry and his Quandary colleagues to unravel the latest attempt by the Chinese and North Koreans to disrupt the financial institutions in the West.

Are the documents found on the dead RGB agent clues to a North Korean kidnapping scheme to raise money to pay their Chinese benefactors for keeping the Kim regime afloat? Or, perhaps, the purpose is merely to keep the North Korean Generals well-stocked in the finest Irish whiskey and French Champagne so the Supreme Leader can sleep with at least one eye closed? On the other hand, maybe it’s a smokescreen, a feint attack to hide the real, more nasty and nefarious plot to cause havoc in the situation rooms of Whitehall and the White House. And what does Harry’s missing business partner have to do with it? Or, is the missing Sydney Katz just a coincidence, but then Harry doesn’t believe in coincidences.

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Defection: Dragonfly

Three Women, Three Agendas, One Dragonfly

A new entry in the Deception series, Defection, details the kidnapping of Rita Daveed, aka Harriet. The MSS needs to retrieve an audio SD card that will reveal the identity of Dragonfly, a Chinese sleeper agent embedded high-up in Vauxhall Cross. Defection is a story of treason, betrayal, and revenge. Three women with varying agendas clash over identifying the elusive spy known only as Dragonfly.

Before Rita is taken on orders from Yang Bo, the Director of the UFWD, she manages to leave behind a clue, a postcard from the Bowley Gallery in London, with a cryptic message scrawled on the back, “Find Harry!”

Yang Hu, an MSS agent and daughter of Yang Bo, decides she’s had enough international intrigue. She makes the decision to defect to Great Britain. Hu’s get-out-of-China-alive card is her knowledge of who Dragonfly really is. She contacts Arty Pearl, Rita’s boyfriend, telling him she knows where Rita is being held. In return, she wants Arty to inform Harry: MI6 has a mole. The Quandary Team, now led by Harry, finds circumstantial evidence to suggest Alice May, the Special Assistant to the Chief of SIS, is Dragonfly. Sir William refuses to believe his longtime assistant is a spy. But he does authorize Harry to arrange Yang Hu’s defection on the condition she reveals the true identity of the mole. Unfortunately, Sir William dies of a heart attack before Harry can make the arrangements. The new Acting Chief is a former Cabinet Minister and party hack, Thomas Burgundy-Smith. Burgundy-Smith rescinds the defection order, fires Harry, disbands Quandary, and promotes Alice May.

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The Axel Files: Florence’s Floozy

Who Will Find The Savola Diamond, And Who Will Die Trying?

What would you do to be rich? Not just rich, but fabulously rich. Perhaps you are that unique soul that has no dreams, no aspirations, no agenda… well if you are, good luck. It must be a very dreary existence. But if you’re like the rest of us, you have a fantasy, a vision of what could be, of what you could be. Maybe that dream is selfish, or maybe it’s altruistic, or maybe… it’s extremist.

What if there was a family jewel, an exquisite 133 carat pink piece of perfection, a diamond that historically belonged to you, and what if that gem was stolen and disappeared for eighty years? And what if, rumour had it, that diamond suddenly reappeared? What lengths would you go to get it back? And what if the person who stole that diamond promised it to some very bad people so he could get his family to safety during a war. And what if that person was murdered for making that Faustian deal that he refused to deliver on? What if… What if… When people are desperate, when people run out of options, when people have no other place to go… who do they turn to? Perhaps to a man like Axel Webb. Why? Just ask him. He’ll tell you: “I find things; I find out things about things; and I find evidence of things.” So it’s not surprising that an exiled Italian Conte and his wife, a pair of religiously motivated social extremists, and the great-granddaughter of the man who stole the gem all find their way to Axel Webb’s office. International intrigue, religious extremism, self-preservation, and murder are all facets of the glittering pink prize. Who will find it, and at what cost? Or does it even still exist?

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The Axel Files: The Cherrywood Box

Little Frankie Darling wants revenge, Asami Sato wants her inheritance, and Oyabun Kitsune wants the magic artifact hidden in the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old cherrywood box. They each pay investigator, Axel Webb, to find the box, but things are not always what they seem, and people always lie to conceal their secret agendas.

Two seemingly disparate events, oceans and years apart, cause ripples of consequences that reverberate around the world until they come crashing down on Axel Webb’s desk. Axel will do just about anything for a buck, but when Little Frankie and his wooden pal come calling. Axel turns them down. Little Frankie Darling wants Axel to find the men that killed his Pops, that’s all, just find them; he’ll do the rest. But when Axel asks him what that means, Little Frankie tells him the truth: “Axel, old buddy, I’m going to kill the fuckers. That’s what I’ll do the rest means.” As I said, Axel will do almost anything for money, but setting someone up to get whacked isn’t in his job description.

Webb’s specialty is finding things, not people, things that have been lost, stolen or misappropriated by some nefarious means. So when Asami Sato interrupts Axel’s breakfast with a case that involves purchasing a cherrywood box of historic Shunga woodblocks, Axel takes the bait. What Sato doesn’t tell Axel is: she and Little Frankie are a thing: a very odd thing indeed, considering Little Frankie only speaks through an antique ventriloquist’s.

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The Axel Files: The History of Cardenio

Vero Nihil Verius

People find comfort in the histories that connect them to our combined continuum. It provides purpose to our fleeting existence. Adopted children invariably need to know who they are, where they came from, and how they are connected to their personal stories. And so, English artist Alice Bulbeck and her twin brother Edward approach Axel Webb to find a lost Shakespeare play entitled The History of Cardenio. The play, performed only once for James I, has been lost for four hundred years. It is the only known play accredited to William Shakespeare that has never been published. The question is, why? Controversy has surrounded the authorship of the Shakespeare plays ever since they were written four centuries ago. Many contemporary dramatists have been cited as the true author of the plays; one such man is Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, formerly known as Viscount Bulbeck. Why are orphaned twins, born to a Shoreditch bag lady known as Mad Alice, named Edward and Alice Bulbeck. It is the same question the Bulbeck twins ask investigator Axel Webb to answer. If Axel can find Cardenio, he’ll discover the answer.

But history is not truth: history is a sloppy goulash of fact, fable, and self-interest. And those whose interest is tarnished by finding the truth will do anything to stop it from coming into the open. If Oxford can be proven to be the author of Cardenio: it would cost Theo Payne-Foster, CEO of Payne-Foster Publishing, a fortune. Payne-Foster will do anything to stop that from happening. His main obstacle, the man he must stop, is Axel Webb.

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The Axel Files: The Disappeared Honjō Masamune

Investigator Axel Webb is hired by a Japanese Naichō Agent, to find the Honjō Masamune katana that was last seen in 1945 when it was taken from a Mejiro Police Station by a U.S. Army Sergeant. The Sergeant’s name was recorded by the police in Japanese. Unfortunately, there is no record of anybody by that name serving in Japan. The katana is considered the most perfect sword ever made. It is also a symbol of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Japanese government does not want the lost National Treasure to fall into the hands of a newly formed Neo-fascist political party determined to gain power.

The Meiyo Aru Dōmei, is an alliance of fourteen of the most extreme right-wing groups, including politician Junichi Kato, Yakuza, Fukashi Nakamura, and Daizō Hokama, Leader of the alliance. Hokama wants to use the katana as a symbol his followers can get behind.

A Toronto podcaster discovers the correct name of the Sergeant who picked up the sword, but he is murdered before getting the chance to reveal the name. His daughter hires Axel to find who killed her father. Axel and a sumo-sized Yakuza known as, Ōotoko, track the sword to a Buffalo gangster, Jimmy Kowalski. But the sword is stolen from him by Nakamura’s men before Axel can negotiate a deal.

Axel must deny the extremists their symbol and return it to the government, but Buffalo gangster, Jimmy Kowalski, wants his sword back, no matter the cost. And Daizō Hokama will do anything, including murder, to keep it.

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The Axel Files: The Pakal Robbery

The Theft of The Century - “El Robo del Siglo”

On Christmas Eve, 1984, two Mexican veterinarian dropouts broke into the Museo Nacional del Antropologia. They stole over one hundred ancient Mayan treasures found in the tomb of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, a discovery that rivals Tutankhamun in beauty, wealth, and cultural significance. The burglary became known as the El Robo del Siglo: The Theft of the Century.

The authorities’ incompetence and corruption led to the case going cold. The Museum didn’t even know how many artifacts were stolen. Four years later, the apprehension of an Acapulco drug dealer leads the police to arrest several suspects, including one of the thieves. Most of the relics were recovered, but not all. It is believed the second thief, who disappeared shortly after the robbery, escaped with the remaining treasures.

For forty years, nothing new was discovered about the second thief or the missing King Pakal relics. Until Gabriela Flores, a Mexican author living in Toronto, pitches a book about Mayan civilization to a local literary agent, Anthony Brizzi. In her meeting with Brizzi, Gabriela notices a glass display that houses what Gabriela believes are some of the missing artifacts from the Pakal Robbery. Gabriela is the niece of former Federal Police Subinspector Benito Pérez, a friend of Toronto private investigator Axel Webb. Gabriela hires Axel with her Uncle’s help to discover if the items in the literary agent’s glass display case are the missing Mayan treasures.

Before Axel can even get started, the literary agent is murdered. And the items in the glass display case go missing. The more Axel investigates, the darker and more dangerous the case gets with the additional murders of Gabriela and a mysterious man known as El Agente. Axel travels from Toronto to Ensenada, Mexico and Spain, searching for who killed his friend’s niece. Everything depends on finding the second thief and the missing Mayan treasures.

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The Axel Files: Finding Lunia

Woman With A Fan
La Femme à l’Éventail

In my business, you meet all kinds of people; some, let’s call them civilians, are ordinary, what the politicians call “folks;” then there are the characters, the peculiar sorts, people with strange peccadilloes: what an old friend of mine might call, “people who scare the horses.” Some, let's call them “the desperate:” come to me because they find themselves in a situation, sometimes of their own making and other times… well… let’s just say, imposed upon them. In each case, they have secrets: something they’d like to hide from the authorities and me, things like felonies, misdemeanours, mishaps, or misunderstandings. These cases are always about one of two things: money or women, but sometimes neither money nor women come in the form you'd expect, which brings me to the case of "Finding Lunia."

It all started one day when Jacob Lerner, a young Aussie artist nicknamed Garbo, walked into my office carrying a painting. Not just any canvas, but a masterpiece he claimed he’d found in the trash in a Montmartre back alley. If the artwork was the original, it was one of five masterpieces stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris on a warm Spring night in 2010 by the renowned second-story burglar, L’Araignée, The Spider.

The painting is a Modigliani portrait of Lunia Czechowska, one of five expressionist masterpieces stolen by L’Araignée and supposedly dumped in the trash by a nervous associate who was supposed to hold onto the canvases for safekeeping, not that anyone in their right mind actually believed someone would throw one hundred million dollars worth of art into the trash. Usually, I am hired to find some lost, stolen or misappropriated object, but in this case, the item found me, or so my Aussie client claimed. If you believe the story that played out in a Paris courtroom in 2017, then it would make sense to believe the story told to me by Jacob Lerner. All I had to do was prove the painting wasn’t a forgery. The trouble is twenty percent of the canvases in the world’s most prestigious museums are fakes, and Modigliani is one of the most frequently forged artists. Money and women: this case involves both, but not necessarily in the ways you’d expect.

Axel Webb
Private Investigator

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The Axel Files: The Fiddler’s Strad

Morello’s Stradivarius

Antonius Stradivari was the premiere maker of string instruments during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Only six hundred and fifty Stradivarius instruments still exist; each is worth millions of dollars. Like many historic masterpieces, these instruments, particularly the violins, have become the targets of thieves. Unfortunately for the thieves, Stradivarius violins are nearly impossible to fence. As such, only a handful have been stolen, usually by amateurs.

Rather than planned Thomas Crown-like burglaries, these thefts tend to be robberies of opportunity. Eventually, most of these crimes are solved. The robber typically hides his prize in a closet. When he dies, a relative usually finds the instrument while cleaning. But this was not the case for the missing Morello Stradivarius.

Edith Morello was once considered the finest female violinist of the twentieth century. A designation she resented bitterly for adding the word female to the description. Edith Morello was a great artist, but she was also a nasty, cheap, abusive prima donna who expected those around her to be at her beck and call twenty-four hours a day. Morello died at age ninety-one in 1995. There were a handful of people who accepted Morello’s abusive behaviour because they respected her long-lost talent. Others stayed because Morello promised them her prized violin. In the end, the violin was stolen a week before Morello died. Those who took Morello's abuse were further disappointed when they learned she left her entire substantial estate, including the missing violin, to charity.

The NYPD, the FBI, and Interpol failed to solve the case. The violin has been missing for thirty years. Only one man can find the violin. That man is Private Investigator Axel Webb. It’s not a case Axel wants to take, but it is a case he has to take. His old nemesis, the Russian gangster Vladimir Bok, figures Axel owes him for helping destroy his profitable art forgery ring. Bok’s mistress, Lena Petrenko, a violinist of note in Moscow, wants the Morello Stradivarius, and she wants her lover, Bok, to get it for her. The price for keeping Bok away from Axel's business is finding the fiddle.

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The Axel Files: The Man With 21 Faces

Sweet Revenge Is A Bitter Treat

The Man With 21 Faces is back.

Private Detective Axel Webb is called to Japan by his Yakuza partner and friend, Hibiki Sato, to help the authorities find who’s behind the new threats. Axel’s expertise is finding lost, stolen, or misappropriated relics of great value, not people. However, the Japanese Naichō and PSIA requested his unofficial help in solving the problem. Axel has no choice but to help.

The Man With 21 Faces has remained silent for forty years. But in 1984, his crime spree involved kidnapping, property destruction, corporate harassment, product poisoning, and demands for ransoms, none of which were ever collected. The Man With 21 Faces may not have profited from his crime, but he did almost bankrupt two giant snack food and baby food manufacturers by randomly poisoning packages of their products.

The failure of the police to capture The Man With 21 Faces was so damaging to the public’s confidence in the authorities that the police Superintendent in charge of the investigation committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Now, after forty years, The Man With 21 Faces is back, and this time he means to collect.

Like most of Axel’s cases, the solution lies in the forgotten history that predates the 1984 incidents, a history forgotten by the public and the authorities but not by those who suffered from corporate greed, court corruption, and a government coverup that ruined thousands of lives.

For The Man With 21 Faces, revenge is a bitter treat.

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The Axel Files: The Blue Diamond Affair

The Search for the Saudi Blue

Ari Katz, an old friend and Israeli Lahav 433 Agent, approaches Investigator Axel Webb to find the Saudi Blue, a 50-carat blue diamond stolen in 1989 by a Thai servant, Jira Bun Ma, working at the palace of a Saudi Prince. After a quick Thai police investigation, Bun Ma was arrested. Most of the gems were found and returned to the Saudis with great fanfare. Unfortunately, many items returned were fakes and not the original gems stolen. The most valuable of the missing gems was the Saudi Blue. When Saudi officials noticed newspaper photographs of the wives of high-ranking members of the Thai police and government wearing the Prince’s jewellery, they knew they’d been played. The result was the murder of three Saudi diplomats and a Saudi businessman and friend of the Prince. The diplomatic disaster led to thirty years of tensions between the two countries. In January 2022, the two countries ended their feud even though the Saudi Blue was still missing.

The Israelis want Axel to find the diamond so they can quietly return it to the Saudis to cement their cooperation in assisting in the elimination of terrorist groups in the region. It could also lead to the signing of the stalled Abraham Accords.

Israeli intelligence believes the Saudi Blue is in the hands of an expat Thai living in Toronto who has ties to the corrupt bureaucrats and politicians involved in the fake gem scandal that led to the diplomatic rift. Axel’s partner, the Yakuza Oyabun, Hibiki Sato, locates several possible suspects: a former Thai restaurateur whose wife is related to high-ranking Thai government officials, a former Thai Deputy Minister of Industry who was responsible for the success of the Thai gem trade, and the son of a Chao pho gangster who runs a chain of successful Muay Thai training facilities.

To find the Saudi Blue, Axel and Ari have to dig deep into the thirty-five-year-old cold case that resulted in multiple murders and a diplomatic disaster. They also have to contend with Kamal Jabari, a Saudi Mabahith assassin whose mission is to find and eliminate the people who killed his fellow countrymen.

An audacious robbery, multiple assassinations, diplomatic discord, crooked police, corrupt authorities, a Chao pho gangster, rival intelligence agencies and Axel all collide in the search for the Saudi Blue.

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The Axel Files: The Cherub & The Chariot

Private Investigator Axel Webb is drawn into an intricate web of revolution, greed, and infidelity when his Russian nemesis, gangster Vladimir Bok, pressures Axel to find a missing Fabergé Egg: an exquisite example of Russian Imperial craftsmanship that disappeared sometime in the 1930s. Wealthy Americans jumped at the chance to collect these works of art when successive Bolshevik regimes sold off these national treasures to fund their political and economic incompetence. Decades later, national pride demanded the repatriation of as many of the fifty-two eggs created as possible. Most of the eggs are accounted for, except six. One of the six has been dubbed The Cherub and The Chariot due to its design, described as a gold putto pulling a cart that holds a bejewelled, gold egg that opens to reveal a clock. The House of Fabergé created the egg for Tsar Alexander III to give to his wife, Maria Feodorovna, for Easter in 1885.

Axel is approached by Monty Brown, a former colleague he worked with, to find the egg. Monty is an art expert and conman by trade, but Axel ignores Monty’s penchant for double-dealing because he’s a friend. And because Bok threatened to kill Monty if he couldn’t get Axel to help. Bok isn’t your average mobster; he’s connected to the one man who controls everything in Russia: the other Vladimir. He’s been given diplomatic status, so he’s free to do whatever is necessary to find and purchase the missing eggs. Axel’s expertise is finding lost or stolen works of art, so Bok needs his help, but Axel and Bok have too much history for Bok to contact Axel directly, so he uses Monty as his go-between.

Reluctantly, Axel takes on the case that leads him to Hollywood, an estate lawyer, a disgraced former movie star, and the great-granddaughter of the illegitimate daughter of the oil baron who the Kremlin ordered to turn the Imperial treasures into cash. But nothing Axel does is ever uncomplicated. During the hunt for the missing Easter egg, Axel discovers what he thinks is a missing Oscar plaque that could be the one rumoured to have been stolen during the 1938 Academy Awards. The discovery is somehow connected to the missing egg. Success in the case of The Cherub and Chariot is an elusive objective. A fat fee doesn’t balance the betrayal Axel feels when the truth is finally revealed.

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The Outlaw Rider

“If you’re not prepared to cheat, you’re not prepared to win.” Jesse James, the daughter of a deceased mob connected rug salesman, becomes a jockey working for the Hong Mian triad in order to feed winners to State Senator Samuel Somersby. The Senator is responsible for approving California gaming licenses. To date, only Native CANGV casinos are allowed to have slots. California horse racing will die if they aren’t allowed to add slot machines to their venues. Benson Yeung, Dragon Head of the Hong Mian triad, and his chief lieutenant, Johnny Luck, have a plan to force Somersby to approve their Native partner’s demands for off-reservation gaming licenses. At the center of the plan is a unique white thoroughbred Spirit horse, prized by Native people, appropriately named Medicine Hat.

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Dead End: There Are No Good Guys

It started five years earlier with the murder of Peter Pretty Boy Chen, a low level soldier for Benson Yeung’s Hong Mian triad. Fast forward five years. We first met Jesse James in The Outlaw Rider, when she was a young female jockey making a name for herself on the track and off under the guidance of her mentor, triad big shot, Johnny Luck. Jesse has moved up the Hong Mian ladder, and has made herself a major triad player, but the past is never so far behind that it doesn’t affect the present.

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Palermo: A Place To Die

The race took place in picturesque Palermo, Sicily, but this wasn’t your typical horse race with rules designed to protect the horses, jockeys and bettors; this was a Mafia sponsored street race: a blood sport free-for-all more suited for the Coliseum than the backstreets of the scenic Sicilian town. Race promoter, Santos Luzzato, nephew to Nicky The Mushroom Fungo, wanted in on his American Uncle’s horse racing connections with the LA triads. The race leads to a series of decisions that end with a suspicious car accident that kills billionaire heiress and race horse owner, Josephine Somersby Murphy, sister to the Governor of California, Samuel Somersby, a man with Presidential ambitions and ties to Johnny Luck, LA triad big shot.

Love, sex, murder, and race horses create a toxic mix of intrigue and suspense that drives Luck’s protégé, Jesse James, to Sicily, Argentina, England, and Switzerland in her pursuit of the truth. Who killed Josephine Murphy? Was it Luzzato, Nicky Fungo, Murphy’s brother, the Governor, or was it someone closer to Jesse.

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Stone Cold: Between a Stone and a Hard Place

On the surface Major William Stone (Retired) is a rich, English expatriate living in Argentina where he runs an art gallery. Stone inherited the bulk of heiress Josephine Murphy’s estate when she died in a questionable car accident in the hills of Palermo, Sicily. After receiving the inheritance, Stone disappears to reemerge in Argentina leading a quiet and peaceful life but his good fortune is tempered by the fact he left the love of his life, Jesse James, protégé to gangster Johnny Luck, back in LA. The problem is, Major William Stone died in the Falkland Islands and the man now assuming his modified identity is disgraced MI6 financial wizard Jacob Conrad.

Stone Cold dives deep into the back-story of how Jacob Conrad becomes William Stone, why he disappeared leaving Jesse behind, and who’ll control the flow of cocaine into the USA. From Hong Kong to Palermo, London, Cacaloxuchitl, Mexico and Los Angeles, this is a tale of secret agents, drug dealers, money launders, and murders, all wrapped in a delicious recipe of greed, envy, cocaine, and peanut butter chili.

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The Aussie Switch

Horse trainers, Davey and Pauly Cisco are looking for a fresh start in Southern California after wearing out their welcome in their native Australia. The Cisco twins are identical in looks but not personality; Pauly, like most horse trainers, pushes the envelope of acceptable practice, while his look-alike brother rips through regulations with regularity and abandon. It didn’t take long for the two brothers to hook-up with a couple of conmen: an expert computer hacker who likes e-gaming and a shyster stock promoter on the lookout for eager marks willing to blow their fortunes on a shady horse-betting consortium. The one thing they didn’t count on is an associate of Benson Yeung’s Hong Mian triad; an ex South Korean Colonel who operates a crooked international gambling empire. Two corrupt confidence men, unethical twin horse trainers, and doppelgänger thoroughbreds add up to a combustible confluence of confusion, miss-direction, and murder, with tentacles that twist their way through LA, Sidney, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Macau.

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Ballet of Bullets, The Game Is Dodging Death

Internet gambling and the expansion of casinos beyond the Nevada State Line have put a financial strain on racetracks. Johnny Luck, Hong Mian triad big shot, and his beautiful blonde ex-jockey protege, Jesse James, are always on the lookout for ways to expand the triad’s gambling operation. Back in the fifties and sixties, Jai Alai was a big deal in Florida. Gamblers would fill the frontons and drop thousands of dollars betting on Basque athletics competing in a sport that was so dangerous it was referred to as the Ballet of Bullets and The Game Is Dodging Death.

Johnny Luck sees the potential revenue that could be produced by resurrecting the all but dead blood sport. The question is, how to make it popular again? Jesse has the answer. Television. People will bet on anything; they will also watch anything, as witnessed by the plethora of cooking shows that feature ordinary people competing for who can fry the best egg. If there’s a competition, people will bet on who will win. But where there is money, there is corruption; enter the Miami Bettor’s Club, run by old Hong Mian rivals Tommy The King Kong and Marco Antonia Suarez, nicknamed El Astronauta. In the end, the Ballet of Bullets becomes all too real for the people fighting for control of the gambling revenue generated by the International Jai Alai League.

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The Method

A down-and-out actor with a knack for impersonations finds his circumstances completely reversed by a chance meeting with a look-alike stranger. After a night of drinking with his new friend discussing the possibilities made possible by their similar appearance, the stranger offers the actor a ride home.

On the way there is an accident and one of them is killed. The survivor finds himself in the hospital with amnesia and everyone assuming he’s the stranger, the right-hand man for a mob boss.

The survivor plays the role that’s expected of him, despite the fact that doubt about who he is, weighs heavy on his mind. Life becomes a balancing act between the role he finds himself playing and the search for who he really is: the down-and-out actor or the mob consigliere?

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The Comeuppance

When mob boss, Carmine DeSalvo, finds out his accident-prone, amnesiac right-hand man, Arnie Bernardo, isn’t who he thinks he is; when he decides Arnie’s girl, Lonnie, is too tempting to resist; and when hit men, Vito and Sid, figure Carmine is past his best before date; somebody ends up dead. Meanwhile Seymour Kratz, the guy running the mob’s movie operation, is skimming, and something has to be done about it.

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The Grist For The Mill

Things get complicated for Detectives’ Grist and Dime when they run into a case of murder that reeks of California corruption. When wannabe actress, come party girl, Lizzie Short, turns up dead on a beach behind the home of a prominent studio executive that works for ex-mobster Arnie Bernardo, anything is possible. Finding a murderer in a town thick with sex, betrayal, and revenge is no easy task for Grist and Dime.

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The Coffin Corner

Virginia Collins is not what she appears to be. By all outward appearances the successful uptown psychiatrist is just another beautiful dame who hires a private investigator to find her missing husband: a weird little man who makes fancy umbrella drinks and dresses like something out of an old gangster movie. Collins hides her real motives, along with her tragic past in order to win the affections of Raffy Rheinhardt, a cynical PI with an equally tragic history; a long forgotten shared incident resulting in damaged psyches and dead bodies. A hybrid Graphic Novel that redefines what a Graphic Novel should be.

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The Black Crane

A beautiful Japanese American graffiti artist seeks to revenge the murder of her revered tattoo master father, murdered on orders from a rogue CIA-FBI black ops operation, to cover up a bizarre mind-control plot to disrupt the increasing foreign influence of the LA Yakuza. Upon learning of her father’s death Michi is transformed from a peace loving traditional Japanese daughter into a revenge-seeking vigilante in the form of a Japanese style Bosozoku, dubbed The Black Crane.

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Noir I

Noir I is a series of four Neo Noir short stories. In The Gold Cricket, Detective Joanne Leslie has a fondness for the finer things in life, including the best cocaine money can buy. In The Bastard, a Russian gangster’s wife kidnaps her estranged husband’s illegitimate son and murder’s the Yakuza affiliated mother in order to protect her own daughter’s birthright. In Cine City, A-list actor, Bobby Richards hires a second-rate film producer to make an art film that’s guaranteed to lose money. In Killer Jazz, Maurice Delbourne, the jazz musician son of a legendary reggae star and political activist is targeted for death in LA. Rival Jamaican gangs.

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Noir II

Noir II is the second in a series of four Neo Noir short stories. In Cult, Rita Daveed, an ex Israeli intelligence officer, becomes the partner of a Hindu mystic, Baba Bhang, who promotes the pursuit of pleasure through marijuana and sex. In The Red Emperor, we answer the question, who killed Peter Pretty Boy Chen? In The Redhead Rip-off, a gorgeous redhead, an old man, and the second son of a triad Dragon Head try to pull-off the ultimate art forgery. In The Incident Report, USAF Major Willard White has a fatal flaw that gets him killed: he tells the truth about an unexplained encounter with an apparent alien presence.

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Cowboys, Lawmen, & Outlaws

When we think of the Old West, it seems like ancient history, but historically it was yesterday. Many of the characters of the post Civil War Old West lived well into the twentieth century: Bat Masterson died in 1921 and Wyatt Earp didn’t pass-on until 1929. Josie Bassett, one of the Wild Bunch girls managed to hang-on until 1963 and she only died then because she got kicked in the head by a horse. History doesn’t end with an era, remnants, artifacts, and people overlap. History doesn’t stop because technology and style moves on. The future is more likely to look like the movie Brazil with its jury-rigged conglomeration of antique flotsam and modern-day technological jetsam, than the bright shiny newness of Star Trek. Turning history into fantasy is dangerous; it leads to mistaken notions and bad decisions. Maybe it’s time to grow up and see the heroes of the Old West, as they really were, cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws.

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The Fixer

The true life story of a son of a concentration camp survivor left to fend for himself using his wit, charm, and guts to survive and prosper as a jockey, trainer, and fixer of horse races all while navigating through an environment populated by gamblers, gangsters, and billionaires.

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Beating The System

This is my life. My name and the names of the people and places have been changed for obvious reasons, but the incidents and experiences described all happened. This is real life, not a phony Hollywood version that demands things be packaged in a neat familiar framework with no loose ends. My life is full of loose ends, and many of them are still walking around.

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The Jockey

A Television Pilot Based on the Life of Jockey Ronny Kleinberg Ronny. Kleinberg, son of concentration survivor, is a tough kid looking to make his way in the world. His small size, physical toughness, and hard-ass attitude make him a perfect candidate for becoming a jockey. He quickly learns that a jockey’s life is dangerous and that survival means playing ball with men like Rocky and Pooch, New England gamblers looking to make a quick buck.

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Organized Crime Queens

From the bizarre world of female Japanese motorcycle gangs, Bosozoku, to the historic rise and fall of London’s Forty Elephants, the history of female organized crime is both fascinating and strange. These are the stories, both true and legendary of the female crime bosses that broke the mould of feminine gentility. This is, Organized Crime Queens, The Secret World of Female Gangsters.

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What’s Your Poison?

Why do we call mixed alcohol drinks “cocktails”? How do they get their exotic names: names like the Singapore Sling, Screw Driver, the Alamagoozlum, the Angel’s Kiss, the Hanky Panky, the Harvey Wallbanger, Sex On The Beach, the Monkey Gland, the Brass Monkey, the Margarita, the Japalac, the Lion’s Tail, and many, many more? Who makes up these names, where are they invented, why, and how do you make them? These questions will be answered in “What’s Your Poison?” by exploring the incidents, people, and places that prompted the creation of these exotic concoctions.

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Two Dragons Named Shoe

Two Dragons Named Shoe is the first in the series of children’s books produced by MRPwebmedia. The book uses colorful images and rhythmic poetic text to deliver an enjoyable, enlightening, and memorable experience. The book teaches children how the townsfolk used cooperation and discussion to solve the problem of two dragons with the same name.

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The Criminal McBride

The Criminal McBride tells the tale of a ne’er-do-well villain who tries very hard to find a place he can hide but ends up loosing his ill-gotten gains, and ends up alone on a desert island with only a couple of chimps to keep him company. The rhyming text and humorous colorful illustrations are designed to teach an entertaining lesson, fostering good behavior.

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The Town That Didn’t Speak

The Town That Didn’t Speak is all about the importance of communication. In the town nobody speaks to one another, and so things get confused, people don’t get what they want, and misunderstandings and disagreements result. Finally an outsider shows them the beauty and importance of communication. Teaching children to communicate is an important life skill that will serve them well throughout their lives.

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The Bad Puppeteer

The Bad Puppeteer teaches children that actions have consequences. It is a tale of over indulgence and fake promise wrapped in a humorous colorful wrapper: two lessons that help prepare youngsters for the complex world they live in. Too much of even a good thing can do harm. It also teaches children to be aware of con artists, whose sales pitches might not be what they seem.

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Mr. Bumbershoot, The Umbrella Man

Mr. Bumbershoot, The Umbrella Man is an amusing tale of an English shopkeeper who sells fancy umbrellas. The statue of Queen Victoria that sits outside the Victoria Train Station is very unhappy about sitting out in the cold and rain. All of London is mortified that the Queen is so unhappy, and so everyone tries to find a solution to the problem with Mr. Bumbershoot literally holding the answer in his hand.

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The Ninth Inning

We are all familiar with the classic tale of Casey at the Bat but that story was written a long time ago. I felt it was time for a new story about the best sport there is, baseball. Baseball is unlike any other game, it requires great individual skill, as well as practiced team co-ordination. In terms of life lessons, baseball has a lot to offer children. The Ninth Inning is a humorous take on the game with a nifty rhyme. I hope you like it.

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Double Take Marketing Techniques

“Double Take Marketing Techniques” is based on the notion that marketing needs to get people to pay attention to what you have to say by presenting marketing collaterals that force your audience to take a second look at whatever you’re presenting. After all, if people don’t absorb your message, you’re never going to sell them anything.

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What’s The Big Idea?

“What’s The Big Idea?” is more than just another business e-book touting the latest techno-gimmick or fad-app; it’s an organized approach to creative marketing strategy and concept development. The e-book contains a beautiful mind map chart for entrepreneurs to use as a guide in developing their own innovative marketing campaigns.

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Brand Universe

“Brand Universe, A Big Idea Marketing Strategy” builds on “What’s The Big Idea?” by providing an implementation roadmap that helps guide the entrepreneur through the process of building a Brand Universe around their Big Idea Strategy. Understanding that an audience lives vicariously through their favorite brand is the key to success.

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Website Confidential - The Ish Effect

We are pleased to introduce our new free marketing magazine made especially for entrepreneurs and marketing executives interested in building a unique brand identity with Big Idea Strategies.

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Website Confidential - Commercial Noir

Our latest edition of the free Website Confidential series focuses on how to use Film Noir techniques to connect to modern marketing prospects. We connect the dots between what it is, why it was developed, and how it might be the marketing strategy you’ve been looking for.

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