Super Furry Animals

The fantastic folk at Fantasy Book Spot bring us the first sighting of Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR, the follow-up to THE SILVER SWAN, which is currently being serialised in the New York Times on Sundays. The first paragraph, which suggests Blanco has updated the series a tad from 1950’s Ireland, runneth thusly:

“The researcher was a very tall, very thin young man with a head too small for his frame and an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball. He wore rimless spectacles, the lenses of which were almost invisible, the shine of the glass giving an extra lustre to his large, round, slightly bulging black eyes. A spur of blond hair sprouted from his chin, and his brow, high and domed, was pitted with acne scars. His hands were slender and pearly pale, with long, tapering fingers — a girl’s hands, or at least the hands a girl should have. Even though he was sitting down, the crotch of his baggy jeans sagged halfway to his knees. His none-too-clean T-shirt bore the legend “Life Sucks and Then You Die.” He looked about 17 but must be, John Glass guessed, in his late 20s, at least. With that long neck and little head and those big, shiny eyes, he bore a strong resemblance to one of the more exotic rodents, though for the moment Glass could not think which one.”

We’re betting it’s Mickey Mouse. For the rest, jump over here …

An Unfair Cop, Guv

Brian Lindemuth was kind enough to drop us a line and let us know that Fantasy Book Spot is expanding its reach by moving into the realms of mystery and crime fiction. And where better place to start than with the publication of an excerpt from Sir Kenneth of Bruen’s (right) sparkling new – and tantalisingly as yet unpublished – standalone, ONCE WERE COPS, which comes courtesy of Fantasy Book Spot’s third issue of their Heliotrope e-zine. The opening salvo runneth thusly:

ONCE WERE COPS, by Ken Bruen

Kurt Browski, built like a shit brickhouse and just as solid. A cop out of Manhattan South, he was having a bad day.
Much like most days.
His heritage was East European but contained so many strands, not even his parents knew for sure it’s exact basis.
And cared less.
They wanted the American Dream.
Cash … and cash … and yeah, more of same.
They didn’t get it.
Made them mean.
Very.
His mother was a cleaner and his father had been a construction worker but had settled into a life of booze, sure beat getting up at 5.00 in the morning.
His father beat his mother and they both beat Kurt.
Somehow, he, if not survived them, got past them and finished High School, joined the Cops.
He wanted to be where you gave payback.
That was how he saw the force, emphasis on force. He was certainly East European in his view of the boys in blue, they had the juice to lean on … who-ever-the-fuck they wished.
And he did.
Hard.
His early weapon of choice was a K-bar.
Short, heavy and lethal and you could swing it real easy, plus, they rarely saw it coming.
They were watching your holstered gun and wallop, he slid the bar out of his sleeve and that’s all she wrote.
His rep was built on it and over the years, he became known as Kebar.
Did he care?
Not so’s you’d notice. He didn’t do friends, so what the fuck did he care …

For the rest, jump on over to the latest Heliotrope. But keep a weather eye out for that K-bar, eh?