"Camp Cold Brook" released 2018

Camp Cold Brook, a horror film directed by Andy Palmer, was released February 14, 2018. The movie is about a group of paranormal investigators who set out to check out Camp Cold Brook in Oklahoma, where a mass murder occurred a few decades prior. Joe Dante was its executive producer and it starred Chad Michael Murphy.

Camp Cold Brook won Best Horror Feature at the Shriekfest.  Joe Dante won the Best Feature award at the Horrorhound Film Festival.

I enjoyed the movie but found it to be a little light on the horror. And the trope of an abandoned campground, haunted by a decades old crime is rather tired.  To me, it was mainly a suspense thriller, because most of the paranormal activity was witnessed by the audience and not the characters.  For example, when a girl escapes the shower imagining the room is filled with spiders, the ghost appears behind her.  She never sees it.  Another time, a character passes a wooden sign and fingers curl around the edge after the character walks past.

But I might watch it again.

"La Maison ensorcelée" released 1906

La Maison ensorcelee (The House of Ghosts or The Witch House), released February 9, 1906 in Denmark, is one of the first haunted house movies.  Directed by Segundo de Chomon, it uses stop-motion animation and superimposition photography to ramp up the spooky activity.

Two men and a woman take refuge in a small house in the woods and experience paranormal activity such as disappearing furniture, a knife cuts food by itself, and a ghost.

"Ghosts of the Arizona" is now on sale!

Ghosts of the Arizona, the fifth in my Psionic Corps mystery series, is now available at Purple Sword Publishing! 

Hawai'ian Psionic Officer Kenneth Nu'uani finds a body in scuba gear, floating near the USS Arizona in Oahu, Hawai'i.  It soon becomes known that the man didn't drown, so why was he desecrating a shrine dedicated to the people who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.  

Evidence indicates the man might have been murdered.  Kenny must use his paranormal powers to discover secrets that have been buried in the ruined battleship for decades and what was the diver after.

 

"A Faire Day for Murder" by Alan Scott is available from Purple Sword Publishing!

It's a re-release from earlier, but still, I'm excited to announce Purple Sword Publishing has released A Faire Day for Murder by Alan Scott.  

Blurb:

The brutal murder of an old man in his isolated farmhouse and very few clues leaves local law enforcement with no alternative but to ask the Psionic Corps for help.  Ian Houston with his paranormal abilities is called in but his presence isn’t welcomed by all.  The sheriff is convinced the owners of the nearby renaissance faire are behind the murder, especially since the victim was about to evict the faire from his land just as their season was getting underway. 

 

Ian is not convinced the case is so straightforward, especially since there are other people with just as motive for doing away with the old man; the neighbor whom he has had a long-going property dispute, the son who will inherit his lands although the farm isn’t very profitable; one of the many participants and patrons of the faire whom the old man harassed over the years.  To keep innocent people from being charged with murder, Ian must join the renaissance faire as a cast member to see if there is a murderer lurking among the ren folke.

 

Compounding his investigation is the beautiful actress Diana Morgan who instantly steals his heart.  But as a cast member, she is also under suspicion and Ian discovers she may have a dark past, too. 

 

A second murder confounds the investigation and the mystery becomes even more confused.  Meanwhile the sheriff is moving closer to charging the renaissance faire owners with murder.

 

Can Ian use his powers to find the real culprit and prove his new-found friends innocent?

Scorpion Nest by Alan Scott is now available on Amazon.com!

My third Psionic Corps mystery is now available on Amazon.com!  Check it out!

Purchase it here on Amazon.com!

Everyone in Opelousas, Louisiana hated Agnes Seyfert.  The sheriff, local businessmen, the gay priest she outed, even her own family.  When her body is discovered in her booby-trap laden house, nobody seems sad she’s dead.  Paranormal sleuth, Randy Arsenault, of the Psionic Corps is brought into the investigation and discovers she was suffocated, murdered in her own bed.  It is soon discovered she suffered from an advanced form of cancer and had high levels of arsenic in her system.

Randy realizes he has more suspects than he can count:  The dead woman’s three daughters, her grandchildren, a gay priest she outed, a local stylist, a mechanic and his own fiancé.

With a hurricane bearing down on Louisiana, Randy races against time to find out what actually happened to the old lady before Hurricane Abigail destroys everything.

New cover for A Faire Day for Murder!

I updated the cover for A Faire Day for Murder!  Check it out!

Purchase it here at Amazon.com!

A Faire Day for Murder by Alan Scott is now available on Amazon!

A Faire Day for Murder, the follow up to Inside Passage to Murder has been published and is available on Amazon.com! 

Blurb:

The brutal murder of an old man in his isolated farmhouse and very few clues leaves local law enforcement with no alternative but to ask the Psionic Corps for help.  Ian Houston with his paranormal abilities is called in but his presence isn’t welcomed by all.  The sheriff is convinced the owners of the nearby renaissance faire are behind the murder, especially since the victim was about to evict the faire from his land just as their season was getting underway. 

Ian is not convinced the case is so straightforward, especially since there are other people with just as motive for doing away with the old man; the neighbor whom he has had a long-going property dispute, the son who will inherit his lands although the farm isn’t very profitable; one of the many participants and patrons of the faire whom the old man harassed over the years.  To keep innocent people from being charged with murder, Ian must join the renaissance faire as a cast member to see if there is a murderer lurking among the ren folke.

Compounding his investigation is the beautiful actress Diana Morgan who instantly steals his heart.  But as a cast member, she is also under suspicion and Ian discovers she may have a dark past, too.

A second murder confounds the investigation and the mystery becomes even more confused.  Meanwhile the sheriff is moving closer to charging the renaissance faire owners with murder.

Can Ian use his powers to find the real culprit and prove his new-found friends innocent?

Chapter 1:

          Tom Eskew shifted in his favorite easy chair, situated in front of the television. The cushion sagged so much he felt his ample butt was only inches from the floor and the springs were poking him through the threadbare fabric.  He did not care.

          No one else, not even his son John, was allowed to sit there.

          He pointed the remote control at the television and began punching buttons to turn up the volume.  The channel changed instead.

          “Shit,” he mumbled.  “I’m gonna miss Wheel of Fortune.  I’ll never understand how to work this damn thing.”

          After a minute of trial and error, Tom managed to find the correct channel and appropriate level of house-shaking volume so he could hear.

          “Finally,” he said, just as the first puzzle appeared on the screen. The phone sitting on a table next to his chair shrilled.

          “Damn it,” he growled.  “Right in the middle of my show.”

     The old man picked it up and squinted at the numbers on the caller ID.

Another waste of money, he growled to himself.  What’s the use of having this feature on his phone if I can’t even see it?

“Hello!”  Tom barked into the receiver, his fleshy bulldog-like jowls quivering as he spoke.  It wasn’t a greeting as much as it was a challenge.  “What?”  He shouted as he tried to hear the caller over the TV.

“I said I ran off the road a few miles from the house, Dad!”

“What the hell did you do that for?”

 “Don’t worry about me, Dad.  I’ve already called Sheriff Weaver and he’s on his way!”  John went on without responding to the insult. 

Tom berated his son, shouting questions and issuing threats if the truck John had been driving was damaged in any way. 

“I think it’s totaled,” John replied.

“Well, you’re gonna pay for it.  I’m not buying another damn vehicle.”

Shouting a final threat in the phone, Tom slammed the receiver back into its cradle.  He sat back in his chair and glared back at the TV. 

          Commercials? What was that last puzzle?  I was about to solve it. He threw his hands up in disgust.

A sound behind him tore his attention away from his beloved program. 

“What now?”  He craned his neck to find the source of the sound.  All the windows had been opened to let in the cool air from the outside, with screens to keep the bugs out.  Everything seemed to be in order.  He was just about to turn back to the television when a movement behind him caught his eye.

He had no time to turn before a shot fired from a gun took the top of his head off, splattering the television screen with blood.  The rest of his body slumped back into the chair.

"Legacy of Hephaestus" by Alex Morgan re-released on Amazon!

My fourth Corey Shaw novel Legacy of Hephaestus is now live on Amazon!

Click here to go to Amazon!

Blurb:

Corey Shaw is trying to salvage what's left of his Baltic cruise vacation by sleeping his way across the Netherlands and Norway.  About the time he arrives in Amsterdam, the largest yellow diamond ever discovered, the Lava Diamond, is stolen from a diamond factory.

Corey is glad to leave the case in the hands of Dutch authorities, but when he gets to Oslo, a paramour is murdered.  For once in his lifetime, he is glad to see the end of a vacation. But things get worse when he returns to Boston.  The diamond shows up in an unlikely place and a volcanology professor on sabbatical in Norway has disappeared.

Thinking the stolen diamond case closed, Corey heads back across the Atlantic to help Norwegian police to search for the professor.  Soon he uncovers more than a missing persons’ case.  It is a plot to turn the diamond world on its head. 

"Invisible Curtain" by Alex Morgan re-released on Amazon!

My third Corey Shaw novel, Invisible Curtain, has been re-released and is available on Amazon!

Here is the link to Amazon.

Blurb:
Paranormal sleuth Corey Shaw is enjoying vacation with his family in the Baltic Sea when terrorists bomb restaurants hosting World Cup parties in London and Copenhagen. On each occasion the explosion coincides with the cruise ship leaving port. Although the United States isn’t attacked directly, Corey and his colleagues are unavoidably drawn into the investigation with or without the blessing of international intelligence agencies. When a third bomb goes off in St. Petersburg, Russia, Corey is convinced the answer lies aboard his ship. 

He must use all his psionic abilities to protect his family, and his friends, and keep the world safe from this worrying upsurge in international terrorism

"Breathless" by Alex Morgan re-released on Amazon!

I decided to go the self-publishing route now, so I'm re-releasing my Corey Shaw novels onto Amazon!  You can find it at this link.

Blurb:

Paranormal detective Corey Shaw, with abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance, is summoned to Provincetown during the annual leather Mates weekend, when the naked body of a young man is found. He had been tied up and beaten before being strangled. The police say murder but Corey suspects a BDSM scene got out of control. Searching the dungeons, he becomes immersed in the local scene and discovers a never-before-seen side of himself. In a sea of muscular leather masters and slaves, he realizes hidden urges in an environment where every fantasy can be fulfilled. He must set aside his sadomasochism desires and use his powers to locate the murderer before he kills again. Can Corey find him before becoming a victim to the ultimate BDSM fantasy of execution?

"The X Files" premieres 1993

Talk about cutting edge television and pushing the envelope!  The X-Files, creepy, spooky and totally entertaining, premiered on September 10, 1993.  A skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is assigned to assist FBI's premium pariah, Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in his investigations in the X-files, cases that involve strange phenomena and nobody else wants to handle.

The series, created by Chris Carter, covers everything from alien abduction, supernatural beings and paranormal events.  Over the span of its initial 11 seasons and now into the second season of its recent incarnation, the show has received 212 nominations including Primetime Emmys and Golden Globes and has won 96 of them.

It is listed as #86 on the highest ranked-television programs on imdb.com.

"Inside Passage to Murder" on Amazon and Smashwords!

I've decided to go the self-publishing route to continue my writing, and thanks to Tony at Glendale ePub Services my first novel Inside Passage to Murder is available as pre-order from Amazon.com and Smashwords.com.  The eBook and the Print-On-Demand formats will be available May 14, 2018! 

The links are below:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/824986

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1981041249

Blurb: 

Paranormal sleuth Mark Shotridge has a dream that indicates a cruise ship operating in Alaskan waters is in trouble.  He books passage on the ship to investigate his vision.  After leaving Seward the first night at sea, Mark has another vision that suggests someone has been thrown overboard into the icy waters of the north Pacific.  However, nobody is reported missing and Mark begins to question his special abilities. 

Soon crew member is found murdered in his cabin and Mark is certain that there is more going on than he originally suspected. The body count rises and he realizes that a serial killer might be on board but what is the reason behind the murders? 

Mark must use all of his powers to stop a ruthless killer before the ship docks in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Otherwise the tourism industry and the economy of Alaska may be destroyed.

Book review - "Third Eye" by Rick R. Reed

First, let me say I really liked this book. The paranormal aspect of the story is what caught my attention, of course, being an author of novels with similar themes.  In "Third Eye", Cayce (as in Edgar Cayce?) D’Amico, single gay father of Luke, gains strange abilities during a severe thunderstorm.  While looking for Luke, Cayce is struck by a falling branch when lightning strikes a tree next to him. 

Recovering in the hospital, Cayce begins to have ‘visions’. Two teenage girls have vanished from the small town of Fawcettville, Pennsylvania and the police are baffled.

Reluctantly, Cayce has to admit to himself the visions he sees in his heads are of the missing girls.  He contacts the local police detective with less than satisfactory results.  He decides to get in touch with one of the missing girls’ family with an even more disastrous outcome.  Not knowing what to do next, Cayce is surprised when the family of the second missing girl contacts him.

After much back and forth, Cayce leads the mother to the shallow grave of her daughter.  Soon after, Cayce’s son Luke is kidnapped and Cayce thinks he has to use his new-found abilities to save his son.

I found this to be the only downer of the story, (spoiler alert) Cayce’s clairvoyance did not lead him to his son.  It would have made for a more exciting climax to have him lead the police to Luke and become the hero to his son.

I’m not complaining about the final scene which the reader will find out for themselves, but the gay aspect seemed subdued and almost an afterthought.  However, one can easily empathize and relate Cayce and his current love situation.  We’ve all had those long dry spells and we’re afraid of losing our sanity.

The final scene also hints at a sequel.  I hope there is.

Another 4-Star review for "Legacy of Hephaestus"!

Dan Mitton, a reviewer at Love Bytes Same Sex Book Reviews posted a great review of "Legacy of Hephaestus"!

http://lovebytesreviews.com/2015/09/06/book-review-legacy-of-hephaestsus-a-corey-shaw-mystery-4-by-alex-morgan/

4 Star review for "Legacy of Hephaestus"!

Diane, a reviewer at Gay.Guy.Reading and Friends (GGR-Review - M/M Reviews) posted a great review of "Legacy of Hephaestus"! 

http://ggr-review.com/book-review-legacy-of-hephaestsus-a-corey-shaw-mystery-4-by-alex-morgan/

I know Corey would be flattered to be called 'incorrigible'.

The Privateer's Cross available now from JMS Books!

Originally published under the title, Soumets-toi a moi, The Privateer's Cross has been published and released now from JMS Books!

Blurb:

Henry meets Cole in a spooky cemetery for a quick hook-up during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  During their encounter, Henry finds a beautiful object in a pile of dirt.  They take it back to Henry’s hotel room and discover they have picked up an ancient and very valuable crucifix.  Suddenly, they are being followed by the ghost of a pirate, wanting his treasure returned.  They seek help for their situation only to find out it is Jean Lafitte, the French pirate who operated out of New Orleans in the nineteenth century.  Unfortunately there is no where to hide from a ghost, even among the thousands of people in town for the celebrations.  What must Henry and Cole do?  If they don’t give it back to him, the ghost has a particularly cruel fate awaiting them

"Invisible Curtain" released today!

The third Corey Shaw mystery is available today from Wilde City Press!

Paranormal sleuth Corey Shaw is enjoying vacation with his family in the Baltic Sea when terrorists bomb restaurants hosting World Cup parties in London and Copenhagen, just as his cruise ship leaves port.  Although the United States isn’t attacked, Corey and his colleagues are unavoidably drawn into the investigation with or without the blessing of international intelligence agencies.  When a third bomb goes off in St. Petersburg, Russia, Corey is convinced the terrorist is aboard his ship, or at least connected with it. 

Corey is torn between protecting his family and a ship’s dancer whom he’s falling for and helping keep the world safe from terrorism.



Excerpt:

Faruq Boussora gauged the distance between vehicles driving westbound on Lower Thames Street and when a gap appeared, he dashed across to the median, ignoring the horns blaring at him.  His heavy backpack jostled on his shoulders, causing him to stumble.  The straps rubbed sore spots on his back no matter how he tried to shift its weight.  He hacked a few times to clear his lungs of the diesel smoke and the stench from his nostrils.

He was on a mission of peace.  Although he knew many would think it was one of murder and terror, he didn’t care.  The infidels would see the truth, see the error of their ways.  They had developed weapons that were an abomination to mankind.  The infidels were abominations.  How would they like having those weapons turned against them? 

Would that make us just as guilty if we use them as well?  No.  The ends will justify the means.  Isn’t that the phrase the infidels always used? 

Faruq fancied himself being part of the new ambitious program.  Why else was he chosen for this mission, hand-selected from dozens of candidates?  He trained for months and now he was ready.

Faruq crossed Byward Street and entered the relative quiet of Great Tower Street.  A few steps away, he walked into the Hung, Drawn and Quartered Pub, a popular gathering place in London despite its macabre moniker.

He scanned the interior, noting with satisfaction the place wasn’t completely full.  The smell of food made his mouth water and his stomach growl with anticipation. More people entered behind him but his favorite booth sat empty and he made his way to it, avoiding waiters and waitresses carrying trays of food and pitchers of beer.  He sat his backpack on the floor underneath the table, relieved to be unburdened from its weight, and slid into the seat.

 

A young waitress with bleached white hair hanging to her shoulders appeared at his elbow. 

“ ’allo, Mr. ’alliwell,” she said, giving him a bright smile and making an effort to pronounce his name.  “’aven’t seen you in ‘ere for a while.”  Her tongue piercing glinted in the dim light of the pub as she spoke. 

Faruq bit his lip, preventing a smile from splitting his face at the alias he’d given her.  It sounded so proper, so British.  And Sarah was so sweet, so gullible.  “Hello, Sarah.  It’s been a few weeks, yes.  I had business in America,” he said.  He had worked hard to drop his middle-Eastern accent and perfect the Queen’s English.  Maybe I should add a South London drawl?  No, that would be overkill.

“Well, it’s great to see ya again. Gonna be stayin’ with us a spell?”  Sarah asked.  She balanced a tray in one hand and put the other on the table, shifting her weight. 

Faruq ignored the question and tried to divert his gaze from Sarah’s ample cleavage.   “The place looks just the same as the last time I visited.”  He glanced around the pub.  Nothing has changed.  That’s good.

“Expected us to tart the place up, did ya?”  She laughed.  Faruq smiled back.  “The usual?”  He nodded and Sarah withdrew.

Faruq leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, resting his chin on interlaced fingers.  Of course, he hadn’t expected them to renovate.  He would’ve found that out weeks ago if they had.  Therefore, no last minute changes to his plans.  From his earlier surveillance of the place, he chose this booth as the most advantageous spot from which to launch his mission.

His handsome and uncharacteristically fairer-than-normal features let him blend in with the Londoners without drawing attention to himself, and his mastery of their speech and even a few dialects made his disguise complete.  Since 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings, Faruq felt all eyes were on him and anyone who even resembled someone of middle-Eastern descent.

 

As well they should be, he thought with grim satisfaction.

 

 

 

Invisible Curtain to be released November 12 from Wilde City Press!

The third installment in the Corey Shaw mystery series, Invisible Curtain, will be published and released by Wilde City Press November 12!!

Blurb:

Paranormal sleuth Corey Shaw is enjoying vacation with his family in the Baltic Sea when terrorists bomb restaurants hosting World Cup parties in London and Copenhagen, just as his cruise ship leaves port.  Although the United States isn’t attacked, Corey and his colleagues are unavoidably drawn into the investigation with or without the blessing of international intelligence agencies.  When a third bomb goes off in St. Petersburg, Russia, Corey is convinced the terrorist is aboard his ship, or at least connected with it. 

Corey is torn between protecting his family and a ship’s dancer whom he’s falling for and helping keep the world safe from terrorism.

Review of Home in Time for Christmas by Heather Graham

I enjoyed Heather Graham’s Flynn brothers trilogy because although her stories are het romance/erotica, she includes a wonderful paranormal aspect to her novels. In the Flynn brothers stories, that aspect bordered on supernatural and in one case, Deadly Harvest, almost stepped across the line.


In Home in Time for Christmas, the paranormal element is time travel. During the Revolutionary War, Jake Mallory is about to hanged by the British for his anti-British publications. His adopted sister Serena casts a strange spell with rose petals (in December!) and he suddenly finds himself in the twenty-first century.

Melody Tarleton, on her way home for the holidays nearly runs over him as he appears before her eyes and her car. Convinced he is a re-enactment actor/nut case suffering from amnesia, she takes him home to her family since she has no idea what else to do with him.

Her father, mother and brother accept Jake into their home with little questions to Melody’s explanation. Mark Hathaway, the man Melody is supposed to be getting engaged to isn’t swayed and becomes suspicious of the enigmatic gentleman, who bears more than a passing resemblance to him.

As hard as she tries to keep his secret although not believing it herself, Melody is surprised to find out that her parents have pieced together how she really came to meet Jake and they have no issue with him being from the past. In fact, they have an idea how to return him to his own time. And the revelation gives her little comfort.

Despite her misgivings, she is convinced that her mother and father know what they are doing and helps them to the novel’s final and somewhat predictable conclusion.

In the Flynn brothers trilogy, Graham put more emphasis on the paranormal aspects, but in Home in Time for Christmas, much of the story is spent on Melody trying to explain to everyone and herself Jake’s sudden appearance and their budding romance.

I prefer the stronger paranormal angle to the romance but I’m probably outnumbered in that respect. In the trilogy, the paranormal phenomenon that formed the premise for those stories was a bit more complex, more detailed than a doorway opened in time with rose petals. We’ve also seen this scenario before: a person about to be hanged is spirited away to another time in both “Dark Shadows” and “The Twilight Zone”.

But if you prefer romance to paranormal, Home in Time for Christmas isn’t too spooky to be romantic.

When The Dead Speak by S. D. Tooley

It was the paranormal aspect of S. D. Tooley’s novel, When the Dead Speak that caught my attention. The sleuth, Sergeant Samantha (Sam) Casey has a unique gift. She can sense images and intuition from the dead. They tell her things. Being an author of paranormal abilities, I had to read this book.

A quote from Mystery news is printed on the cover above the title: “The book opens with a bang, literally.” Well, not so much ‘literally’ but it does open with an eighteen wheeler smashing into a concrete support on a highway overpass. As the column crumbles, a body is exposed, encased in the concrete. That is a good way to open a novel.

Meanwhile, Sam Casey is working undercover, infiltrating the household of a state senator, who has his eyes set on the governor’s seat. She is nearly caught by a security guard but manages to escape.

After hearing reports of a break-in at the senator’s home, her chief suspects Sam of using her off-duty hours for private work and transfers her to another precinct. There, Sam comes face to face with her near-captor, Jake Mitchell and his partner Frank Travis. She is assigned to work with them to investigate the body in the concrete pillar. Since she was in disguise when he almost caught her, she hopes he won’t recognize her. Unfortunately, Jake never forgets a perfect set of legs.

The find themselves at odds with each other, exacerbated by Sam’s mother, Abby, who soon has Jake staying at their house, fixing him meals and washing his clothes. They manage to forge a working relationship as they try to solve the mystery. The man, Harvey Wilson, was reported as AWOL during the Korean War. So what happened to him between 1951 when he went missing and 1977 when the overpass was built? The leads they uncover lead to the state senator, Washington, DC and even to Sam’s father, who was an investigative reporter who died in 1977, the same year as Harvey Wilson. The common bond between all of them is a pin in the shape of a lightning bolt.

The investigation is hampered by the length of time since the Korean War. Most of the men who fought have long since died, narrowing down the number of people they can rely on for clues. But it seems there are those still alive and want those secrets to stay buried and Sam finds herself in increasing danger. She’ll need all of her powers if she is going to come out alive.

Tooley incorporates Native American mysticism into the story, more so than the paranormal. Abby has the ability to communicate with the spirits and ask for their intercession. Whether the spirits answer her supplications is conjectural, but Abby knows that Jake is meant for her daughter and makes certain that they see each other through her eyes. If they can stop being hostile to each other.

There is more than spirits and clairvoyance here. Tooley’s characters Sam, Abby and Alex, a Native American man living on Sam’s sprawling estate, can talk to the animals. Birds, especially, act as messengers and spies. Of course, not all conversations are aboveboard as Sam demonstrates when she has two pigeons do their business on her new commander’s paper work.

So the book has a sense of humor, too. Tooley spins a great tale mixed with government cover-up, blackmail, the unknown and love. It’s reminiscent of Brad Thor’s thrillers, which also involve government officials all the way up to the president.

When the Dead Speak is an exciting mystery with interesting turns every chapter.