The
Black Song Inside
by
Carlyle Clark
Author
Bio:
Carlyle
Clark was raised in Poway, a city just north of San Diego, but is now
a proud Chicagolander working in the field of Corporate Security and
writing crime fiction and fantasy. He has flailed ineffectually at
performing the writers' requisite myriad of random jobs: pizza
deliverer, curb address painter, sweatshop laborer, day laborer,
night laborer, twilight laborer (of the fang-less variety), security
guard, campus police, Gallup pollster, medical courier, vehicle
procurer, and signature-for-petitions-getter.
He
is a happily married man with two cats and a dog. He is also a
martial arts enthusiast and a CrossFit endurer who enjoys fishing,
sports, movies, TV series with continuing storylines, and of course,
reading. Most inconsequentially, he holds the unrecognized
distinction of being one of the few people in the world who have been
paid to watch concrete dry in the dark. Tragically, that is a true
statement.
Author
Links:
Title:
The Black Song Inside
Genre:
Mystery Thriller
Publisher:
Make Luck Press
Release
Date: November 14th, 2012
Synopsis:
Shortlisted
for the 2012
Faulkner-Wisdom Award
Newly
engaged private investigators Atticus Wynn and Rosemary Sanchez have
seen the dark and violent side of life. Atticus's dry wit is born of
a traumatic childhood that's left him emotionally scarred and
estranged from his homicide detective sister. The medals Rosemary
earned during her tour of duty in Iraq are little reward for
returning home to San Diego missing a leg and tormented by PTSD and
her continuing failure to save her younger brother from his own
violent nature. Still, nothing they've been through has prepared them
for an explosive murder investigation that tests the couple's trust
as they struggle to solve a case where the best result leaves them in
prison or dead.
Atticus's manipulative and
gorgeous ex-girlfriend, Claire, bursts back into their lives wielding
a secret about Rosemary's family that she exploits to force the
couple into investigating the execution-style slaying of her lover.
The case thrusts Atticus and Rosemary headlong into the world of
human trafficking and drug smuggling as well as rendering them pawns
in Tijuana Cartel captain Armando Villanueva's bloody bid to take
over the Cartel. Villanueva Machiavellian scheme sends one of his
minions, Rosemary's own gangsta brother, after Atticus, and as if
that weren't bad enough, Villanueva dispatches "The Priest",
a former child soldier for a Colombian rebel group who is now a
messianic mercenary whose religious psychosis has launched him on a
trajectory that can only end in mayhem.
The Black
Song Inside is a vivid crime thriller rife with the murder and
madness, melded with gallows humor and the heroism of two flawed
protagonists who, in struggling to unravel a skein of human
suffering, learn the nature of redemption and the ability to forgive
others and themselves.
Excerpt:
Rosemary
suppressed a sigh. As the only child of parents who had wanted a
brood, her life had been spent as the wobbly point of an inverted
pyramid, forever attempting to balance the burden of hopes and
expectations meant to be spread over a half-dozen children. Instead,
it was only she and her adopted brother Johnny, the mayhem magnet.
"The
leg I have now isn't agile," Rosemary said, rapping it with her
knuckles. "With this new one, I can step over things, walk
backward, change directions quickly. I'm no longer stuck just going
one way and having a change in direction be a major ordeal. I'll be
free."
Rosemary
maneuvered the X2 case for a better view, marveling at the complexity
encompassed in its artistic form. "Come take a look at it."
Mama
stayed put, offering a wan smile. "It's very fancy."
Mama
sniffed as she levered herself out of the armchair. She pivoted
toward the window and pushed the silk drape aside. The waistband of
her stretch pants dented her torso. From behind, her hair-sprayed bob
seemed smooth and solid, as formidable a protection as the brass dome
of a deep-sea diver, the hose stretching from the helmet up to a
world of stability, sameness. "So much bad weather this summer."
Rosemary
felt the urge to knead her mother's shoulders. "You could change,
Mama."
Her
mother's neck stiffened. Still looking away, she shook her head. "I
happen to like who I am."
Ah,
and there it was, the roundabout implication that Rosemary was
somehow betraying Mama by being with Atticus-the only thing that
had set the pyramid to wobbling as much as her joining the Army
Reserves. Hadn't Mama's fears been grimly vindicated when an IED
exploded under the Humvee she was driving? Didn't she have an "I
told you so" moment when the explosion transformed the man who'd
been next to her in the front seat, Specialist First-Class Yukio
Morimitu, an always smiling human being with a new bride and a child
on the way, into a spatter of blood and bone clumped in her hair,
clogging her ears and nose, and filling her mouth with gobbets of
flesh.
Rosemary
hobble-stepped to the window, leaned against the sill, and put her
arm around Mama's shoulders. Lightning flickered in the lining of
steel gray clouds. "More rain coming," Rosemary said. "Maybe
you better go now."
"I
rearranged my day so I can take you to rehab. We could have lunch,
relax, then go." She studied Rosemary's face a moment and
squinted. "What? You don't want me?"
Rosemary
forced her expression to be neutral. "Of course I do, but you said
you couldn't go, so I asked Atticus."
"So.
You'd rather have him than your own mother."
"Oh
for God's sake. I asked you to take me first. You said you were
busy."
"So
Atticus can't change his schedule?" The sky cast a greenish tinge
on Mama's face.
Here
we go again, Rosemary thought. Countdown…three…two…one…
"Atticus,
Atticus, always Atticus. I'm sick of hearing his name."
"Blastoff."
"What?"
Mama blinked.
"Cape
Fucking Canaveral." Rosemary shuffled back to her bed.
