Television

Even with such a wide variety of channels that you can get free through your TV and even more that you can pay for - it still seems like it is seen by high-brow individuals as being an idiot box.

Now I will admit that things like reality TV shows and panel game shows and competitions are very much overdone, especially when different channels run shows that are almost identical in order to try and "compete" with one another.

But this similar format in programming is not just limited to reality TV, in fact there are so many procedural cop TV shows that glamorize a certain profession that has men with egos that are large enough without the extra publicity and status that these kind of shows bring. The other problem with procedural cop TV shows is that they tend to vilify the poor and innocent bounty hunter, private investigator and mercenary in a very unfair light...well maybe not so unfair but I still don't like it.

There are a certain number of shows that do seem to break the mould of this dreary predictability, shows like the West Wing, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, the Magnificent Seven, Spaced, Porridge, To the Manor Born, Firefly, Blackadder, shows that are wonderful to watch time and again due to fantastic acting, brilliant scripting and being well produced. Granted their ratings weren't necessarily as high as the more boring television and trashy programs that are broadcast, but that doesn't take away from how wonderful they are.

Then for those who see fictional programs as being a waste of time there are arts channels and programs, ballet, opera and theatre that is broadcast; nature documentaries - most of them seemingly having David Attenborough involved - historical documentaries and even channels that are there purely to provide religious and faith-based programming. 

The television is hardly an idiot box, a great drain and distraction on time - true enough, a killer of the art of conversation? Arguable. An easy way for people to have to avoid talking to each other about problems? Almost certainly.

However as far as television goes, it reached it's peak in the 1990s with Sharkey & George, Poddington peas, Family Ness, Jonny Quest, Earthworm Jim, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and the X-men cartoons. After that they really shouldn't have bothered doing anything else, I mean Top Cat and the Wacky Races defined the pinnacle of television before the 1990s cartoons came along and blew them out of the water. 

I know I am in the minority in yearning for the past glories of television that will never again grace the airways or digital signal as they are now, but then again I still have a working VCR and a TV that has a back box that is four times the size of the screen. So maybe it's me that is stuck in the past and digging my heels in, not wanting to move on, but then again I really don't care; at least my brain is being rotted by high class, time absorbing, entertainment and not modern trash.

Murder in the First - Day 2

I had spent the first day of my investigation finding out what Turndune and Ellis knew. It really shouldn't have taken up a whole day when you consider that their combined IQ is about four and that they wouldn't be able to find their way out of a wet paper bag, even with directions. 

However trying to find out what they knew, without them finding out what I was up to, required some degree of finesse. Now ordinarily I despise stealth and sneaking and all that kind of behaviour that you expect from spies and assassins, but if I had any hope of helping out Ryan, I had to adopt some methods that I generally find deplorable.

When it comes to taking on bad guys and enemies, I have always felt it best to kick down the door and go in all guns blazing; let everyone know exactly where they stand in a very blunt and direct manner. Granted this has meant I have a hospital loyalty card, but still I like it and it does seem to get me results and pay as well as hospital visits.

As it turned out there was little to no evidence available that implicated anyone, let alone Ryan. The murder victim was a young woman, not more than twenty-two years old and was well known to the police.

She had been arrested several times for possession, solicitation, assault, burglary and a string of other petty crimes. I say petty crimes because my yard stick for criminal behaviour is Kevin Metis - crime lord, gang boss, murderer, human trafficker, drug smuggler, kidnapper, rapist and a whole lot more. 

The victim's name was Sonya Lesner, it had some vague meaning to me, buried somewhere in my memory that I couldn't quite grasp when I first saw the name, but I had no doubt that I would remember why it was important when I need to, or more likely, just after I needed to.

She had been found beaten in an alley, her clothes torn off and strangled. The bruising on her neck, arms and torso suggested that it was a man, the hand mark too big to belong to a woman. She had engaged in some form of sexual practice earlier in the evening, but it was clear from the medical examination that she hadn't been raped.

The problem was that the evidence collected showed that the sexual practice Sonya had been involved in had been with Ryan. Ordinarily that wouldn't mean that he would be the prime suspect, especially as no evidence had been found to link him to the murder scene. Yes, he would have been brought in to be questioned and asked to prove his whereabouts etc, but the way Turndune and Ellis were talking, it was very clear they were not looking for anyone else, or even considering that it wasn't Ryan.

It's not surprising for corrupt cops to act this way, especially when they both hate the Barlow family with a vengeance. They were going after Ryan to hurt Fred, and damage his reputation in the standings of the police and general community.

Yet another reason that Fred couldn't get involved in investigating.

Having discovered what I could from Tweedledum and Tweedledee, I decided that I should really get on with finding Ryan before the boys on the beat did.

There are many places for a smart man or a rich man to hide in this city and never be found. There are even more places that a smart or rich man can go and though the police know where they are, they can never be touched.

Fortunately for me, Ryan wasn't a smart man or a rich man. There were a few places that I knew he would avoid, his place, my place, the library, all pubs, clubs and pool halls. It occurred to me that there were two possible places that he could be hiding that Turndune and Ellis would never think of looking for him in - one was the police station, the other was Fred's place.

There seems to be a generally held assumption that there are certain places that are just stupid to hide in and so are never checked. Though Fred's place wasn't a bad call to go and hide in, I had the sneaking suspicion that Ryan was in the police station and not just anywhere in the police station, but in Superintendent Gary Rogers' office.

Rogers was on a three month cruise with the latest bimbo that he seemed to have collected and as a result his office was not in use, not even post was being delivered there. It was at the top of the building and unless you were going to see the Superintendent, there wasn't any reason to go up to that level. The fire escape also connected to his office on the exterior of the building that meant Ryan could come and go as he pleased.

I waited until the change of shift between 2am and 3am and crept up the fire escape to Rogers' office. The door was locked, but it didn't take a moment for me to pick the lock and sure enough, there on the floor of the office, fast asleep, lay Ryan.

Holidays

There seem to be periods of time when people do nothing save for discuss their holidays. The first of these times comes between January and March when people are so depressed by the weather here that they start planning to escape it...except they wait until June through August to do so.

So people talk about the plans they are making of where to go and what to do and see and where they have been before - especially if someone brings up a particular landmark in an area... The number of times I have heard people say "oh don't go to the Louvre, the Mona Lisa is so disappointing" makes me want to scream, take an art course and then explain to them in painstaking detail how and why they are more wrong than Fred was the time he decided I should stop smoking and drinking.

The second time is just before they actually go on holiday and all they can talk about is packing, which books they are taking and how much they need a rest. The third is when they get back from the holiday and all they can do is either talk about how wonderful it was or how truly awful and how they are never going back.

All of these conversations you would assume I would manage to avoid not working in an office with 53,000 other people, but no, apparently my clients think I want to know more about them other than if their cheques won't bounce. Sadly sometimes instead of saying they can pay me they just launch into talk of their holidays...I have had to learn not to shoot these people if I still want to get paid.

I have never been on holiday - I have too much to do hunting down villains and annoying Fred and when Fred is away on his holidays having the space and time of not having him breathing down my neck. So I guess that is technically a holiday for me.

The idea of sitting on a beach doing nothing for two weeks apart from increasing my chance of skin cancer has never appealed to me, nor has trawling around great sprawling cities - dodging pickpockets, beggars and cheap plastic tat being waved in my face also doesn't particularly thrill me.

So when Fred and Harry turned up at my office, put me in handcuffs and threw me in the back of the car I assumed that I was just being arrested again - this time for break and entering, however when I was taken to the airport and frog marched between the two of them onto a plane that took off; I got the impression that I wasn't being taken to the police station - call me crazy.

When we got off the plane into heat that made me lose half my body weight in sweat in three seconds I found I wasn't in Kansas any longer.

Now I am trying to get in touch with some black market arms dealers so I can get hold of some form of weapon to put bullets in the feet of both Fred and Harry so they can understand how much anguish they are making me suffer.

Looking for the perfect Christmas present for Raven Siren fans? Look no further!  The Nicolette Mace books are now available in digital and paperback from Barnes and Noble.

Space Cowboy

The wild west has always been something I have loved. The gunslingers, the outlaws, the bandits, the Indians, the lawmen and the Texas Rangers; all of them seem to be my glamourous and overly romanticised precursors.

I say all of them because there are aspects of the stereotypical Hollywood portrayals of the different groups that I can identify with. With the gunslingers, I feel that the reason I identify with them is more than obvious. I share a desire to defend my homeland and avenge those that have been unjustly taken from me by bad, bad men. Men that have dodged the law avoided paying their penance for their crimes. A penance only payable by giving what they took - an eye for an eye.

The outlaws are fighting back against the heavy hand of justice that never gave them a fair chance, let off those that had done wrong by them and forced them into a life that they never wanted or intended to lead. Well in some respects at least. The times I ignore Fred, tie Fred up, lock Fred in cupboards, throw Harry off the scent, accidentally shot Fred don't really come under the "outlaws fighting back" category, more in the category of annoying my friends when they won't leave me alone. No I feel I fall into the outlaw category because I work very hard to bring down cops like Gary Rogers, Richard Ellis and Ross Turndune. Snakes that use the law to hide behind and crush the innocent under when it suits them.

The bandits, taking what they have to in order to survive, working for and against outlaws when it suits their purpose and reveling in the violence that comes with every new day. Well aside from the reveling in the violence part, I think that accurately describes my day to day life and struggle to survive long enough to kill...bring to justice those who have wronged me.

The Indians, having been robbed of what is rightly theirs, their free soaring spirits that are at one with the land and the pride in their way of life. All three fit perfectly with me and I have been tempted more than once to scalp certain individuals who find themselves funnier than they actually are.

The lawmen, standing as a barrier between innocent people and those that wish to do them harm. Well I sort of stand between between innocent people and those that wish to harm them, I also work for guilty people and protect them from guilty people who would do them harm as well.

And finally the Texas Rangers, that always get their man, I like to feel that I am that tenacious, that relentless and that focused. That I will not rest until those that have found themselves fallen afoul of me and my employers would feel the same terror as those that tried to run from or fight the Texas Rangers. I am Rooster Cogburn reborn in a woman's body, dressed in biker leathers and a trench coat and armed with revolvers.

Bounty Hunters I feel come a little too close to what I actually do to count as being from the wild west.

Though if I had to find myself a modern day equivalent then all I have to say on the matter is, I aim to misbehave.

Looking for the perfect present for Raven Siren fans? Look no further!  The Nicolette Mace books are now available in digital and paperback from Barnes and Noble. For more information about the Nicolette Mace universe please visit the wiki.

Park

All the people, so many people, they all go hand in hand, hand in hand through their parklife. Blur definitely had it right with their analysis of the park.

I used to spend lots of time in the park, especially after Louise and Arthur were murdered. It gave me somewhere quiet to think that was busy and public and I could be lost in a sea of faces without having to interact with anyone. It also made it harder for Fred to find me.

To begin with he was just another cop to me, another busy body, another person that hadn't done anything to help find out why my mother died and then had stood idly by whilst my sister and father had been taken from me. He seemed to have fixation on trying to save from, well the same fate. He'd already been successful in keeping me alive and sending Kevin Metis to prison, but he just couldn't seem to leave me alone.

I told Harry Lee that Fred was stalking me and Harry told me that if I really thought that then I should go and talk to Ryan, Fred's brother. I asked why and Harry had merely shrugged and said "you'll see". So I went to find Ryan and when I did I understood what Fred was doing. Ryan was younger than me, about ten years old and already falling in with the wrong crowd at school, trying to cope with the death of his parents three years before.

Fred hadn't been able to save his parents, couldn't save his brother from himself and in me he saw someone who could be saved and needed to be protected if he was ever going to believe that life had some good in it. That people could be saved from the bad guys and that justice had some hope of surviving.

It's an odd thing to think now, looking back that Fred was as much in need of our friendship as I was. Of course at no point have I ever admitted to needing Fred - or Harry for that matter. You might think that every friendship would occasionally need such an affirmation for the sake of everyone's sanity; but so far none of us have found that we show each other how much we care by being there. By fighting alongside one another, by always being there to make sure the others don't get kill and rescuing each other when we get kidnapped.

This seems to be verging on being all mushy and close to a chick flick moment...so Fred and Harry are both morons who I'm as likely to shoot as sit down to coffee with.

There I feel much better for that.

Looking for the perfect present for Raven Siren fans? Look no further!  The Nicolette Mace books are now available in digital and paperback from Barnes and Noble.

Hunting the Priest Killer - The Aftermath

It turns out that Fred being stupid made me angrier than even Harry expected.

Fred is insisting that I was worried because he was in danger and so was driven to desperate action. I deny this most earnestly since 1) Fred is a moron and 2) He's just plain wrong.

Harry has informed me that our pitch battle against the forces of the underworld i.e. Bill Sykes, was more of a fairly one-sided barrage from me that caused Sykes and the Snake Devils to hide under barrels and tables until the reinforcements arrived...and when I say reinforcements I mean the police arrived to arrest them.

Harry had called them when I started indiscriminately shooting everything that moved, thinking that having back up might be necessary...go figure!

Fred escaped the hail of bullets, though not because I was intentionally not aiming for him. He was rather worse for wear, some minor internal injuries and a concussion that granted was not helped when he was hit round the head with my hand clutching a heavy pistol.

But this is all slightly ahead of where we should be, after all, the last I told of this little misadventure, Harry, Fred and I were all tied to chairs in a domestic setting.

From what Harry relates, the chair I was sitting on I splintered into kindling by leaping and thrashing about in my bonds like I was some form of demented shark crossed with a rabid dog. From this point on I felt that most of his retelling was over-exaggerated so in the interest of preserving my integrity and reputation for only reporting the absolute honest truth, I hand you over to Harry Lee (I apologize for my poor judgement in this matter)

Nicolette Mace: the Raven Siren is not a creature that most men want to cage. There is a small number of people who think that's a good idea, but they tend to be the owners of business, cars, hospitals and cities that want to stem the wide spread destruction that follows in her path.

Bill Sykes had just achieved his ambition of leading the Snake Devils gang, some considered them to be the roughest and toughest hombres the city has ever seen, I think the Devil's Hole Gang were more threatening.

Siren and I were tied to chairs in the dining room. There was a lamp in the corner casting long shadows and a cloud of dense cigarette smoke settled at my eye level. Sykes was making the biggest mistake any man can make - he was daring the wrath and scorn of a woman who is bordering on being a psychopath at the best of times. 

"Oh and that precious priest, it was a pleasure to kill him, like it will be your lover boy in the kitchen." 

I'm not sure which part of his statement made her more angrier, whether it was the admission of guilt or if Sykes referring to Fred as Siren's lover. It was probably something like a fifty fifty split, but just one of those in a statement would have been enough to make her lose it. 

She started to strain and thrash as though she was possessed and someone was trying to exorcism demons. The next thing I knew was the chair she was tied to splinted to well splinters. Three gang members tried to rush her but found themselves thrown through the wall and windows. Sykes fled to the kitchen to try and find a shield as Siren picked up some errant guns. For some reason she cut me loose and I thought it wise to phone the station for back-up, after all I was not about to try and calm her down on my own.

She started firing at everything in sight, so I hide behind the sofa as she pelted the windows, walls, furniture and everything but Fred with gunfire.

Sykes ended up surrendering and was arrested the moment that the police cars turned up on the scene and had wrestled the guns from Siren's hands.

Fred made some stupid comment about knowing that she cared and got belted round the head with her fist and 9mm.

There's not much I can say about Siren that she wouldn't threaten to shoot me for, but I can say this - she is nothing but consistent in being so terrifying when defending Fred and adamant that she'd be better off with him dead - women, go figure!

Looking for the perfect present for Raven Siren fans? Look no further! The Nicolette Mace books are now available in digital and paperback from Barnes and Noble.

New Year

New Year's Eve always seems to be the most disappointing time of the year. It is always built up by the media and by people to be this fantastic event - so much depending on it, how you spend the evening will be how you spend the rest of the year...

Rubbish!

In fact more than rubbish, completely and unutterably wrong! 

The only time anyone has been more wrong is Fred when he told me I needed to give up drinking and smoking. 

New Year's Eve has never been anything short of a drunken extravaganza designed to make bar and club owners rich and everyone else short of sleep the next day and a lot poorer to boot. 

Every year I hear people in cafes and bars and on the street and even in the off-licence talking about what they are doing for New Year's Eve and who they are doing it with - unsurprisingly some of these conversations involved a level of detail that no self-respecting eavesdropper would be comfortable hearing. Around the millennium it was almost unbearable to hear such hype that turned out to be nothing more than a doubly impressive let down.

In all honesty I try and ignore New Year, New Year's day often brings me a lot of profitable work so on the eve, getting to bed early and stuffing my ears with as much cotton wool as I can find has always been my common practice.

Now this has always proved to be somewhat difficult. There are many factors that always seem to conspire to make me stay up to see the clock change from 11:59 to 12:00 (as though I had never done that before). Most of these come in the form of, yes, you've guessed it - Frederick J. Barlow.

Fred has this horrible habit of thinking that I am lonely, that I am need of being kept cheerful on this most irritating of nights. Even worse than that is Harry Lee, yes Harry informs me continually that New Year's Eve is the perfect time to, and I quote "get Fred into bed and then let him down gently in the morning". What I don't understand is why Harry thinks I want to get Fred into bed, let alone let him down gently. I've never done anything gently in my whole life, I'm not about to start on New Year's Day.

That's the other thing that gets me about New Year, this idea that people's will power will somehow be greater at this point in the year than at any other time so they decide to create a resolution to do something... why the significance of the changing of the year? Why not when Spring becomes Summer? Or when Wednesday becomes Thursday (or Monday if you have managed to get yourself hospitalized and lost a few days in an unconscious state).

The only thing that has ever made New Year's Eve remotely fun was the time that Ryan turned up at 11pm telling me he knew where Kevin Metis was and that if I was quick I could shoot him in the knee caps and no one would ever know it was me...ah now that was a fun night - and no one ever did know I shot him in the shin and made him lose a toe the stiletto of the woman he was trying to seduce.

However it is now 10pm and I can hear footsteps on the stairs. It will be Fred coming to tell me that his girlfriend is no longer his and how he needs to drown his sorrows with me. If only I thought ahead every year I could go to somewhere remote and quite, like a monastery and not be disturbed, however I am not sure they would let me bring my guns or whiskey with me, so on balance that probably isn't the best idea.