The Milk Truck Gang (The Silencer, Book 9) by Cora Buhlert
Release date: September 9, 2017
Subgenre: Pulp thriller, men's adventure
About The Milk Truck Gang:
Upstate New York, 1937: When the delivery
vans of the Daisy Chain Dairy Company
are targeted and robbed by a criminal gang and a driver is shot, Richard Blakemore
a.k.a. the masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer decides to get
involved.
So he stakes out the dairy company in the
early hours of the morning to apprehend the criminals, only to find himself
embroiled in a lethal fight on the bed of a speeding milk truck…
This is a short story of 3700 words or
approx. 13 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.
Excerpt:
They say that New York is the city that never sleeps, the city where the lights never go out. But only thirty miles north of Times Square, the night could not have been darker. The roads were deserted and the Hudson River Valley and the hills and farms of Westchester County lay still and silent under the stars.
Only in the village of Hemlock Hill, there was a beacon of light in the darkness of the valley. For in spite of the early hour, the warehouse of the Daisy Chain Dairy Company was already bustling with activity. Workers in coveralls were stacking crates of milk bottles onto the cargo platforms of the company’s fleet of delivery trucks, while the drivers in their crisp white uniforms enjoyed an early morning smoke, before embarking on their routes.
“So, what’s the word on Joe?” Buck O’Leary, a burly driver with washed out red hair and a beard of the same colour, asked. “Any news?”
His colleague Hank Kaminsky, a tall and thin man whose ears stuck out under his cap like twin jug handles, shook his head. “Still hanging on and still unconscious.”
Buck nodded knowingly. “Gut shots are nasty. Saw many a man die of that during the war.”
Privately, Hank thought that this comment was not helpful at all. Aloud he said, “Stella hasn’t moved from his side, since Joe was taken to hospital. She’s always there, day and night.”
Buck tugged on his bow tie, which was always too tight for his neck. “What about the kids?” he wanted to know. “Who’s taking care of them?”
“The kids are with their nonna, while Stella’s in the hospital with Joe.”
Hank sucked on his cigarette.
“Robberies are one thing,” he said, “Sure, stealing milk is wrong, but this is the Depression and lots of folks are hungry and desperate. But shooting an unarmed man in the stomach…” Hank shook his head. “…that’s just evil. Pure evil.”
Buck nodded in agreement. “First, Paul got robbed, then Johnny and finally Lenny. And now Joe got shot. I’m telling you, Hank, anyone of us could be next. You, me, anyone…”
“I know,” Hank said, “And that’s why I brought along this.”
He opened the driver’s side door of his truck, reached inside and produced a wooden baseball bat.
“Anybody tries to rob my truck…” Hank slapped the bat into the his palm. “…he gets a load of this.”
Buck nodded approvingly. “That should make ‘em think twice about robbing you.” His reddish face grew serious. “But like good old Ben Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Hank snorted. “Now you’re just showing off.”
“But Ben Franklin was right. Remember, they got Paul with a tree trunk across the road. They got Johnny with a herd of cows blocking the way and they got Lenny with a body on the road. So don’t stop for nothing.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” Hank said and stubbed out his cigarette.
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About the Silencer series:
Hardworking pulp writer by day and steel-masked vigilante by night, Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the
Silencer fights both larger than life villains and ordinary crooks and keeps Depression era New
York City safe from criminal low-lives in these high octane adventure stories.
The Silencer is an homage to the heroic pulp vigilantes of the 1930s such as the Shadow, the Spider and Doc Savage and the writers who brought them to life.
- Book 1: Countdown to Death
- Book 2: Flying Bombs
- Book 3: The Spiked Death
- Book 4: Elevator of Doom
- Book 5: The Great Fraud
- Book 6: Mean Streets and Dead Alleys
- Book 7: Fact or Fiction
- Book 8: St. Nicholas of Hell's Kitchen
- Book 9: The Milk Truck Gang
About Cora Buhlert:
Cora Buhlert was
born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today – after time
spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA
degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently
working towards her PhD.
Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published
stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. She is
the author of the Silencer series of pulp style thrillers, the Shattered
Empire space opera series, the In Love and War science fiction romance series, the Helen Shepherd Mysteries and plenty of
standalone stories in multiple genres. When Cora is not writing, she
works as a translator and teacher.
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