Winter City Wolf Moon by Elvis English
Release date: March 26, 2018
Subgenre: Crime thriller
About Winter City Wolf Moon:
When the bodies of two young Alaska Native women are discovered along
the banks of Ship Creek, and their deaths are ruled “accidental” and
“undetermined” by police, burned out gumshoe Lewis Bocarde,
well-acquainted with life on the gritty streets of Anchorage, senses
something sinister rising. Allied with a suicidal social worker named
Grace and a street-savvy group of indigenous contrarians, Bocarde races
to discover what flocks of ravens already know.
And to thaw the frantic screams frozen in the snow.
And to thaw the frantic screams frozen in the snow.
Excerpt:
PROLOGUE
Ship
Creek is a stubborn, Alaskan creek if you could ever really say that about a
creek. Its source is high in the Chugach Mountains east of Anchorage, where it
plunges down clean, and carves a deep cut in the green, yielding earth,
exposing water-worn rock scattered like bones left behind by long-dead
glaciers. Reaching the valley floor, it flows under a highway, trespasses
through an air base then back out again, between leaf-littered banks that turn
into dreary warehouses lining the Post Road. From there, it continues on
through a wasteland of scrap yard rust, freight yards, and rail yards, around a
dam, under a brooding steel bridge, beneath floating flocks of deadbeat
mallards, before it curves suddenly through an oozing black estuary and
converges with the tidal waters of the upper Cook Inlet; a frigid silty sea
renamed in honor of a frustrated English mariner who came up looking for the
Northwest Passage but only found two dead ends before turning back around and
sailing away in disgust.
Above the estuary, the
dam sits like an insult to the wild little creek, made worse by recently added
decorative iron railings, flower stem light poles, and signs for tourists
outlining the mating habits of various species of salmon.
On this early morning
in late July, the stark light of the midnight sun colors the concrete and
lightens the dark sucking low tide riverbank mud yawning below rails running
away toward the station. Native grasses, covered with city grime, rise beneath
elegant fireweed blooming scarlet-pink. A few cars pass in early morning haste
and disappear.
To the east, on the
wild side of the dam where the creek meets concrete and is channeled around it,
an eddy forms, trapping in its swirling clockwise flow objects carried
downstream by the force of the water. It’s a gloomy tangled vortex of dark
branches, beer cans, glass, and fast food Styrofoam abraded by the power and
patience of this determined stream.
In this eddy, a
dark-haired woman lies just below the surface. She is on her back, her right
leg caught on a log that holds her in place above the edge of the dam. The
creek has not been graceful in carrying her to this place and what’s left of
her face is bloated in defeat. She is wearing blue-jeans, sneakers, and a gray
T-shirt with faded blue letters that spell Hawaii. In the current, her hair
sways out from her head like kelp, and her right arm is moving from side to
side as if she were waving, although the fingers are unnaturally curled and
locked into a claw. Her last expression is the death grin, a hideous leering
rictus mocking whatever beauty she may have had in life.
A middle-aged male
tourist hurries across the dam now, his eyes pass back and forth across the
water, searching for the bright, elusive trace of salmon.
PROLOGUE
Ship
Creek is a stubborn, Alaskan creek if you could ever really say that about a
creek. Its source is high in the Chugach Mountains east of Anchorage, where it
plunges down clean, and carves a deep cut in the green, yielding earth,
exposing water-worn rock scattered like bones left behind by long-dead
glaciers. Reaching the valley floor, it flows under a highway, trespasses
through an air base then back out again, between leaf-littered banks that turn
into dreary warehouses lining the Post Road. From there, it continues on
through a wasteland of scrap yard rust, freight yards, and rail yards, around a
dam, under a brooding steel bridge, beneath floating flocks of deadbeat
mallards, before it curves suddenly through an oozing black estuary and
converges with the tidal waters of the upper Cook Inlet; a frigid silty sea
renamed in honor of a frustrated English mariner who came up looking for the
Northwest Passage but only found two dead ends before turning back around and
sailing away in disgust.
Above the estuary, the
dam sits like an insult to the wild little creek, made worse by recently added
decorative iron railings, flower stem light poles, and signs for tourists
outlining the mating habits of various species of salmon.
On this early morning
in late July, the stark light of the midnight sun colors the concrete and
lightens the dark sucking low tide riverbank mud yawning below rails running
away toward the station. Native grasses, covered with city grime, rise beneath
elegant fireweed blooming scarlet-pink. A few cars pass in early morning haste
and disappear.
To the east, on the
wild side of the dam where the creek meets concrete and is channeled around it,
an eddy forms, trapping in its swirling clockwise flow objects carried
downstream by the force of the water. It’s a gloomy tangled vortex of dark
branches, beer cans, glass, and fast food Styrofoam abraded by the power and
patience of this determined stream.
In this eddy, a
dark-haired woman lies just below the surface. She is on her back, her right
leg caught on a log that holds her in place above the edge of the dam. The
creek has not been graceful in carrying her to this place and what’s left of
her face is bloated in defeat. She is wearing blue-jeans, sneakers, and a gray
T-shirt with faded blue letters that spell Hawaii. In the current, her hair
sways out from her head like kelp, and her right arm is moving from side to
side as if she were waving, although the fingers are unnaturally curled and
locked into a claw. Her last expression is the death grin, a hideous leering
rictus mocking whatever beauty she may have had in life.
A middle-aged male
tourist hurries across the dam now, his eyes pass back and forth across the
water, searching for the bright, elusive trace of salmon.
Free for April 6 and 7 at
Amazon
About Elvis English:
Elvis English is a writer, photographer, traveler, teacher,
musician, sharing his stories gathered along the road less
traveled
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