After a promising start in his career with the Bahamian CID, Detective Sergeant ‘Prez’ Kingdom, is bedeviled by jealous colleagues, an intriguing female DEA agent and family problems. Eventually, however, he makes some important ‘connections’, when a self styled: ‘Devil’s Regent’ uses the Bahamas as a stalking ground for victims to satisfy his sexually driven bloodlust.

The denouement of the novel is concerned with retribution and the rationalization of strange and convoluted family relationships.

Read the extract and feel welcome to make comments:DEVIL’S VACATION

PROLOGUE:

‘I can feel it all a-tingling
From my head down to my toes.
It’s sifting shifting in my hair,
And pulling at my clothes...
I’m the only one who’s listening;
I’m the only one who knows:
Way out in the ocean
There’s a wind that blows and blows.

She’s breathing soft this moment
On the waters of the deep:
And like a woman stirring,
She murmurs in her sleep.
These dreams will orphan children,
And make the widows weep;
For life is just a play thing,
And death is all so cheap.

Then when the spirit takes her,
She’ll leap towards the sky!
She’ll open up her twining arms
To whirl, and twirl… and fly!
All isles bow down before her
At the strident siren’s cry:
To know her is to hate her…
To feel her is to die!

But now it’s just a tingling
From my head down to my toes.
That sifting shifting in my hair,
That pulling at my clothes…
I’m the only one who’s listening;
I’m the only one who knows:
Way out in the ocean
There’s a wind that blows and blows.

She had quietly slipped out of Africa, sidled past the Azores and skipped over the ocean towards her Family’s favored arena of conflict. Her ancestors had embarked on similar ‘voyages of discovery’ over many millennia, long before Columbus.
For several days she slowly meandered on a north westerly course, bathing and feeding herself in the warm waters of the Caribbean between Guatemala/Honduras and Cuba.
By the time she was to the southwest of Jamaica she had been duly baptized, confirmed and was maturing into puberty as: Tropical Depression ‘Wilma’ (No. 7 for the Season)
It was here, on the northern frontier of the Caribbean, that Wilma’s wanton, adolescent frolics began to cause trouble… much trouble...

CHAPTER ONE:

He sat down-wind of her at the Hollywood Bar – close enough to smell her heavy perfume, but not near enough to be later identified as a possible companion.
When she left, he noted her route, and a minute later, he followed in the same general direction. Although he had already anticipated her destination, he took nothing for granted – that was the secret of his success.
He strolled into the Casino; and, inevitably, there she was. His chosen prey had decided to try her luck at a Black Jack Table near the banks of gambling machines and conveniently close to the Bar.
His ego always found it extremely gratifying, when a ‘stalk’ proved to be as predictable as this.
He patiently fed a one-armed bandit its customary diet of quarters, whilst she lost a hundred dollars at the Table.
During the same period, the lady downed three large rum ‘n’ cokes.
In his mind he meticulously added up her liquor score for the evening:
Since he’d started counting, over an hour before, she’d swallowed at least seven indiscriminate grape and grain, alcoholic concoctions.
His further calculations told him that the woman had about five minutes left before the ever-so-slight pitch and toss of the cruise-ship, plus the rum, whisky, white-wine and gin build-up in her stomach, combined to take their inevitable toll on her digestive system.
When retribution for over-indulgence arrived only four minutes later, there was already a greenish tinge to the woman’s pasty, white skin. She made it to the Ladies Room without an upheaval, but it must have been a close call.
There was no doubt in his mind where she would go after she came out of the toilet.
He positioned himself at the ship’s rail nearest to the passageway leading to her cabin, which previous reconnaissance had established as ‘136 E Deck’.
The Hunter knew everything about his potential ‘kill’ - nothing had been left to chance.
When the sea breeze blew in the woman’s face, it was exactly as he had expected:
She came through the door in a continuing, mal-de-mer rush, staggered and almost fell at his feet.
He smiled at her, and congratulated his own acumen with the same smile.
The ‘polite’ man, so conveniently placed to give assistance, gently took the suffering woman by her limp arm; and gratefully, she let her full weight lean against his side.
The predator’s plan was so fine-tuned that it was she who pushed him into the shadows between two lifeboats. Her remaining self-esteem was scornful of making a public display when it was time to vomit.
He stroked her head as she retched, and almost felt sorry for her.
Gradually, the convulsions subsided, and gently, he turned her to face him.
She had her back against the rail, and his arms were around her.
He cautiously eased the ice pick from the sleeve of his dinner jacket, and poised its point behind her right ear.
The ‘stalk’ was now over; and he prepared himself, in anticipation of his forthcoming ‘pleasure’.Nevertheless, as a last precaution before the moment of ‘truth’, he made a visual check of the deck from left to right. He could still abort the whole business, if he had to.
There was no one was in sight; only some dim, distant lights were twinkling on the horizon beyond the ship’s rail
He returned to the business in hand and looked down into her blood-shot, blue eyes. She grimaced a bleary, weak, trusting smile.
The tip of his ice pick slid into her brain, as he smiled his own arctic smile of triumph. Without making any physical entry, he spasmed; and, in thirty seconds, it was all over.
Finally, he only had to raise the body about six inches from the deck, before gravity kicked-in with its welcome assistance; and the woman folded over the ship’s rail like a roll of discarded, dirty carpet.
He was already on his way to the ‘Mid-night Buffet’ on the ‘Regatta Deck’ before the ship’s wake enfolded the woman’s body into the shallow tropical sea, just to the north of a Bahamian island called Inagua, the home of flamingoes, wild donkeys and solar salt.

The stalker licked barbecue sauce from his fingers.
He was simultaneously enjoying the taste of the food in his mouth and the flavor of the ‘kill’ in his mind.
It was his fifth ‘hunting expedition’, and four of them had been successfully terminated with a ’kill’, and no one had yet realized that any ‘murders’, as such, had even been committed. In this worst of possible worlds, ‘accidents’ and ‘disappearances’, mysterious or otherwise, were always happening.
He gave the situation his ‘mature’ consideration:
Perhaps the next time ‘out’, a touch of publicity might add a little more zest to the affair. The ‘nobody - knows - but - me’ thrills were becoming a trifle stale. He now craved some wider recognition of his ‘tracking and butchering skills’…




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Posted on Sunday 08 of January, 2006 [17:40:40 UTC]

Truth may set you free ... but don’t let it spoil a good story.
'Piece out our imperfections with your mind...'
‘Henry V’, William Shakespeare.

'The historical outlines for these narratives (chapters of 'Long Memory') are as accurate as we could make them. Where there was no documented, evidential back up, we took the liberty of using our imaginations, within a context of spoken folklore (gossip).
Bahamians still have a very full and rich oral culture, which we hope will be protected and enhanced by literary projects such as our own.
We would like to think that the Coatlicue/Moctezuma Family with all its extra-sensory powers existed and exists. Unfortunately, outside our imaginations, it does not… or then again, anything may be possible.
All the historical characters and the names of Eleuthera Families, especially the Mingays, the Mingos, the Culmers, the Bethels and the Pyfroms, did and do exist, with just a little ‘twist’ here and there to protect both the ‘innocent’ and the ‘guilty’, whatever those terms may mean.
The story of our Island inhabited solely by ‘Smiths’ and ‘Jones’, would have no credibility.'

THE ABOVE IS THE FOREWORD TO AN HISTORICAL/FICTIONALISED/ NOVEL ABOUT AN ISLAND IN THE BAHAMIAN ARCHIPELAGO FOUNDED DURING THE SAME PERIOD AS NEW ENGLAND. THIS BAHAMIAN COLONY EVEN CONTRIBUTED FUNDS TO HELP FOUND HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

If you do have further interest, we consider that our literary anthology "Passing Jacks" provides good 'primer' services for the Islands of the Bahamas.

Posted on Saturday 01 of October, 2005 [21:02:14 UTC]