Barry Lyga's Blog: The BLog, page 5

From My Newsletter: Serial Killer of the Month, Collins Jumaisi Khalusha

I stumbled upon Collins Jumaisi Khalusha back in July of 2024, when he was arrested for the murder of 42 women. I had a bunch of other serial killers ahead of him, though, so I stashed the link away and moved on. And now I’m kinda glad because…

Well, one month after his arrest, Khalusha escaped custody!

And there’s a chance he’s not a serial killer after all!

Let’s back up. Khalusha was arrested in his native Kenya on suspicion of murder after 10 bodies were discovered — dismembered — at a dump site close to his home. They arrested him at a soccer match. I don’t know why that stands out to me, but it does.

Khalusha confessed to 42 murders, including his wife, who was his first. He said he strangled her, dismembered her, and dumped her body parts. It looked pretty bad for Khalusha.

Then, his attorneys said, “Hold up!” They claimed his confession was coerced via torture.  And then, in August, Khalusha and some other criminals escaped from custody…apparently with the help of those “on the inside.”

So, look, this month’s headline might be a misnomer. Collins Jumaisi Khalusha might not actually be a serial killer! Or he might be. But his story is interesting, that’s for sure!

(Truthfully, the fact that his wife was among the victims makes it all look sort of hinky to me, but I’m not an expert.)

Here’s the original story about his arrest, and here’s the story of his escape.

Photo Credit: @DCI_Kenya/Twitter

(This piece comes from my newsletter, which goes out monthly. For more stuff like this, and to get it first, sign up here!)

From my Newsletter: Links for Your Enjoyment

I left Twitter a while ago, but if you’re on the fence, here’s a nice little explainer for why you might consider leaving, too: “Break Up with Your X“My one-time collaborator Colleen Doran has written a terrific essay on what it means to be a somewhat famous creator…and what it doesn’t mean, too!So, scientists asked 500 Christians to describe the face of God, then ran it through AI and hoo, boy, you think there’s maybe some bias in it? Check it out.I don’t drink coffee (I prefer my caffeine hi-tech, as someone once told me), but this brief piece on how coffee is basically one of only three things in the world that both feel good and are good for you is well-written and will definitely make you feel better about that fifth cup.

Triumph of the Dumbasses

When I was nine, my parents got divorced. My parents shared custody, but in those days that meant that I lived with my mom and saw my dad on alternate weekends and holidays. At the time, we lived in a suburb of Baltimore, a sort of progressive-leaning enclave that lacked true diversity, but also made all of the (era-appropriate) noises about enlightenment, tolerance, etc.

After the divorce, Mom and my new stepfather moved us about half an hour north and west, to a rural town out in the sticks. Understand that this was 1980, so rural meant no cable TV, obviously no internet. It was a more isolated place and while we didn’t use the term then, now we would (and do) call it a red town. The opposite of the place I’d lived up until then. Occasionally, the KKK would hold rallies in a field next door to the house of a guy who became a good friend of mine. (To be clear: He wasn’t a fan of the KKK. They used the field next to his house and his mom couldn’t stop them.)

My first experience in this new town was when my mom took my test scores to my new school so that I could be placed for fifth grade in the fall. According to her, the principal looked at my paperwork, told her “No one scores like this,” and decided that I would be in the “average” class as opposed to the advanced class, where I’d always been at my previous school.1

Everyone in that class hated me.

Even the teacher mocked me, calling me “the human encyclopedia” or “the walking dictionary.” Just because I was a smart kid.2

This was my first experience with the streak of anti-intellectualism in the U.S. The first time I saw hatred directed at me just because of my brain. It was stark and shocking and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t have a lasting impact on me. A whole year as the new kid, in a new school, mercilessly mocked and bullied for…being smart? Really? That was a thing?

At the time, without pervasive, intrusive mass media, the difference in moving a mere half-hour away was tremendous. I went from a Democratic-leaning, reality-based community to a right-leaning one. A place where parents insisted their kids not use the fluoride offered by the school (what?) and signed their kids out of health class because they didn’t want them to learn about their bodies (double what?).

And that’s before you add in religion.

I’d been raised in a mixed household. My Jewish mother was not religious at all. “A long time ago, a bunch of people wandered in the desert and made up stories to get through it,” I remember her telling me.

My dad took me to church semi-regularly, but didn’t seem to take it too seriously. He, too, leaned into the “these are stories” philosophy, and going to church seemed more about tradition and keeping my grandparents off his back than anything else.

So, I knew religion, but I didn’t take it seriously, and no one around me did, either.

Until I moved.

These new people around me took their religion very seriously. I discovered this on the playground one recess when I very innocently and casually mentioned that my mother was Jewish, and my new friend Richard informed me very gravely that “Your mom killed Christ.”

To this point, I had not experienced any sort of antisemitism, much less this very specific line of religious bullshit. I told Richard he was wrong (because, well, he was) and he insisted and even though I didn’t know where the hell this was coming from, I knew at the age of ten that if someone dissed3 your mom, you had to fight.

So Richard and I fought the way ten-year-olds fought and the whole thing is just galactically stupid.

Which is the theme of this piece. Stupidity. Ignorance. Dumbasses.

Dumbasses who are happy to let their kids’ teeth rot because they’re afraid of fluoride, who are happy to let their kids get sick or pregnant or both because they’re afraid of knowledge, who are happy to spread religious bullshit because it’s all they know.

Like the farmers in my new community who, years later, as the local paper reported, were suffering from a drought and complained to their Congressional representative that the government was preventing rain. And the rep didn’t laugh at this or explain reality to them, but rather listened seriously and promised to look into it back in Washington.

That rep (who took office when I was in college) was a man named Roscoe Bartlett. By all accounts, an intelligent man, with a doctorate in physiology. I’m sure he knew that the complaints of government weather control were crap, but he decided to go along to get along and thereby gave credence to their idiocy. He bolstered their nonsense suppositions and conspiracy theories.

Giving the dumbasses a fig leaf, which is all they ever need to spread their garbage.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. It’s the world we live in now, except half the fucking country thinks the government controls the weather and half the fucking people in charge are willing to go along with them.

Wondering how we got here? Well, it doesn’t help that most Americans can’t read beyond a sixth grade level. My daughter is in fourth grade and she reads at higher than a sixth grade level. My ten-year-old is better able to process and interpret information than millions of adults who get to vote.

But even if these people could read and comprehend what they read, the problem is that they wouldn’t. Because almost half of all Americans don’t read any books at all.  And even those who do, at best, read one book every two months.

So, yeah. Basically, you have a culture of people who have limited knowledge, don’t care that they have limited knowledge, and lack the capacity to rectify the situation.

Here’s a great example of what we’re up against, one that hits home for me. Back in November of 2023, a very stupid woman in Dover, New Hampshire filed a complaint to have my book Boy Toy removed from high school libraries. You’ll see why I call her very stupid in a moment.

This woman — her name is Julie Porter4 — filed her complaint and when the school district said, “Nah, it’s a good book; we’re gonna keep it,” she appealed. She lost the appeal, too. Yay.

But her complaint is a public document, so I looked at it. And of course it’s the usual farrago of blatant misreadings, confusion, and bad faith arguments, but this one element jumped out at me:

[image error]

I was thrown by this. Because Boy Toy doesn’t have a subtitle, and even if it did, it certainly wouldn’t be identical to the title of my first novel!

So, let’s look at the cover, shall we?

U.S. Hardcover Edition

Let’s zoom in and see exactly what…

Oh, for the love of… It’s not a subtitle! It’s goddamn marketing copy! It’s plain as day: “By the author of.” What in the name of Zeus’s electrical testicles is wrong with this person? This epically, grotesquely, profoundly sub-moronic jackass?

Honest to God, these are the people we’re dealing with, people who are so blindingly fucking stupid that they can’t properly interpret a book cover, but have declared themselves competent to judge books. For everyone.

I don’t mind people being idiots, but do it on your time and don’t let it collide with my life.

But we don’t get to have nice things. And I don’t know how the hell you talk to people so abjectly, aggressively dumb.

“I love the poorly educated.” Well, of course he does. Because the dumbasses will do whatever you tell them, without questioning it. He loves the dumbasses because he’s one, too. He literally said on live television, “I have concepts of a plan.” I mean, come on!

He loves the dumbasses and they love him. Because they hate anyone smarter than them, which is pretty much anyone with a lick of sense. And because our country has done precisely zilch to combat the rising tide of anti-intellectualism, a tide rising long before I moved to the hinterlands, we find ourselves here. Now.

Today at noon, as I press “Publish” on this post, we bear witness to the (final?) Tr(i)ump(h) of the Dumbasses.

Good luck with that.

From My Newsletter: Serial Killer of the Month

Herb Baumeister has made it difficult to discuss his serial killing proclivities because he took one final victim: Himself. He committed suicide in 1996, just as police were beginning to question his wife about some of Herb’s activities.

See, someone in the Indianapolis area was luring young men away from gay bars and those young men were never seen again. Ultimately, the police found the remains of at least 25 people on Baumeister’s property. In total, there were thousands and thousands of individual parts, making it really hard to figure out exactly how many victims there might have been.

One of those parts was a human skull that Baumeister’s own child stumbled upon.

Baumeister went out into the Canadian woods and shot himself in the head. He left a note apologizing for making a mess in the woods, but said nothing about all those poor guys he murdered. Which shows you where his priorities were, I guess.

Here’s more info about him.

Stories I Never Told: The Legion of Super-Heroes

Over in my newsletter, I ran the never-before-seen Legion of Super-Heroes graphic novel proposal that I originally wrote back in 2020 for DC then-head honcho Bobbie Chase. It never went anywhere, but I thought y’all might enjoy it…

This is my never-published Legion of Super-Heroes graphic novel proposal from 2020…

Back during the pandemic lockdown, I was invited by DC’s Bobbie Chase to submit some graphic novel pitches for DC’s then-nascent YA line. Me being me, of course I decided to dial up the difficulty by pitching the Legion of Super-Heroes, the most continuity-laden, reboot-burdened, complicated property in DC’s line-up.

Because apparently I play the video game of life on Hard.

Anyway, Bobbie and I talked about it a little bit and she had some reservations and then she was no longer at DC, so the whole thing became moot. But I thought the geeks among you might like to see it!

Superman:
The Legion of Super-Heroes

You’re thinking: Yikes. Not the Legion!

There’s, like, a hundred members. And they each have siblings and parents. Plus villains. And sundry supporting cast. It’s impossible to keep track! And to add insult to injury, it’s set a thousand years in the future!

Don’t worry. We’re going to use about half a dozen of them, while still giving a sense of the scope of the team.

Also, we’re going to avoid the problem so many folks run into with the Legion, which is — for some inexplicable reason — always bringing an “away team” into the present. Look, a big part of the glory of the Legion is its far-flung setting. I’m going to lean into that, with not one, not two, but three versions of the future.

Stick with me. It’ll all make sense and it won’t be confusing in the least. I swear on my replica flight ring.

(And look — this is a character-driven piece, but it’s the nature of the beast that there’s gonna be some sci-fi weirdness. The sci-fi weirdness doesn’t conflict with the character elements; it enhances them.)

We start with Superboy.

**********

Clark Kent has a problem.

At sixteen, he’s the most powerful kid on the planet. Hell, in the solar system. You think it’s rough being in high school when you don’t fit into a convenient clique? Try not fitting into the species.

It should be simple: He has powers and he uses them to help people. That’s just the way it’s supposed to go, right? The strong help the weak, the mighty defend the small, and everyone is uplifted.

But Superboy yearns for something more. He could spend 24 hours a day being “on call,” and still never save every life, root out every evil, extinguish every conflict. He needs something to keep him on an even keel. He’s physically indestructible, but the stresses of a dual identity, teendom, and, y’know, saving the world on the regular are getting to him.

Is this his destiny? Is he fated to be alone, to be isolated from the very people he saves? Even in his secret identity, is he always going to be the outcast?

Superboy needs to figure out how to grow up into Superman without laying waste to the planet in a fit of teen pique. He wants a place where he can be himself. He wants friends that he doesn’t have to lie to all the time.

Enter: The Legion of Super-Heroes! Founding members Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy! Teens heroes from the far-flung future, the year 3020!

It begins when Clark takes a shortcut home through town, lost in his thoughts. As he rounds a corner, a beautiful girl lingers there, leaning against the wall of the Smallville Savings and Loan. She greets him with, “Hello, Superboy.”

She’s gone almost before he can stammer out a surprised “Say what?”

And then the same thing happens two more times, this time with a red-headed boy and a black-haired kid. Three strangers to town who know the truth he’s tried so hard to hide.

But of course they know — they’re from the future, where Superboy’s secret identity is a matter of historical record. They’ve traveled back in time to recruit Superboy to join their “super-hero club” and give him — at last — what he’s so longed for: Friends who “get” him. A clique of his own, one not comprised of kids who might as well be made of papier mache, for all their fragility.

The bring him to the future, where there is some hazing, of course, some shenanigans and ridiculous teen rituals to endure, but when it’s all said and done, Superboy is a member of the Legion.

The 31st century is…amazing. It’s basically a fifties sci-fi flick come to life, with gleaming, rounded buildings, floating cars, no pollution. There are giant fins on everything. It’s a candy-colored universe of cool aliens and amazing tech, all guarded over by a group of super-powered teenagers from around the galaxy.

It’s basically the greatest thing ever. Superboy starts spending every moment of his free time there. Home from school, homework done at superspeed, and then it’s off to the future to hang with his new pals. Finally, he belongs. And heck, that cute Triplicate Girl even seems to have a crush on him.

We get a sense of the sheer size of the team through updates on their Mission Monitor Board, which lets us keep the “on-panel” team manageably small, while still showing that this is a big group.

Clark starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he should move to the 31st century. For him, going back and forth through time to visit his adoptive parents is no more difficult than someone who moved to the West Coast heading back East for the holidays. Why not stay in the perfect future, the place where he feels most at home, most at ease, most himself?

It’s the easiest thing to do. It requires no sacrifice on his part. And he’s still doing good work with the Legion, so it’s not like he’s shirking his duty. He’s just…time-shifted it.

Of course, it’s too good to be true.

A voice begins calling to him. At first, he ignores it, but eventually he can’t help himself — he follows the voice to a hidden subbasement in Legion headquarters, where he discovers a door.

His friends rush to him, but before they can stop him, he opens the door and is sucked into…

…the real 31st century!

His guide — the source of the voice — is Dawnstar, a winged descendant of Native Americans with a strange “tracking ability” that has allowed her to cross dimensions in pursuit of Superboy. She leads him into what is actually the year 3020, and it ain’t pretty.

It rains. Constantly.

The city is smog-choked. Overcrowded. Rusted, broken tech litters the streets. The people live in terror and in hiding. The burnt-out husks of vehicles line the boulevards. It’s a war zone after the war’s ended and no one has bothered to clean up.

“This is the future you are going to make, Superboy,” she tells him.

“Me?” he explodes. “What did I do?”

It’s not what he did, she explains. It’s what he didn’t do.

Seduced by the pop art version of the future he’s been living in, Superboy had made the decision to stay in the 31st century for good. Ergo, no Superman in the 21st century. No Superman means no heroic inspiration resounding down through the centuries to lift up humanity and create the shining future we all dream of.

The “fifties” version of the future he was living in? Not real. At all.

He’s been stuck inside the Virt. Short for “virtual reality,” but it’s so much more than that. With 31st century advanced technology, the Virt is pretty much its own universe, concocted and designed and maintained specifically to give young Clark his anodyne dream come true. Seduction on a universal scale.

(This is where it gets sci-fi-y. In the wise words of Sledge Hammer: Trust me; I know what I’m doing.)

In the year 3020, Dawnstar explains, the powerful wizard Mordru the Merciless realized that he could never conquer the world due to the resistance of the Legion of Super-Heroes. And so he created a false version of the world, using his magic to empower the Virt even further than its own technology could allow, creating a bespoke universe designed to seduce the young Superboy into his clutches and change history such that the Legion never existed. Virtspace is something like 99% as real as the real world at this point. Everything Superboy experienced is real, but it was all at the direction of Mordru, for the nefarious purpose of killing Superboy’s good intentions.

Dawnstar goes on: Now there are three versions of the future: There’s the Virt. There’s the world in which Mordru rules all, the world Superboy has followed Dawnstar into. And there’s the real 31st century, a shining example of optimism and human progress that is more complicated and more nuanced than the simplistic version in the Virt. That’s the version Dawnstar is from, a timeline that is rapidly decaying and will soon vanish from existence altogether.

Unless Superboy acts.

She takes him to a spot in Metropolis, where a sewage treatment plant rears up into the sky.

“This is where the Superman Museum was supposed to be. Where it was, in my timeline,” she tells him. “We used to come here all the time, to be inspired by your example, to rededicate ourselves to live up to it. But without that example…”

She says no more, only gestures around them at the wreck and ruin of the year 3020. Mordru’s playground.

As much as Clark wants to go back into the Virt and have that idealized version of his life, he understands now that he has to sacrifice his wants and needs. His powers make him physically indestructible, but he can still be hurt in his heart, in his soul. And it’s like ripping off an arm, but he sees now that he must return to the present, that he must allow himself to pretend to be the human being he is not. His own comfort and desires and wishes are meaningless compared to the suffering of untold billions down through the centuries.

He’s not some kid who gets to grow up and settle down in the ‘burbs.

He’s going to be Superman.

The world demands more from him.

The world deserves more from him.

Battling his way through Mordru’s hordes, he locates the time travel equipment he needs and plows back through the millennium that separates his era from the Legion’s. Mordru’s reality begins to crumble, to be replaced with the future as it was always meant to be, a future that we would recognize as being made by real people, not fantasies.

Soon, Clark is back home in Smallville.

Where, once more, he must get through life every day pretending to be someone and something he is not.

But this time…this time it’s a little easier.

Eventually, he confides the truth to his parents, telling them about his temptations and his decision.

Morose and beating himself up, he says, “If I had it all to do over again, Pa, I’d do it differently. I really would.”

“I know,” his father tells him. “And that’s the lesson you take from this.”

“You are extraordinary,” says his mother, “so your sacrifices are extraordinary, too. But if you want an ordinary life, no one should stop you from having that.”

But, no. He can’t. Once, perhaps, the idea of giving up, of not using his powers, of just living life like anyone else might have been attractive to him, and the idea of those who would suffer as a result was just an abstraction. But now he’s seen it. He’s lived it.

He is Superboy. And someday, he will be Superman. And damn it, he will be the very best version of both.

Meanwhile (if that word means anything when we’re talking about time travel…), in the future that was always meant to be, the Legion visits the Superman Museum and thrills to the exhibits that reveal the amazing feats and incredible sacrifices of the Man of Steel and how they formed the world they now live in.

And Lightning Lad looks over at Saturn Girl and says, “So, do you think it’s time…?”

**********

Back in the present, Clark Kent rounds a corner in town, taking a shortcut home from school. A beautiful girl lingers there, leaning against the wall of the Smallville Savings and Loan.

“Hello, Superboy,” she says.

And Clark grins.

Yes. This time, he’ll do it differently.

Long live the Legion!

(This piece comes from my newsletter, which goes out monthly. For more stuff like this, and to get it first, sign up here!)

From My Newsletter: More Bridekiller

Two months ago, I posted an excerpt from BRIDEKILLER, the first book in a new Jasper Dent series. Here’s the next scene for ya…

“Take the next left and get on the highway,” he told her.

She had introduced herself as Special Agent Maxine de la Croix. He hadn’t bothered introducing himself. In de la Croix’s inoffensive rental, he directed her off the two-laner that contracted to one lane while bisecting the heart of town. The town of Lobo’s Nod had a way of making most things smaller when it absorbed them. Roadways were no exception.

“There’s a place closer,” de la Croix said. “In town. I saw it on my way. Local joint. Coff-E-Shop or something. Looked nice.”

“I don’t go there. There’s a Starbucks one exit up.”

She hesitated only a moment, then signaled and switched lanes. Lobo’s Nod, his hometown, his home base, disappeared behind them.

“Do people still call you Jazz?” she asked, glancing over at him.

He favored her with the most withering look in his collection and very deliberately said nothing.

She returned her attention to the road. “OK, look, I’m here because—”

“Because the Bureau sends someone like you every few months. Congratulations — you have the length of the trip to Starbucks and back to talk to me. That’s better than anyone else they’ve sent. They might give you a raise.”

“All we want—”

“You guys think that just because my parents were serial killers, I’ve got some kind of gift for hunting them down.”

“You did a fair job of nailing your parents a few years back. And a few of their buddies, too.”

He grunted. “I was a teenager. I thought I was invincible. And a lot of people got hurt.”

“You’re too young to pull off the grizzled veteran routine,” she said, her tone tired and snappish. Her face crumpled in self-reproach as soon as she said it. He grinned.

By now they’d pulled into the drive-through lane at the closest Starbucks. De la Croix ordered for them both, handed his coffee to him, and — after a moment’s hesitation — headed back to the Dent house. Jasper took a sip of his coffee, even though it was scalding hot.

“Sorry about that before,” she muttered.

“Don’t be. You finally said something not in the FBI script. Good for you.” He saluted her with his coffee.

With a rueful chuckle, she tapped her cup against his. They both drank in silence for a moment as she drove.

“It’s not that I want to be difficult,” he said, staring out the windshield. “I just don’t want to be involved in—”

“We think it’s a Crow.”

He stopped. He did everything in his power to resist turning back to her, but all his power was not enough. Face-to-face with her, he set his jaw and, with as much testosterone as he could muster said, “Do not screw with me. Not about this.”

“I’m not. I swear.”

The Crows. A secret nationwide collective of serial killers. So well concealed that no one who wasn’t a member even knew they existed until Jasper, as a teenager, had gone up against the Crow King, Janice.

His mother.

And her right-hand man, Jasper’s father, Billy.

Together, they had a serial killing career that spanned decades and bodies in the triple digits, but that was only the veneer of their depravity. The Crows were massing power and influence, placing their more agreeable members in positions of social influence and power, all in pursuit of an insane agenda that seemed to revolve around the idea of turning the country into a hunting preserve for serial killers.

The notion was so mad as to be risible, but the fact that the Crows had operated for so long without being discovered smothered any amusement he may have considered.

“Are you sure?” he heard himself ask. Despite his best, most cherished intentions, his temples began to pulse. His breathing had quickened ever so slightly.

They’d pulled into his driveway. De la Croix cut the engine and sighed, turning in her seat to regard him.

“This is the end of our trip. I guess you’ll never know.”

Her lips curled the bare minimum to qualify for a self-satisfied smile. She truly looked nothing at all like Connie, but in that moment he desperately wanted her to. It would make his capitulation a tiny bit easier.

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

From My Newsletter: Cool Links

Here are some things with which to interrupt your doomscrolling…

A professor from my alma mater is helping to probe the “infant universe.” Look, that’s just darn cool. If you could probe the infant universe, you know you would!This is the greatest Ratatouille cosplay EVER.Spider-Man Co-Creator Steve Ditko has often been misunderstood…partly because he never really bothered to explain himself. A great piece from Rolling Stone on his life and what he left behind.)Eddie Vedder surprises David Letterman and blows the audience away. Back in the day. Great stuff.

Recommended Reading 2024

Every year, I track the books I read and take care to flag the ones that are really, really good. Here are my top books for 2024, in no particular order:

Friday, Book One: The First Day of Christmas by Ed Brubaker & Marcos MartinThe 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart TurtonClean Room Vol. 1: Immaculate Conception by Gail Simone & John Davis-HuntBreaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel by Lisa JewellHope Rides Again: An Obama Biden Mystery by Andrew ShafferJulia Unbound by Catherine Egan (read the whole damn trilogy — it’s so good!)Hopscotch by Brian GarfieldThe Hunger and the Dusk, Vol. 1 by G. Willow Wilson & Chris WildgooseBatman/Superman: The Archive Of Worlds by Gene Luen Yang & divers artists!The Reformatory by Tananarive Du

From My Newsletter: Serial Killer of the Month: Bobby Joe Long

Here’s a weird connection to contemporary news: Serial killer Bobby Joe Long was executed in Florida by lethal injection in 2019. The governor who signed his death warrant? Ron DeSantis. I applaud Mr. DeSantis’s decision in this, if not in much else. Bobby Joe Long was a nasty piece of work: He used to deliver appliances for a living, and if he happened upon a house with a woman along, he would just go ahead and rape her.

Eventually, he moved on to murder.

Readers of I Hunt Killers may recall Long’s name from Jazz’s mantra: “People matter. People are real. Remember Bobby Joe Long.” That’s because Long’s compulsion to rape and murder eventually, somehow, became a compulsion to let a victim go. Even though he knew doing so would lead to his capture. He was just as helpless in the throes of that that need to release her as he claimed to be in the throes of the urge to harm.

The world is vastly better off without him. You can read more about him here.

BEFORE THE HUNT: The Prequels are Here!

For literally ten years now, people have been asking me, “When will the I Hunt Killers prequels be available in print?”

The stories have been available as ebooks for years, but people like their dead trees. And I don’t blame them!

So…

Before the Hunt will be out in 2025! And ten lucky subscribers to my newsletter will get a copy before anyone else!

Go sign up for the newsletter and get ready for the upcoming November issue, which will contain more details about the book, including how you can get one early!