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Dragon Marks Eight: A Nights on Fire Novel
In the mid 1980s, Kobok, a hard drinking, cynical, veteran ATF Agent, is caught between an inept supervisor and a system that demands results to avoid transfer to Butte, Montana, or a duty station where mail comes monthly by tramp steamer. Under the gun to produce a major case, he’s summoned to an arson homicide in an affluent Dallas neighborhood where the only survivor is the ex-stripper wife of the victim, the owner of a brassiere factory.
The ghastly crime scene discloses two pre-teen sons also dead in the debris. Kobok discovers a child’s journal depicting what appears to be a game involving mythical characters and a twelve-sided dice. Thinking it might shed light on lives of a dysfunctional family, he tucks the journal away, but it soon drifts out of mind.
With a rookie agent partner, weeks out of the academy, and Bull Hooper, a hard-nosed, kick-ass Dallas Homicide Detective, he wends his way along the seamy underside of Dallas, through strip clubs, an outlaw biker gang war, a variety of back alley characters, and sudden, deadly violence. In the end, he realizes with sobering clarity that what seems to be, often isn’t, and the journal scribbling of a child exposed to horrors beyond his comprehension, could be more insightful than any reasoning mind could possibly understand.
The ghastly crime scene discloses two pre-teen sons also dead in the debris. Kobok discovers a child’s journal depicting what appears to be a game involving mythical characters and a twelve-sided dice. Thinking it might shed light on lives of a dysfunctional family, he tucks the journal away, but it soon drifts out of mind.
With a rookie agent partner, weeks out of the academy, and Bull Hooper, a hard-nosed, kick-ass Dallas Homicide Detective, he wends his way along the seamy underside of Dallas, through strip clubs, an outlaw biker gang war, a variety of back alley characters, and sudden, deadly violence. In the end, he realizes with sobering clarity that what seems to be, often isn’t, and the journal scribbling of a child exposed to horrors beyond his comprehension, could be more insightful than any reasoning mind could possibly understand.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2019
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March 5, 2019
The seamier side of 1980’s Dallas is the setting for Clifton’s hard-hitting police procedural. Street-wise ATF veteran agent Kobok and his yuppie partner Bush along with Dallas homicide detective Bull Hooper are assigned to the investigation of an arson-murder. The victims are shady businessman Billy Jack Givens and his two young stepsons. Givens’ ex-stripper wife is the sole survivor of the house fire and one of a number of suspects including outlaw bikers, human traffickers and drug dealers. In addition to confronting an assortment of lowlifes throughout the course of the investigation, Kobok must also make do with outdated equipment, an inflexible bureaucracy and a nincompoop supervisor.
The title contains a clue of which I’ll say no more. Dragon Marks Eight provides an action-packed ride on the dark side, with plenty of gut-churning violence and steamy sex. Clifton writes a fast-paced straightforward narrative with the authenticity and sharp gallows humor of a law enforcement veteran who’s seen it all.
The title contains a clue of which I’ll say no more. Dragon Marks Eight provides an action-packed ride on the dark side, with plenty of gut-churning violence and steamy sex. Clifton writes a fast-paced straightforward narrative with the authenticity and sharp gallows humor of a law enforcement veteran who’s seen it all.
Displaying 1 of 1 review