Catalyst is the story of a man named, Micah. Micah never thought he would amount to much. He has the plain job, the average home, the average life. Then suddenly Micah is thrust into a world of surprises and Micah learns he lives in a society were nothing is as it seems. On his way home one night, after being saved from two officers by a man named Jacob, Micah learns that Jacob is a part of a group called the Radicals and wants Micah to join them. Through the story Micah goes on a huge…

Think of Edgar Allen Poe or you might want to think of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. Alfred Hitchcock’s TV tales might also come to mind when you read Simon Marshland’s 15 short/short stories titled after the first of the strange tales - A Case of Blackrock Mineral Water.

Not all of the stories end with someone saying hello to death and there is at least one (find it for yourself) that actually does have a happy ending. That said, all of the stories do look at life from a far-side point…

So many kids dream of dinosaurs. Stories of these giant beasts and the magnificence of the time when they dominated the earth fill more fantasies than any age of man. Even this reviewer would pick up rocks, and still does, and examine them for traces of a past of which only dreams can be made. Oh so few people actually do stumble upon remnants of creatures that may have lain the seeds of our greatest legends of prehistory.

Cephis Hall, a self-described country boy, and his partner Sid…

Excellent! That is one small word that hardly describes a novel written with such heart. This is a story of a young mother who is faced with the death of her teenage son. He is not involved with drugs but his friend who was driving was, and this friend survived. The crush of pain left me breathless as I read and tried to imagine how Jenny must feel as she mourns. The description of this period in time was so intense that I had to cry along with her. Yet, Jenny must be strong because her…

I’m advising readers to read, re-read, and study the ending of this book because it is, in my estimation, pure literary genius. Not an easy job, conveying a dying man’s myriad thoughts and interactions throughout a whole novel in a manner that keeps the reader turning pages, but the author does it with a cerebral, yet tongue-in-cheek style that smacks a little of J.D. Salinger. Yep, it’s that good.

Josh Turner is dying, a painful and slow cancerous death. His mind whirls with amazing…

America’s war on drugs has touched an untold number of lives and cost national treasure that could have been used in so many better ways. This story of a small town detective’s involvement in this war makes for compelling reading.

The seeds for this episode were laid in a U.S. Special Forces operation some years before in Mexico. The raid was successful in its initial goal, but it set the stage for the problems that would soon face James Becker and his wife in northern hamlet of Red…