Scene of a Crime

A pint's a pound the world around ... and police tape is universal.

I'm working on the next project. I thought I'd share a little of its opening. It's just a bit of fun. The opening chapter will run quite differently but the chance to write a "movie trailer" first few paragraphs is too much fun to let stand tonight.

...

Murder disrupts any retirement community. Bodies discovered on a lanai behind the house have only slightly less impact than a corpse near the tee box on number three with a seven iron driven into its skull.

The normal reaction of a community involves grief, anger, and fear. When the victim is a resident of Katmandu, the exclusive island enclave inhabited by the best parts of The Hague's most wanted list, then normal doesn't apply.

The danger of one killing isn't that the residents might barricade themselves inside their estate villas until safety is assured. The danger is that the sharks smelling blood might decide to settle scores.

None of the guests earned their titular honorific of "for life" lightly. Toril Macamba, Interim President for Life of Ilmatustan earned it twice.

The loss of civil control in a community of the world's most dangerous tyrants might cause them to abandon retirement, however it was previously enforced. A return to the world could mean the death of millions of their former countrymen in revenge killings and ethnic cleansing. More probably, it could mean the end of the successful financing stream for Katmandu's most innovative management team.

Despot Island needs an authority with the guile and cunning and surgical ruthlessness to manage its special population. Mobutu's death rules out an obvious choice. There might be another if founder Emil Haberer can convince him to abandon the day job.

 Despot Island: a novel of murderers in paradise.