Tuesday, June 12, 2012

My Vigilante Revenge Thriller "Killer Instincts" is Now Available

After a two-year gestation, my vigilante revenge novel Killer Instincts has gone live on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. If you're interested in checking it out, click on the link in the right-hand sidebar.

For the majority of you who've never heard or seen me talk about it...

Killer Instincts is the story of William Lynch, an upper-middle class college junior, whose parents and teenage sister are killed in a mob hit while he's in Paris during spring break in March of 2001. William's father is a hotshot DA in Boston, attempting to prosecute Pauly Paggiano, the son of a minor-league crime boss, for the rape and murder of a young college girl. In order to deliver a savage message to the eyewitnesses in the case - the only real evidence the prosecution has - the Paggianos kill William's family and burn their Providence home to the ground.

William is informed of the tragedy by his estranged uncle Jamie Lynch, a Vietnam veteran and former SOG Green Beret. Jamie leads a reclusive existence in Maine, where he owns a log cabin on the shore of Moosehead Lake and works in a sporting goods shop. William has only met his uncle a handful of times over the years; both of William's parents were against Jamie having much contact with their son, worried that Jamie - whose views on war and violence can be disturbing - would somehow "corrupt" their son into a warmonger.  Jamie was a soldier who thrived in combat, and after the war he spent a number of years participating in activities that can only be described as morally ambiguous...

Now, Jamie is the only family William has left. Meeting for the first time in years, Jamie reveals to William the reasons behind his family's slaughter; the court case against Pauly Paggiano, how the eyewitnesses have all withdrawn their testimonies or otherwise backed out of the case, and how the case against Pauly has been thrown out. Faced with the enormity of what has happened to him, William realizes that at 21, any hope he has for a normal life has been erased by this terrible act. Feeling he doesn't have anything to lose, since his future has been so horribly ruined, William decides he's going to find a way to avenge his family and destroy the Paggianos.  He begs Jamie to join with him in his crusade, but Jamie refuses, declaring that he can't go back to that way of life after decades of maintaining a civilized existence.  Seeing his nephew is committed to this idea with or without his help, Jamie begrudgingly admits that, although he's not going to help William, he knows someone who can.

Jamie introduces his nephew to Richard, a mysterious, eccentric Texan who made his living for decades as a professional mercenary. Although he's now retired from taking active assignments, Richard has a network of contacts and resources he'd be willing to provide to William, for a price. After some consideration, William decides that he wouldn't feel right contracting the Paggiano's destruction; he wants to keep the revenge personal. So, for a hundred thousand dollars (plus expenses), Richard agrees to mentor William through an intense, month-long training and indoctrination regimen out in the Texas desert.

What takes place next is the mental and physical transformation of a peaceful, white-collar college student into a bloody-minded vigilante killer. And then the fun really begins...

10 comments:

Dan Eldredge said...

Best of luck, dude. You've put a lot of work into this.

Civil War Horror (Sean McLachlan) said...

Liked! Add some tags to the page.
When does the next issue of Hatchet Force Journal come out?

Jack Badelaire said...

Thanks for the support guys!

Sean, I've added some tags. When I uploaded I added keywords, but I guess those aren't the same thing, are they?

As for HFJ, I lost several key contributors for #2, and it was competing with time needed to get KI out the door. I've got several other projects I want to try and finish this summer. Hopefully, the novel and several other releases I'm hoping for can drum up the support I'll need to lock in #2's writers.

Jeremy said...

Congrats, dude! So this is one of the mystery projects you were talking about the last time we had lunch! Excellent!

Jack Badelaire said...

Yup! A long time in the incubator, but finally out and on the market.

Civil War Horror (Sean McLachlan) said...

You can count on me for a HFJ article when you do a historical issue!

Anonymous said...

Richard? Would his initials happen to be RJC? That's a nice twist.

Jack Badelaire said...

Anon, the character does bear a strong resemblance to a certain blue-eyed Texan mercenary found in a certain Men's Adventure book series. I leave the decision up to the reader whether it is more than just a strong resemblance...

Anonymous said...

Jack,

Sounds good to me. I wonder how many will make that decision? And in a related note, did you ever get to review the new DM book that surfaced this summer? Been wondering about it, as I was a big DM fan back in the '80s. Still have all the books, actually.

Jack Badelaire said...

Anon: I haven't gotten a copy yet - I was waiting for it to hit Amazon or another legit outlet. I'm thinking they must have hit some kind of snafu, since there's nothing up yet.