Well folks I hope everyone is well. We are making progress on art work and typesetting for the up coming Neo-Noir novel: When The Luck Runs Dry. The project is nearing a completion date in mid February, with a launch date tentatively set for March 17, 2021. Due to the pandemic the launch may have to be a virtual event, depending on the Co-Vid situation here in Canada. I am working on the social media sites related to the book, which you can find in the About and Contact menus above. Otherwise I am slowly writing away at the sequel novel: Fallen Angels, and I had a nice workshop with the #QuebecWritersFederation on the weekend that helped move that along. So here is a small excerpt from the upcoming book and if you are chomping at the bit to read it, you can watch the 2012 film version on I Tunes in North America here: https://factoryfilmstudio.com/portfolio-item/lucky-7/

Excerpt:

I step out of the cab into the now brisk air, and the cab driver helps me gather my things from the trunk. He lays them on the sidewalk while I light another cigarette. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a business card and hands it to me. –
Taxi Driver: “Anytime you need a lift, here’s my number. Big tippers like you don’t come around very often!”
He chuckles and slides back into his taxi, pulling away into the darkened night, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
The sign from Farleys’ is lit from the side swinging slightly in the wind. But another light is glowing now from the downstairs storefront, a neon red and violet glow from an illuminated cross in the window. Strange to see. This was and old hardware store last, I remember-—Millers’?
Now as I look up, I see a new sign: The Church of The Universal Prophet. Jesus. You can thank the tax-free status of churches for all these store-front operations. Usually run by some crackpot or another—or some Mafia clan doing some old school money laundering. I try and peer through the drawn shades, but the view is obscured. Yet my ears can make out the sounds of an electric church organ filtering out onto the street. Sounds like an old school Protestant hymn from way back. Well, to my untrained ear at least.
But duty calls, and I turn toward the doorway to the right of the building and open the door. Farley’s is a strange old building, and the main oddity of it is that the pub is located on the upper floor. Many an inebriated patron has taken a tumble down this flight of stairs over the years, but no casualties so far—that I know of, that is. Other than a few livers, but those are a self-inflicted wound.
As I open the door, I hear the organ music from the church being overpowered by some Irish folk rock emanating from upstairs. The Irish—the Blacks of Europe. “No Dogs or Irishmen need apply, etc.” No longer: once shunned like the Italians in throughout North America, now everyone runs out to drink green beer and knows all the words to every song by U2. Kind of funny really. And the music only gets louder as I ascend the stairs.
I round the corner at the top of the stairs and enter a time capsule. The music and lights and pool tables and bar stools: they are all just as I remember them. The two guys tending bar are familiar as well, except a few years older. They’re my brothers, Allan and Brian, and the barfly at the end of the bar—he is still here as well: Alex Quigley. It was Quigley who first notices me standing silhouetted in the doorway, as I drop by duffel bag to the floor.
Quigley: “Well. If it isn’t Lucky 7; like Lazarus back from the dead!”
Lucky 7. That was nickname bestowed on me at a young age, being the 7th kid in a brood of 8. The only one younger than me was Frankie. I was deemed to be the one to bring good fortune upon the family, being the 7th born, but the only luck I seem to have brought was bad. Or so it may seem up to now anyways.
And, just now, my luck seems to not be taking too much of a positive spin either, as my brothers catch sight of me and advance from behind the bar with a mix of shock and anger in their eyes. Allan stands back while Brian advances forward blocking my path.
Brian: “Jesus Fucking Christ.”
Not the best wording for a conversation starter I think, but before I can reply, a flash of fist rises from below and a powerful pain shocks my jaw. And then the lights go out. For me anyways. Some homecoming.

Photo Credit: Sabrina Armani