A true breach

 I had some expectations to The Breach by Patrick Lee and the entire trilogy of novels. The blurb, the back-cover text promised something more than the usual boring stuff we are served from establishment publishers. Usually, that promise isn’t fulfilled, but in this case, it was.
  The protagonist Travis Chase doesn’t just stumble upon an impossible scene, but his very destiny. He’s dragged reluctantly into deep secret clandestine government operations he can hardly believe. It takes even more unbelievable turns from that point.
  He has a somewhat detached approach to it all at first, but the more he discovers of the startling truth, the more personal and familiar and closer to home all of it becomes.
  What is The Breach? That question seems impossible to answer, for anyone involved, but eventually, as knowledge breeds the above-mentioned familiarity, and the truth is revealed, it becomes both far easier and far more difficult.
  This is a mystery, where layer upon layer is revealed and I love those. We are served clues that are often misdirection and distractions. Chase realizes that he can’t trust anyone, not the people he sees as friends and close confidantes, not even himself.
  This is undoubtedly a fresh breath of a story, clearly ambiguous and meant to be. There is great progression, and the story is believable within its own context, carefully crafted to slowly reveal the beyond shocking truth.

  One minor beef: I feel that the ending of the third book should have been told through action and not through the protagonist’s thoughts.

  This review is also about the novels Ghost Country and Deep Sky.

Sighing wind

The wind is sighing between the tombstones. Even when there is no wind there is a whisper in the rotting ears of the walking dead. Skeleton feet are subbing on the wet ground. An ice cold howl casts its echo between the walls of the downtrodden castle. Blood is dripping from dirty branches and color the stone gray. Fangs and claws flash in the dirty moonlight. The thunderous sound of growth mixes with that of tasty raw meat torn apart. Blood and bones and slices of flesh decorate the overgrown garden. The ballet and the dance begin on the desolate yard. The ground is slick, causing many to slip and break their neck, and the ground turns even slicker. Blades turn golden metal in the light from the fires, and red upon being dipped in buckets of blood. The swimming pool in the backyard is used often and well. Virgins are being fucked to abandon, drawing their final breath through cut throats. Hot seed is pumped into cooling bodies. It’s raining and people calling the castle home are cheering and drinking the most exquisite wine. Skulls are the most practical of glasses. Bodies decorate the trees as the most beautiful of dreams, as art in red and gray. At dawn most people are rushing by. Only a few stop to admire the exhibition, the desolate beauty, and even fewer dare venture inside when the night once more grows ascendant. Huge eyes glow in the moonlight, while raindrops fall like knives in the three-dimensional painting breathing and panting and rocking on the enormously beautiful graveyard right by the city hall, where the undead politicians are making their final effort before nightfall.