51-50: "Police code meaning crazy and violent. Often used as slang meaning the same." -Urban Dictionary
Cleaver is a cop who just can't take it anymore. He knows he's going to step over the line, it's just a question of when. It's the smirk that blows him away in this stripped down psycho noir short story.
From the Award-Winning author of the noir thriller WHITE HEAT - 2013 SHAMUS NOMINEE (Private Eye Writers of America). Other nominees in various categories include Robert Crais, Jeffrey Deaver, Ace Atkins, Hank Phillippi Ryan, to name a few.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY says: WHITE HEAT is a "...taut crime yarn set in 1992 against the turmoil of the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of the police officers charged with assaulting motorist Rodney King.... the author ably evokes the chaos that erupted after the Rodney King verdict."
Excerpt from 51-50:
It was the smirk that blew me away. A half grin in the eyes and mouth, mocking, laughing. Maybe at me - maybe at the badge. They were leaning against a grimy cinder block wall under a sooty sky. Thumbs hooked into pockets of baggy lowrider pants, fingers, long and lean, twisting into coded signals. Eyes hollow. Eyes I don't even want to meet in the darkest dream. Hollow men. Hollow boys. Nothing behind those eyes. Nothing. They don't care. Don't give a damn.
It was that smirk that blew them away.
~ ~ ~
Cops aren't supposed to have feelings. We do a good job of hiding them. Burying them. But we're just like everybody else. We hide them in bravado or work. We hide them in a bottle or in "inexplicable" rages. But they're there, like the molten lava in a volcano just waiting to burst through to the surface.
Genre: Mystery
Cleaver is a cop who just can't take it anymore. He knows he's going to step over the line, it's just a question of when. It's the smirk that blows him away in this stripped down psycho noir short story.
From the Award-Winning author of the noir thriller WHITE HEAT - 2013 SHAMUS NOMINEE (Private Eye Writers of America). Other nominees in various categories include Robert Crais, Jeffrey Deaver, Ace Atkins, Hank Phillippi Ryan, to name a few.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY says: WHITE HEAT is a "...taut crime yarn set in 1992 against the turmoil of the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of the police officers charged with assaulting motorist Rodney King.... the author ably evokes the chaos that erupted after the Rodney King verdict."
Excerpt from 51-50:
It was the smirk that blew me away. A half grin in the eyes and mouth, mocking, laughing. Maybe at me - maybe at the badge. They were leaning against a grimy cinder block wall under a sooty sky. Thumbs hooked into pockets of baggy lowrider pants, fingers, long and lean, twisting into coded signals. Eyes hollow. Eyes I don't even want to meet in the darkest dream. Hollow men. Hollow boys. Nothing behind those eyes. Nothing. They don't care. Don't give a damn.
It was that smirk that blew them away.
~ ~ ~
Cops aren't supposed to have feelings. We do a good job of hiding them. Burying them. But we're just like everybody else. We hide them in bravado or work. We hide them in a bottle or in "inexplicable" rages. But they're there, like the molten lava in a volcano just waiting to burst through to the surface.
Genre: Mystery
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