Alexi Sokolsky is the dark star of HOLLOW BONES – The first of a brutal, bloody series of novels centered around the American-Russian underworld.
Part Urban Fantasy, part Occult Detective-Thriller, part Horror, HOLLOW BONES is what happens when the Cenobites of Hellraiser get their hands on Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code and have it filmed by Quentin Tarantino.
“Honestly that’s some world class writing you’ve got there. Reminds me a bit of Lustbader with the whole cold urban winter feel, if that makes sense but you’ve got a style all your own. Got a spot ready for it on my bookshelf when it comes out.” – Scott G.
Hollow Bones
Frank Nacari, a Made Man from a small but well connected Mafia family, turns up skewered, eviscerated and de-boned in a Russian Mob-run shipping yard. Alexi Sokolsky, an ex-hitman known for his bizarre and macabre wet-work, is called in by his old gang to try and work out why Frank is dead.
Unbeknownst to his associates, Alexi is an Initiate, a True Magus, and he quickly discerns that the murder involves magic beyond anything he has ever believed possible. Caught up in the ensuing cycle of retribution and chaos, Alexi becomes obsessed with finding the murderer as underworld players – hard, capable men – are brutalized and violated at a terrifying rate.
Alexi’s eyes opened sightlessly. He was flat on his back, spread out on the sleeping bag on top of the camping mattress, having not moved for the entire night. There was a streak of dawn light from underneath the door… it was barely enough to illuminate the room.
The air was silent, fecund. There was no sound from outside.
He remained staring at the ceiling for a few long moments, then blinked, slowly, before rolling over onto his side and picking himself up. Somehow, he had not taken chill from the cold. His body was oddly warm, buzzing, as if he had been rubbed over with fur. His teeth hummed.
Squinting, Alexi limped his way across the room, opened the door out into the main room of the cabin, and froze.
A small woman with her wispy mousy hair up in a twist was standing in his circle, stripped to the waist, a proud cant to her jaw, neck and shoulders. In one hand, she held a curved tree saw, the same way that Kutkh held his sacrificial knife. In the other, she grasped his father’s head. Nikla Sokolsky stood on small bare feet in a spreading pool of thick red liquid, nails like bird claws tensed in the skin of Grigori’s skull.
She was tiny, tiny and thin, her face sharp and beautiful. High prominent cheekbones, a large fine-bridged nose, just like her son, and the deep-set bruised sockets of a woman pushed to her limit. Her clear blue eyes were hard, and lit from deep within with a radiant inner fire. He could see the sinews between her breasts as she breathed. Her chest, her stomach and face were covered in a smeared tracery of lines and symbols, all drawn in blood.
She threw the head on the floor at his feet. It landed with a dull crack on the wood.
Publishing Date – TBA.