By Jennifer Harlow
This week, we shine a spotlight on one of our new members: Jennifer Harlow, and the first book in her Galilee Falls trilogy, Justice.
“I hope this guy isn’t just jerking us around,” Cam says as we approach the metal detector. Not many visitors are allowed through these gates except lawyers and villain groupies who fudge birth certificates to show they’re “related” to the incarcerated. Sad. The only weapons allowed on-site are in the Hardcore Unit—their name not mine—where the criminals with superpowers are housed. We hand over our weapons to the guard, who sticks them in a lockbox before walking us through.
“Hell, I’d rather be here than where I was,” I say, getting my keys and wallet back. We walk down the beige hallway with pictures of the guards on the wall. “Did you call Harry about this?”
“I left a message, but I think he’s still at the Mike Spencer bombing site with Kowalski and Mirabelle.”
“Well, better them than us.”
The guard behind the bullet resistant glass at the reception area looks up from his magazine as we approach. “May I help you?”
“Detectives Cameron and Fallon here to interview prisoner Janus Manx,” Cam says.
“One moment please,” the guard says as he makes a call.
As we wait for confirmation, I turn around and lean against the wall with a sigh. I so just want to go home and crawl into bed, but no, instead I get to spend countless hours listening to a man tell me how he vivisected women. Fun all around. A guard wearing a Galilee Angels baseball cap with his head hung rounds the corner, followed by an Asian man dressed in a business suit. God, you could not pay me enough to work here.
As the guard passes, his head tilts up to gaze at me. I can only see half his face, but I can tell he’s very good looking: about forty, six foot, and medium build, with wide lips and brown eyes, the visible one winking at me. My body tenses a little for some reason. I swear I’ve seen him before. Where—
Cam’s angry booming voice interrupts my train of thought. “What do you mean he’s in the hole?”
I turn around to see the guard hanging up the phone. “I’m sorry, but he’s been in there all day.”
“But that’s impossible. His lawyer called us saying she spoke to him just hours ago.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. There is no way he made that call. I—”
“Holy shit! I need some help over here!” a man shouts around the corner.
Cam and I take off like rockets. About twenty yards away another guard kneels on the beige linoleum, beside him another man lies on the floor covered in blood and a pink frothy liquid that still bubbles. The smell of sizzling flesh with metallic acid and blood is overpowering. “Lockdown! We need a lockdown now!” the guard shouts into the radio on his shoulder.
Cam kneels down too, yanking off his jacket. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
The prostrate man, if he can be called that because I doubt he’s barely out of his teens, is as white as a ghost. His left hand is nothing but a pulpy stump, and he’s not dressed. He’s only in boxers and a gore-covered undershirt. Oh, fuck. I remember exactly where I’d seen that guard before. I look at Cam. “Alkaline! Fucking Alkaline is trying to escape!”
Justice: Book 1 in the Galilee Falls trilogy
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” –E. Burke
For Det. Joanna Fallon, it’s damn hard being a police officer in Galilee Falls, a city with the highest concentration of superheroes and villains in the country, and working under the specter of the city’s champion, Justice. It’s even harder watching her best friend, the man she’s secretly in love, with planning to marry another woman while keeping the growing relationship with her boss a secret.
When the city’s vilest supervillain, acid spewing Alkaline, escapes from maximum security prison, and an attack close to home, Joanna must contend with her increasing fear and prejudices while struggling to choose between her soul-mate and her new-found love.
With a coy blend of whimsy and vivid imagination, Justice delivers humor and thrills in an action-packed and edgy blend of comic book cool, fantasy-noir, hard-boiled mystery, and bitter-sweet romance.
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Jennifer Harlow
spent her restless childhood fighting with her three brothers and scaring the heck out of herself with horror movies and books.
She grew up to earn a degree at the University of Virginia, which she put to use as a radio DJ, crisis hotline volunteer, bookseller, lab assistant, wedding coordinator, graphic designer, and government investigator.
Currently she calls Atlanta home, but that restless itch is ever present. In her free time, she continues to scare the beejepers out of herself watching scary movies and opening her credit card bills. She is the author over twelve books, an Independent Publisher’s Award, and was interviewed on NPR.
For the soundtrack to her books and other goodies visit her at www.jenniferharlowbooks.com.