Hi all:
As I told you last week I’ve decided to dedicate a few posts to share the works of other authors bloggers whose blogs I have already recommended but I’ve realised I haven’t yet talked to you about his books. And no time like now.
Today I bring you an Australian blogger who fascinates me for his versatility, and the great variety of topics he covers in his blog. If you haven’t checked Laurie Smith, I advise you to do it as soon as you can. And here he is!
L. W. Smith
Writing gritty, adult crime based novels seemed like a natural extension to Laurie Smith’s working life. Retired now after a life of working in the military, prisons, police and security he believes that he has something to write about and says, ‘You can’t be immersed in prison life, then work the streets as a copper without picking up the feel of crime and criminals. These experiences transfer easily to my books, set mainly in Queensland they add a local flavour not found in most novels of this genre.’
Laurie arrived in Australia as a boy from England in 1961 and lived in Sydney for a while before moving to Queensland. After joining the army he was stationed back in Sydney for two years before going to Vietnam. He felt drawn to Kings Cross, Sydney’s notorious red light district. This is where his first novel, Mountain of Death was born. He writes the Death series as L W Smith.
Retired now he fills his time when not writing another novel in his Death series, with photography, blogging and travel. He lives with his wife Lorelle on their rural hideaway in south-east Queensland.
Here his unmissable blog:
http://laurie27wsmith.wordpress.com/
And now his books!
Mountain of Death
Ten years on the inside can change a man. It changed Jack Hardy, it made him meaner. He knew his first step outside the gates would be the hardest, what he didn’t count on was coming up against someone from his past who brings mean to a whole new level. Everybody enjoys a big payday, none more than Hardy. They called him Hardman in Sydney’s Kings Cross and not just for his disposition. You have to start somewhere and he cut his teeth as a strip club bouncer and thief. A chance encounter brings Eddie Barnes, a Melbourne jockey on the run, into his life and along with a U S serviceman on R&R from Vietnam they pull off an Army payroll. Success breeds confidence and going on the run isn’t part of the deal. Neither is falling in love. Jack’s journey will take you on the road, along the way it’s a mixed bag of sex, violence, pain, loss and death culminating in an orgy of destruction on the Mountain of Death.
From the first page you’ll be drawn into Jack’s world. Stand next to him in his cell as he mulls over his failures and triumphs. There are the women he’s used and those that have used him for their own ends. Feel the excitement mount as he nears the end of ten long years inside where every waking moment could have been his last. Now all he wants is the woman he loves and his three million dollars. All good reasons to be happy, yet he knows that the minute he walks out of the front gate he’ll be the target for anyone with the guts to take him on. He’s left a trail behind him of those who have tried and failed. His journey will take you down dark alleys where you’ll feel knuckles striking flesh, into prison remand yards where a kick in the balls is the least of your worries. You’ll find yourself in dingy strip clubs and grubby flats, tasting the sweet delights of willing female flesh, and good scotch whiskey. Or in the middle of a shootout where bullets don’t discriminate, they kill. This is not a book for the weak of heart, so I suggest you bring along a supply of arnica cream for the bruises and a couple of shots of penicillin – you may need both.
http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Death-Book-1-ebook/dp/B007N66TRM/
Valley of Death
Drug addicted, abused and homeless, no one seems to care what happens to street kids in Fortitude Valley. When an underage girl is found dead from an apparent heroin overdose Detective Annie Leeson puts her reputation, career and life on the line to find answers.
So what do you do when your worst nightmares become a living reality? When people from your past aren’t who you think they are. Who can you trust? More importantly, who are you?
Constable Annie Leeson is hard, smart and sexy. A young woman who lives her life with lusty abandon and if she can’t talk her way out of trouble, she’ll fight. She has a good job, relationships and wealth and can handle most things the police force throws at her. It’s difficult enough being a woman and bi sexual in the job. So if you don’t want her in your face then don’t gossip about her adopted dad, Homicide Detective Johnny Leeson. The mail van robbery and his sudden retirement posed more questions than answers. The only downside to life is her dreams and they bring with them more questions than answers. Why do they terrify her? Who are the people in them, and where is her real father?
Fortitude Valley is an inner Brisbane riverside suburb steeped in crime, sex and violence a magnet for the good time crowd. It also attracts the homeless, mentally ill and runaways who fall prey to predators of all ages. Drug dealers ply their trade in the clubs and back alleys and the innocents don’t stay that way for long. Street kids and drug users are not high on society’s list of endangered species. They are seen as a blight, a nuisance something to be ignored. Annie can’t ignore them and when a girl is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, it brings up frightening connections to her own life. The questions pile up and so do the bodies. She becomes caught up in a perverted web of child abuse, pornography and murder, run by men whose only aims are lust and profit. Who can you trust when those in positions of power do nothing?
Rod and Grace Davis, friends of Detective Johnny Leeson when he was alive, are her only link to the past and she turns to them for help. Lives and reputations are destroyed and she discovers that there is more to love than raw sex. No one she cares about is safe, and driven by her dark past she treads a path that leads only one way – downhill.
http://www.amazon.com/Valley-Death-Book-2-ebook/dp/B00A6QR8A8/
River of Death
A young woman’s body is found hanging in an abandoned shipping container, at Pinkenba, near Fortitude Valley. This is Detective Senior Constable Simon Fynch’s first case and it’s nearly his last. DSC Annie Leeson, from Brisbane Homicide is assigned to the investigation. When the next body washes up on the shores of the Brisbane River, they find themselves on the hunt for a killer with a bent for the mythological and the bizarre. He has a preference for red haired, green eyed victims, and if they’re pregnant it’s a bonus. On a downward spiral he strives to find his perfect, pure woman and if she doesn’t exist, then he’ll make her. Refined, charming and sadistic he’ll keep killing until he reaches his goal.
If one killer isn’t enough another is on the run from Sydney’s Long Bay Jail and heading north to Queensland. He’s cold, brutal and someone from Detective Annie Leeson’s past. Annie may have hardened and matured since Valley of Death but her relationships are still in turmoil. Old friendships are reignited, new friends are made. Loved ones move on and new lovers fill the emptiness in her life, while she juggles work, relationships and motherhood. Her daughter, Susan is the cornerstone of her life and the centre of her frustration. A gifted child, she has a ‘special friend’ who keeps her company, much to the annoyance of her mother. Killers aren’t Annie’s only problem, her reputation is brought vividly into the spotlight again. Will it affect the investigation, more importantly will it put Susan’s life at risk?
River of Death will keep you reading as the breadth and scope of the killer’s reach unfolds. No one is safe from either killer as they are drawn together by a common bond. Understaffed and overworked the police at Fortitude Valley put everything into tracking down a monster, despite the toll wrought on them.
There are true horror stories out there and they aren’t about vampires and werewolves. We have made these creatures up, to hide the obvious fact that we are the monsters.
http://www.amazon.com/River-Death-L-W-Smith-ebook/dp/B00JAXRZYW/
Thanks so much to Laurie for always sharing the most wonderful content on his blog, thanks to you all for reading, and please, like, share, comment and of course CLICK!
Just Olga 