Luke Fischer is Coming Back

Hey, I'm a big fan of Luke Fischer... and I know of some other readers out there who feel the same way.
I've been working away at the follow up to Surf City Acid Drop, and I wanted to share an excerpt.

Stay tuned for updates on Manistique - the next Luke Fischer book.

Here is a taste:

Thick clouds stuck to each other like wet cotton, hanging in the air, full or moisture, but not letting go of their rain. Not yet. Still, the road ahead, the shoulder, the tree line, everywhere I looked hung a mist. Up and down the rollercoaster road we drove. It was smooth enough, probably be hell in winter, slide your car right into the pines, and they’d never find you. Left to freeze to death or be eaten by a moose. I admit, I wasn’t sure if a moose would do that, but I thought the thought anyway.

We drove in silence, I didn’t even feel like asking Sam what the plan was, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore. In the last few days I’d lost my way. Right from the beginning, I had questioned my reasons. I wanted to help out Franko. But how was this helping? Me drifting with a local sheriff from depressed town to sadder town.

The sides of the highway were dotted with mom and pop motels with names like NorthWoods, TimberView, and Iron-everything. The weathered signs were the originals, letters flaked off, and even older than the restaurants they advertised. No one thought to update them. If you were driving along this road you knew where the good places were. Maybe the odd tourist family, the ones too poor to go somewhere where something was, they ended up on this road— them and the fishermen.

Why did I want to help Franko? Sure, I felt for him. You see someone gut shot and just about die in front of you, well, it’s gonna affect a guy. He probably should have died. But it was more than that. I was damn pissed off. I wanted answers and not one person was providing them.

Sam and I weren’t one fucking scrap of dogshit information closer to knowing a goddamn thing. We were doing what this always comes down: chasing money. What was it about money anyway? Why did everything end up there? What were you supposed to do with it anyway? How much crap can you buy? How much could you drink or snort up your nose? For some, a lot I guess. Those old movies, the westerns, they always had the guy that was going to pull one more big job, and then hang it up, get a ranch in Butthole Wyoming and raise llamas. And they never did. They always got shot, or screwed by someone else, or jailed, or all three.

“Pretty deep into it, Luke.”

Sam’s voice bounced off the car ceiling and smacked me in the head.

“Yeah.”

“You’re wondering what this is all about,” she said.

“You do card tricks too?”

“Come again?”

“Mind reading me.”

She gave a low laugh.

“Well maybe Luke… because I’m wondering myself. Kinda thought you would be too.”

“I figured you got some info from the girl at the desk and we were following that.”

“Not curious?” she asked.

I didn’t answer her. A surfer’s wave of tiredness crashed into me. I let my eyes travel along the landscape as it whipped past. A doe poked her head out of the treeline. Sam slowed, seeing it when I did. The deer took a few timid steps toward the highway and stopped as we passed, spraying mist up at her.

Another rollercoaster hill came up and the rain picked up. The gray clouds became a solid dull mass overhead.

“We looking for more money?” I asked. “Is that what’s going on?”

“Yep. But that’s not the whole of it.”

“It was for Phil. That’s all he saw.”

“Things are getting pretty bleak there Luke. Maybe we should pull in and have plate of eggs and a few PBR’s.” She blew a stream of air trying to get a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Just tell me this is about more than money.”

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