Peruser – a new Cole Wright short story

19 February, 202518 February, 2025 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve put out any of my Cole Wright series. I guess I’ve been reframing it and wondering if I want it to go on. Wright is my take on the popular Knight Errant genre.

I see that the new series of Reacher is out about now, and I realized that it was a great time to let this story out into the world. Lee Child is the master of the genre and I can but hope that my humble stories are in some way unique and worth reading in and of themselves.

Though I’m told that I should be out here selling myself. Better than Reacher! The compassion that you wish Jack had! Stuff like that.

Ultimately I just want to have fun with my writing, and if I’m entertaining a few people along the way, so much the better.

Really, it’s all practise at becoming a better writer. I hope that that is noticeable. I do feel more confident year by year, even with some little crises-of-confidence along the way. The fact that I’m selling more to the pro magazines sure suggests to me that I’m on the right track.

Anyway, back to ‘Peruser’. A Cole Wright short story set in a public library. My day job is in a public library, so I figure at least in this case I’ve got the setting down pat.

The thing is, this new TV series of Reacher is based on the Lee Child novel Persuader. So, yes, you can see what I did there. Not expecting a halo effect (as happened with Whalefall), but, you know. Better out where you can read it than stuck in a metaphorical drawer, right.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Here’s the blurb and the first chapter of the story.

Cole Wright always enjoys a quiet moment in a small town library as he travels from place to place. Free, welcoming, and quiet. And cheap used books for sale.

As he peruses through the battered but readable volumes, a ruckus shatters the the Wilden Public Library’s quiet haven.

Libraries attract all kinds of folks. And sometimes library patrons take exception.

Sometimes it leads to violence.

Cole Wright once again finds himself in the middle.

Wrong place. Wrong time. Just as well.

Peruser (excerpt)

The Wilden County Library was a small affair, little more than a few rooms in an old brick lawyers’ building. Quiet, subtle and homey in its own way.

Hardly the kind of place you’d need to bring a gun.

Perhaps four thousand square feet. Perhaps a little less. Open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, according to the brass sign at the door.

The air was cool and carried the agreeable scent of ageing books and shampooed carpeting.

The main area involved rows of shelves filled with books in a jumble of sizes. Probably neatly ordered according to rules of subject matter. Cole Wright had visited libraries often enough to know that there were different systems. Dewey Decimal was popular, but there were variations.

Right near the glass entry doors stood a wide central service desk, with helpful signs and racks of brochures and fliers, and a young librarian–bespectacled as if that was some kind of rule–tapping away at a computer. She was early twenties and tall. Dressed in black. She had a row of piercings along the outside of her left ear.

Off to her right, and tucked into the far corner, a bank of six computers occupied a long bench. Locals looking at emails or social media or videos. A couple of the computers had black screens and Out of Order signs.

Fingers ticked on keys and music bled quietly from headphones.

In back was the staff area, behind closed swinging doors with pebbled windows. Librarians came and went. The door hinges creaked every time. Trolley wheels rattled.

There were other rooms too. Bathrooms, a history reading room and a book sale room run by the friends of the library.

The reason Wright was here.

He’d read a good Grisham recently and needed a new book. Perhaps something a little more esoteric.

All across America, Friends of the Library organizations occupied back rooms or cupboard or shelves, filled with canceled library books, donated and other bits and pieces to help raise funds to keep the library running.

It suited Wright. He’d brought along the battered paperback to donate, and would browse for a replacement.

What he hadn’t figured, but should have really, was that the sale room opened an hour after the library itself, so he had a good fifteen minutes to wait.

That was fine with him too. He was new to town and enjoying the peace and quiet. After the bustle and frantic hectic life of a Seattle cop, the pace of small towns was just about right.

He wandered the shelves. They had a big section on American history, and on natural history. A wonderful huge book on buffalo, with hundreds of pages of pictures, many sepia, or the stunning beasts. Wright could just about hear the hoofbeats of the herds striding through.

Wilden would have been right in the middle of the grazing lands. Vast prairies, horizon to horizon. Now, mostly corn and wheat and maybe a little soy.

A librarian appeared at the end of the row as he was reshelving the book. The woman from the counter. She had dark brown eyes. A badge on her left breast read Josie and she had a black lanyard with an ID card.

“Doing okay there?” she said.

“Just fine,” he said. “Probably putting this back in the wrong place though.”

Librarians could be fussy. Everything needed to be in order, but some of the numbers got pretty long, with decimal points and letters. This one had 599.643 BIS on the spine. Not too long of a number really.

“Just leave it on the table,” Josie said. “I’ll tidy it away later.”

From the front of the library someone shouted. Followed right away by a calming voice. Another librarian?

Josie glanced back.

“Everything okay?” Wright said.

“It’s just Evan. He can get a bit… anxious if he’s not on his meds.” She looked at Wright again. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Wright smiled. Sometimes people talked to him. Said things they shouldn’t.

“That’s okay,” Wright said. He pulled back the book on buffalo and brought it along with him to one of the tables. The place had plenty of them set up. Plain wooden things with simple steel framed chairs. There were power points and phone chargers.

He dropped the book on the table.

“They’re opening up the book sale room now,” Josie said, just ahead of him. “They’re a little early, but I figure that’s better than late.”

“I’d agree. And thank you.”

Wright started back around the next aisle, heading toward the sale room at the back.

Another shout came from the front of the library. It came from among the computers.

Wright stopped near the central desk. A pen caddy stood near the librarians’ computer, with some kind of sign-up sheet on a clipboard. A generic lanyard with a generic Visitor card at the end. Perhaps for electricians and plumbers who needed access to the non-public spaces.

Josie had continued on over to the computers. A thickset guy was standing near a reedy looking guy with a fresh haircut. He was facing away from Wright, but there was a lanyard at his neck too. Another librarian.

He had both hands up, as if preparing to deflect the thickset guy if he charged. The reedy librarian wouldn’t stand a chance.

The thickset guy’s shoulders were bunched. He was wearing a heavy coat. Hands in the pockets.

“Hey Evan,” Josie said. “What’s going on?” Her voice had a sing-song friendliness to it.

Wright stayed where he was a moment.

He glanced deeper into the library. The book sale room door stood open. It looked bright inside, with well-ordered shelves. An old guy with a thick gray mustache and a too-tight polo shirt was putting a sign up on an easel at the door.

Half off Today, it read. All books 50% marked price.

The sign looked well-used, as if they put it out every other week.

Still, Wright was never one to pass up a bargain.

“You need to put that down,” Josie said, back at the computers.

“Nope,” the thickset guy said.

Wright turned.

The guy had a gun. Held level. Aimed right at Josie.

And thanks for reading this far. You can find ‘Peruser’ at your favorite ebook retailer, and there is a little paperback available too. $2.99 for the ebook, $6.99 for the paperback. Both include an afterword by me and a couple of sample chapters from the novel Hard Ground.

If you grab the ebook from my site, here’s a code to download it free – Just enter peruser2025 at checkout. I’ll leave this valid through to the end of March, which is about when I think this series of Reacher will come to an end.

Is that shameless?

All right, I’ll toss in a half-off discount on Hard Ground too – just enter the code hardground2025 at checkout.

Cheers

Sean

Hard Ground, Cole Wright book 8 now available for preorder (and a special secret code to get it sooner at a discount)

30 November, 20234 July, 2024 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Cole Wright.

Wrong Place. Wrong Time. Just As Well.

Book 8 sees him facing perhaps his most dangerous foe yet.

Hard Ground

Picked over by birds and coyotes, the body on the riverbank looks days old.

When Cole Wright rolls into Pointer, Montana, he figures a few days of quiet before heading on. Maybe Canada. Maybe over the mountains and on through Idaho.

Turns out, Pointer holds on to people. In very odd ways.

Another Cole Wright thriller filled with deception, twists and turns, and a whole lot of mystery.

Available now for preorder from the usual outlets (Universal Book Link), priced at $5.99 for the ebook, $15.99 for the paperback and $18.99 for the hardback. Releases on December 20th.

But, now that I have a Shopify store, you can buy directly from me, at least for ebooks for the moment. I’m slowly working on getting my catalogue of books over there, Bit of a job.

Anyway, to celebrate getting the store underway, I’m making Hard Ground available there immediately (ie. no pre-order: get it now) and if you use the code “Hard Ground” at checkout you’ll get a half-price discount: $.2.99 (that’s a novel for the usual price of one of my short stories). The discount runs through until December 20th, when the price will revert.

Still don’t know if it’s worth it? Well, how about a free-to-read short story? I’m just putting the finishing touches on “That’ll Leave A Scar”, a new Cole Wright short story, and I’ll have that up to read right here on the website. Coming soon. Stay tuned for details.

“That’ll Leave A Scar” follows “Stillness“, earlier this year, which came out at the same time as the novel Not Above The Law.

Check out the main Cole Wright page here on the website for a list of the novels, novella, short stories and the collection published so far.

It’s been a good couple of years for Cole Wright. The books and stories are fun to write. There will be more next year too.

Thanks for reading.

Little preview

19 November, 2023 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

There’s a new Cole Wright thriller on the way. December 20th. I’m still working on the cover, the blurb and so on but here’s a little teaser.

This will be book eight. And I’ll have a new Cole Wright short story available here to read for free for a week or so before the release.

Stillness – a Cole Wright short story

11 June, 20233 July, 2023 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a little while since I’ve put out a new Cole Wright story, but with the seventh Cole Wright thriller novel Not Above The Law due out on June 20th, I figure it’s time to drum up a little notice. On the principle of, you know, maybe if you like the short story, it might pique your interest in the novel. Maybe even the other novels. And the short stories.

This is also the first short story since the No Lack of Courage collection, which gathered all the other stories so far. While the output of novels is slowing (last year they came in a little burst since I’d been writing them over the previous couple of years and wanted to have an ‘instant platform’, such as that might be), I do have a few other short stories completed and just awaiting copy-editing and formatting and so on, so I may well have more out later in the year, even if there is no new novel to pair them with. Is that like when a band releases a single that’s not on an album? Do bands really do that anymore, or is that 1990s thinking?

Anyway, here’s the blurb and cover, and first chapter.

For those interested, it’s about 7500 words (say 25 pages) over 9 chapters. Link goes to the UBL for the ebook and the paperback – $2.99/$6.99

Stillness

A quiet Spokane diner. A tasty meal. A relaxing break.

All Cole Wright wants.

But at another table someone watches him.

Intent. Focused. Maybe even a little agitated.

None of Wright’s business.

Until trouble arrives.

A story that asks the question,

how long should we wait to speak up?

Cover image, © Cmoulton | Dreamstime.com (Diner), © Anton Greave – Dreamscape (figure)

Chapter 1

In the diner, Three tables along, a guy was pretending not to watch Cole Wright.

And not doing a very good job of it.

Wright sat at his own table, sipping from a soda. Home made cola. Sweet and bitter at once, and a little rich. The waitress came by periodically with a pitcher to refill for him.

The diner had a good homely feel to it. The tables were solid, molded plastic, thick and hefty, and the upper surface was printed with a gingham pattern. Pink and white checks that would be far easier to clean than actual gingham.

The tied back curtains at the windows were actual gingham fabric.

On the walls were old black and white photographs of lumberjacks with long-handled axes and mule carts, and of the Spokane River and the waterworks. Of the bridges and the old State Capitol building. One of an open-topped Mercury parked on an overlook, with trees and towns spread out below.

The waitstaff wore black, with aprons. They bustled with a practiced efficiency.

A constant scent of brisket and chicken and omelets wafted through the space.

The diner’s layout followed an L, with the long leg facing out onto the roadway. Rows of tables along the outside, mostly booths, with a few standalone around the L’s corner. The counter, facing the kitchen, had a row of stools, some occupied, but mostly empty.

Business people stopping in for a quick coffee, construction workers with big meals. The diner did a special lunchtime deal on their loaded plate. Sausages, bacon, eggs, biscuit, grilled tomatoes and rocket. Some of those big guys looked like they ate here every day. Maybe for breakfast too.

The guy watching Wright glanced up as the waitress came by with the coffee flask. He glanced her way. She topped his mug up and asked him something. He gave a shake of his head.

“I’ll bring your check,” she said, just audible to Wright. “Thanks.”

The man gave her a nod and looked back at his coffee.

Couldn’t stop his eyes flicking toward Wright on the way though.

He’d come in after Wright. Maybe fifteen minutes back. He’d looked through Wright at first, but taken to glancing at him, nursing a coffee.

Wright sat back and took a breath. He was in the last booth at the end of the L. Back to the wall. Farthest from the windows. Gap on the left, long windowless wall on his right, stretching out to the front windows. Seven booths, with a larger one right in the front corner. Seating for eight or ten easily.

Wright’s table was a little close to the bathrooms. People came and went. Through the wall he could periodically hear the sound of the hand dryer blowing.

Still, the position gave him a better view of the patrons. People watching. Always fascinating.

He wasn’t used to being watched himself so much. At least not with such intensity.

The man with the flicking eyes was likely in his mid to late twenties, though he looked tired. Almost beaten down. He was wearing a black jacket over a black tee shirt. He had a silver stud in one ear. His dark hair was cropped short along the sides, feathered into length across the top. The cut looked fresh. As if he’d just come from the barbers’.

An elderly man with an aluminum cane came around the corner from the counter, heading for the bathroom. Around and almost out of sight, a woman burst out laughing.

One of the waiters came from behind the counter, carrying a tray with two tall floats. The glass sparkled and the whipped cream on top was mountainous, topped with a cherry on each.

The guy watching Wright looked at the door again. Looked back at Wright.

Real case of nerves, that one.

Wright had been a cop. In a previous existence. That kind of thing would have had him and whichever partner discussing whether to go have a word with him.

Is everything all right sir?

Just checking in. Could be nothing. Maybe his date hadn’t shown and this was the sixth time this month. Different person every time.

Maybe he’d just come from the hospital and was worried about a sick relative. Maybe he’d just lost his job.

Any number of innocent, even if troubling, reasons for someone to seem nervous.

His eyes flicked to Wright again.

But that was different. If he’d been in uniform, then maybe that would have explained that.

Plenty of reasons people could feel nervous around a cop in a diner.

Not so much for just some guy waiting for his lunch. Wright was probably reading too much into it. Instinct. Some people would say it was force of habit. You could leave the force, but you were still a cop. You still exuded that presence.

The waitress returned to Wright’s table, carrying a laden plate. She set it down, with a knife and fork wrapped in a gingham-style paper napkin. Heat seemed to rise from the plate.

A folded and loaded cheesy omelet. Filled with bacon, potato, tomatoes, beans and plenty of other vital ingredients. Cheese oozed from it. The other half of the plate had a biscuit, crushed and drenched in white sauce.

“I’ll be right on back with your salad there,” she said.

“Well, thank you. Quick question.”

“Shoot.” She smiled. She had curly, thick blonde hair, tied back. Her name tag read Naomi.

“Nervous gentleman sitting facing me. Three tables down. Is he a regular?”

Naomi glanced over. The guy was focused now on his coffee.

“Regular?” she said, quietly. “You a cop there? You’re not a regular.”

“No I’m not a regular. I’m no longer cop. Just thought, he seems to be, I don’t know, keeping an eye on me. I might just be a little sensitive myself.”

She nodded.

“That’s Rick,” she said. “Rick Baker. Comes in a couple of times a week. Nurses a coffee. Judy in the kitchen knows him and she’s basically assistant manager, so makes sure he’s no trouble. Got divorced nearly a year back and is still moping. Harmless.”

“Well, thanks,” Wright said. “That’s reassuring.”

She smiled. Nodded. “I’ll grab you your salad. Be right back.”

She slipped away.

Wright freed the knife and fork from the napkin and started in on the omelet. The smell was heavenly.

Just the thing after a

Out front a big delivery truck slid by slowly. Arnold’s Furnishings, Spokane, WA stood out in big letters on the white side, with a stylized image of a dining table.

Rick Baker picked up his coffee mug. Drained it.

He met Wright’s eyes.

Baker stood. Took out his wallet and removed some notes. He lifted the coffee mug and set it down again, on top of the notes.

He put the wallet away and headed toward Wright.

End of excerpt. Continue reading by purchasing the ebook or the little paperback – available here.

If you missed it, keep an eye on the website here, from time to time I put up a free story.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story. It’s also available as an ebook and in print, alongside the other Cole Wright books.

More news coming soon – this is a busy week for my tiny publishing empire and I need to keep up with it.

Not Above The Law – Cole Wright Thriller, book 7

2 June, 202330 May, 2023 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Not Above The Law, the 7th book in my Cole Wright series is available for preorder now. Due out on June 20th. It will be available in both paperback and hardback then too.

Not Above The Law

Startled by an odd noise outside her farmhouse squat, Ruby goes to check it out. What she sees, thows her for a spin.

Visiting Ambrose, a backwater town, Cole Wright enjoys the quiet pace of life.

But the events outside of Ruby’s farmhouse set Wright on a collision course. With explosive consequences for everyone involved.

Especially Ruby.

A Cole Wright thriller that cuts to the bone.

Universal book link

I have another Cole Wright short story, “Stillness”, just about prepped and ready to go. I should have that up here to read for free for a week or two before Not Above The Law comes out. You know, like a promotional tool, but it’s a free read for a while, so drop by around the middle of June for that.

Of course, if you’re hungry for Cole Wright short stories, remember that the first collection No Lack of Courage is available now in ebook and print. Link here. It’s a fine collection of stories, if I do say so myself. Something for everyone. Well, everyone who likes action thriller mystery short stories.

More news soon. Thanks for reading.

No Lack of Courage – the Cole Wright short story collection

18 March, 20234 July, 2024 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My Cole Wright series is now at six novels, with the seventh due in July (more on that in another post). Kevin J. Anderson mentioned in a seminar I was attending that most series don’t take off until book six. Maybe that’ll be book seven for me (or eight, or nine, grin – yes I will keep writing them).

Through 2022 each time I released a new Cole Wright novel, I also put out a short story, as an ebook, a print book and, for a limited time, free to read here on the website.

There was also a novella Cold Highway, and a limited free story with that. That’s enough stories for a collection, I figure. Even though releasing a collection kind of effectively kills the sales of those individual stories. It’s nice to see them gathered together like this.

Available here from the Universal Book Link.

ebook $6.99 (preorder for March 20th), paperback $16.99, hardback $21.99 (both available now)

Contents:
Dark Fields
Schedule Interruption
The Forest Doesn’t Care
One Little Broken Leg
The Handler
Cardinals
A Steep Climb
What Do You Say Gus?
Cold Highway

Probably a good time to mention that the seventh novel in the series is almost out for preorder, for release in June.

More news on that soon.

Then there’s other writing happening. The next Captain Arlon Stoddard novel Tramp Steamers has been copyedited and proofed and we’re looking at scheduling that for October, though the next Karnish River Navigations novel Rorqual Saitu is complete, just awaiting those edits. We were hoping to have that out in August, but we might switch those around.

And then with the day-to-day writing, I’m deep in the heart of a new book which started out as, I thought in my naivety, a short story that might break 5000 words (think twenty pages) and is now somewhere north of 30,000 words. Yes, it will be another novel. This is good news for fans of my Morgenfeld Saga, on which nothing has happened for a few years (busy with other series as you see above) – the new book is tentatively titled The Wintermas Paintings and might even be out before the end of the next year.

At the risk of extending that naivety, I thought I’d pop in the draft of Chapter One below for any who might be interested. This is raw, remember, not tinkered with, not copyedited, not even proofed. But it might still give a feel for where this book is going.

Art not final – just an ai version of what it thinks of Morgenfeld’s Tower of Bats.

The Wintermas Paintings

Chapter One

Despite the size of the space, the air in the old cavernous hall was musty and damp and thick.

Jason Trone shivered, pressed up to one of the windows. The glass was cold, and from somewhere came angry bellows.

Someone shouting his name.

Far off for now. He had a moment.

Jason sat on a low wooden bench seat. It was hard and had once been polished to a fine shine. The lustre was long gone, and the vanish was cracked and pitted and discolored. Probably oak, with a strong grain and a few knots. The legs were still strong.

Lying on the bench were the spoils of his plunder. Trinkets and baubles mostly. Two iron necklaces with gold plating that was already wearing off. Some glass sapphires and emeralds set in brass brooches. The pins on two were snapped. A pair of pearl earrings that might have been genuine, but they wouldn’t fetch much.

He scooped them back into his soft leather satchel. It had been a gift from his grandmother and wouldn’t she be disappointed now with the use he was putting it to.

Jason sighed.

The windows behind stood thirty feet high. They hadn’t been cleaned in decades. A dust patina lay across them, and bright green lichens spread on some of the panes, with darker green mosses looking lush and vibrant in edges and corners of the framing.

Jason wiped at one of the windows, removing just enough dust to be able to see through. The next part of the building stood about forty feet away, and he was about level with the edge of the roof. There were rows of windows, leading down three, no four, stories. The brickwork was festooned with dead vines, as if someone had cut the poor plant off at the roots.

An orange cat strolled along the parapet–the building’s walls rose higher than the roof, so there were gutterings hidden behind. The cat stopped and turned to lick at its side, stripes showing and tail flicking.

If Jason could get around to where the cat was now, then that would give him more options. The question was how to reach it.

Looking over the hall again, Jason marveled. It would have been quite impressive back in its day.

The vaults of the ceiling was a good forty feet from the wooden floor. The remains of chandelliers hung, sad and drooping.

Across from the windows there was a long mezzanine balcony, rather than a wall. Stiff plaster pillars still showing signs of their original gilding held the floor in place, and the railing was complex and twisted. Probably wrought iron. It had once been painted white, but now the only remaining paint was a few chips, and rust showed.

Perhaps it had been a ball room, or even a throne room. Perhaps there had been huge thick woollen curtains over the windows and where he sat now had been occupied by a stage. There might have been performances held of Crespin’s The Draper’s Revenge, or any number of Peart’s complicated plays. Or chamber quartet shows.

Jason closed his eyes a moment, imagining the hall filled with chairs, the audience chattering away until a master of ceremonies stood at the stage front and cleared their throat.

Another bellow from the distance brought him out of his reverie.

Closer.

What he hadn’t figured on, when he began fleeing with his purloined jewelery, was getting chased by constabulary with the mindset of zealots. That, with finding his escape route blocked, had thrown him into disarray.

Probably shouldn’t have even taken this moment to catch his breath.

Jason scooped the pauper’s jewels back into his satchel. One missed and fell to the floor. One of the faux-sapphire brooches. It glass jewel glinted with a fabulous blue.

With a quiet curse, Jason slipped off the bench and reached around for the jewel. An big black spider scuttled away. Jason caught a glimpse of its tunneled web, leading back from a hole beneath the window framing.

As he stood, he heard another bellow.

“Jason Trone! Stay right where you are.”

The voice echoed around the hall.

Turning, Jason saw a hefty officer just at the entry door at the far end.. Dressed in a dark blue uniform with gold buttons and brocades. His hat was slightly askew and his mustache was thick.

Another officer came up behind him. A woman. Smaller, with narrowed eyes and an angry mouth.

“Stay right there,” the male officer said. “You’re nicked.”

Jason tucked the flap of his satchel in.

“Don’t think about it son.” The officer took another step.

Jason slung the satchel over his shoulder.

“Get on your knees,” the female officer said, coming around, drawing her baton.

Jason ran. He sprinted right at one of the old plaster pillars.

Image by Dorothe | Pixabay

A Steep Climb – a Cole Wright short story

23 December, 20224 July, 2024 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

NB, Post updated June 2023 – First chapter of story only here now –

STORY NOW AVAILABLE AS A STANDALONE PAPERBACK AND EBOOK – HERE.

Also (and probably a better bet) available in the collection No Lack of Courage – HERE – which has all the Cole Wright stories from 2022.

A little slow off the mark with this… call it the end of the year blues. Mostly I like to have a Cole Wright short story up free to read in the first week of the month when a Cole Wright novel is coming out. This time, I missed that by a wide margin – Zero Kills, book 6 in the series, has already been out for a few days now.

The idea with a free story on the website here is to promote the upcoming title and the series as a whole. Since I’m kind of goofy with that whole marketing thing, sometimes pieces fall by the wayside. Social media? Advertising? Up to date website? Email list? What’s all that?

“A Steep Climb” as it turns out, was actually the first Cole Wright short story I wrote. When I was getting a feel for the character. It was fun coming back to it at this point (and making a couple of important changes) and cool to let it out into the world. I’ll leave it free here for a week or two. Maybe longer.

More Cole Wright news soon – an update on Zero Kills (you know, promotion), a little news on book 7, which has been drafted and as such is in the machine to get up to scratch to be publishable, and on a collection of all the Cole Wright short stories so far, including the novella.

A Steep Climb will also be out soon as an ebook and in paperback – priced as usual at $2.99 and around $5.99.

Enough of my waffling on – here’s the story. STORY NOW AVAILABLE AS A STANDALONE PAPERBACK AND EBOOK – HERE.

Also (and probably a better bet) available in the collection No Lack of Courage – HERE – which has all the Cole Wright stories from 2022.

A Steep Climb – blurb

Hitching a ride, Cole Wright finds himself listening to tall tales. He meets some remarkable people on the road.

When the driver suggests a detour to a beautiful overlook, they find more than they expect. People dressed and ready for a ball.

But they have other things on their mind.

A Steep Climb

Chapter 1

Delle Brodie climbed the steep face of the grassy slope, nursing her twisted ankle, watching the rage of angry waves below.

There were rocks there, at the base. Old granite or basalt or something. The kind of rock that sat implacable against the ocean’s onslaught for millions of years. Or against the impact of a boat’s hull.

Above the rock, the grassy slope was something she had to cling to. Maybe mountain goats or bighorn sheep could traverse it easily, but for a reasonably fit woman like herself, it was still a struggle.

Unnerving, even.

The grass was crisp and dry. The blades crackled underfoot and in her hands as she grasped at them. Some came away in her fingers. Hopefully the root mass was tougher. Otherwise, her urgent traverse might dislodge something and send a whole volume of it down into the Pacific. Her with it.

Back down with the debris of Hibiscus, her boat.

Insects buzzed around. Hornets, maybe, or bees. Despite the dryness of the landscape, there were still weedy flowers around. The smell was a heady mix of dusty earth, pine and a mess of floral scents.

If you could bottle it, you’d make a killing selling it at state fairs.

The sun beat down on Delle. Late September in Oregon you’d think it would be more temperate. There had been some fires a year or two back, racing up through parts of this countryside. Relentless and without mercy. Times were sure getting hotter.

Still, at least the sun would be setting soon. It might have been six PM already. Maybe later. On the boat, time hadn’t seemed to matter so much.

Somewhere south of Portland, north of Crater Lake National Park, one of her favorite places. Amazing that a lake could be so deep–deepest in the country–but only be accessible at the top of a mountain. Stunning, summer or winter.

It would be a whole lot better there right now, than here.

She was wearing running gear, which was a good thing. Tights, Nikes, a wicking, long-sleeved Ladbrook top. Black with bright colors–pinky-crimson on the upper half of the top, and the same color highlights along the leggings.

Better than if she was in jeans, sandals and some old baggy sweater.

She was in good shape, for her age. Pushing forty. She ran five miles a day, put in a couple of regular weekly sessions at Stone’s Gym in Tacoma hefting weights and pulling the oars on a rowing machine.

Delle stopped and took a breath. The slope had to be sixty degrees. Math had never been her strong suit. Ask her to pick the chords in a song and she could do that easy. Listen to something once, then play it on the piano no problem.

But angles and square roots and even multiplication baffled her.

Honey, her mother had said right through school, Music is just math.

Well, she got that. All the notes relate, one to the other. That was easy. But when you had to look up the cosine of an angle to figure out how long the side of a triangle was, well, that just lost her.

And why was she thinking about that now?

As if poor math skills were something to worry about when her boat was wrecked, she was stuck here scrambling up some wasteland into who knew where?

Another glance down–didn’t they say don’t look down?–and she could see that she was actually making progress.

She didn’t remember scaling the rocks. Just being thrown into the water, then she was here on the slope. Some survival instinct taking over. The conscious, memory-forming part of her brain shoved aside as something took over to get her away from those waves and out of the water.

A plunge through the water–she was still wet–and a scramble up the rock face. She had some cuts on her fingers and the left knee of her leggings was torn, the skin beneath scraped.

She stopped for another breath. Impossible to tell how far the slope reached. It curved back away from her.

It was tiring. And already she’d had to deal with the broken steering on the boat.

Hibiscus was a forty-foot fiberglass cutter. At least, she had been. Now she was just jetsam, with the mast bobbing in the waves, the keel sitting at the bottom of this little cove.

Her own fault, really. It was her father who’d been the sailing enthusiast. He’d gifted her the boat in his will.

He’d tried to share a lot of his enthusiams with her. Taking her to Jayhawks games, teaching her to shoot at the local range, watching bad fifties science fiction movies. Some of them were really terrible.

Maybe it was some desire to honor his name, to take the boat out. Maybe it was something clouding her judgement.

She’d been out on the boat plenty of times with him, from when she was maybe ten and he’d come into the money to purchase it.

He made it look easy. Adjust the sheets, work the tiller, change the sail configuration.

The last five years it had sat almost idle–just occasional rentals that helped pay the hospital bills–while he made noises about beating his cancer. Right up until the last day.

I’ll lick it, you hear me? I will.

Sure Dad.

Delle climbed on. Maybe it wasn’t too much farther. And the slope definitely seemed to be growing less steep. Something darted away through the grass to her right. Maybe a mouse. Maybe a small snake.

She should know more about the area’s wildlife, really.

The slope evened out. The grass was more vibrant and strong. Soon the slope was shallow enough that she could stand and walk upright.

The tips of trees showed farther up. Some pieces of litter were caught in the grass in places. Burger wrappers, plastic bottles.

The slope changed not far ahead. An edge to it. The grass scruffier, a low fence made from fat round pieces of wood. When she reached it though, the fence was higher than it had seemed. More like three feet high, with wire mesh between the posts.

Beyond, there was a gravel area, with tall pines behind. The scent of them was strong.

A black Cadillac was parked in the middle of the gravel area.

With a man standing at the open driver’s door. Just watching her.

Chapter 2

Cole Wright sat in the passenger seat of the rickety old Ford, listening to the driver talk about his time in the marines. Nice guy, though perhaps getting on a bit to still be driving, especially at the speeds he was doing. Staying within the posted limit, but the twists and turns didn’t lend themselves to the aggressive mode at all.

….

COMPLETE STORY NOW AVAILABLE AS A STANDALONE PAPERBACK AND EBOOK – HERE.

Also (and probably a better bet) available in the collection No Lack of Courage – HERE – which has all the Cole Wright stories from 2022.

Thanks for reading a little of “A Steep Climb”. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did (after all, this is marketing, right), check out the other stories and novels in the series on the Cole Wright page on the website here. Ebooks, paperbacks and even hardbacks (of the novels). Does anyone want audiobooks? Seems as if lately the AI revolution is making that a little more cost effective (as expense, I suspect, of numerous skilled voice artists – that’s kind of scary). Maybe I should wander down that path for a little while.

Again, thanks. Feel free to comment, even just to say hi.

Take care,

Sean

“Cardinals” – A Cole Wright short story, and Cold Highway – A Cole Wright novella

10 November, 20224 July, 2024 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

With my last post, I was deep in the heart of writing the ninth Captain Arlon Stoddard novel, Dead Ringers, and as I write this, I’m deep in the heart of writing the seventh Cole Wright novel (as yet untitled), which shows that I go too long between posts here.

Cold Highway – A Cole Wright Novella – out now

A trip north of the border takes Cole Wright into the heart of snowbound Canada. Friendly people, vast distances, tough vehicles, isolation.

When a breakdown looms, Wright finds himself caught in the white, compacted landscape. A road thirty feet wide, hemmed in by the piled up ridges left by snowploughs. And an endless forest that could hide just about anything.

Unfriendly territory. Dangerous places.

A Cole Wright novella that focuses down on a single moment where the slightest error could be his last.

With “Cold Highway” the first Cole Wright novella came on November 20th, and the sixth novel Zero Kills will be out on December 20th, it’s a busy time for my little thriller series.

Stay tuned for more news – another free story in December, and plans for Cole Wright and other series next year.

“Cold Highway” is available now. $3.99 ebook / $10.99 print.

Cardinals – A Cole Wright Short Story – also out now

Lieutenant Ione Anders of the Spokane Police Department stares at a blade jutting from one of the tires on her new issue vehicle.

Looks like the start of another one of those days.

A day that proves full of surprises.

A Cole Wright story with a difference, putting him right there in the action as he tags along.

“Cardinals” is available as as an ebook and in print, usual thing of $2.99 and $5.99, since it’s just a short story. Link here.

Keep an eye out for a short story free to read here in December, and Zero Kills released on December 20th – preorder link here

Novellas in October and November

6 October, 20225 October, 2022 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I like to have new book releases out on the 20th of the month, and for October and November, these will be novellas from two of my series. The first novellas in both. My novellas sit around a quarter the length of a novel – say around a hundred pages. I think Amazon labels them in with “90 minute reads” or something.

First up in on October 2oth is “Ortanide Steppers” from my Captain Arlon Stoddard Adventures series. Think deep space adventures with mysteries and puzzles around the galaxy. Technically a “novelette” in SF terms, but boy, keeping track of the names for the different lengths…

Ortanide. A planet with a unique geography, a rich history and a strange political system.

A political system that defies Captain Arlon Stoddard and his crew.

Restrained in a dank cell by the very people he came to help, Arlon faces the choice of violating the charters he works to uphold.

Or certain death.

A Captain Arlon Stoddard novella that pits the crew against possibly their most heinous foe yet.

Priced especially at $2.99 for the ebook, and $6.99 for the paperback. A bargain, right?

Next out on November 20th is “Cold Highway” from my Cole Wright Thrillers series. Pretty standard kind of thriller, adventure, gunplay stuff here. I’ve always liked those frozen highways and figured that might be a fun place to set a story. I was right, at least in writing it. I hope it’s as much fun to read.

A trip north of the border takes Cole Wright into the heart of snowbound Canada. Friendly people, vast distances, tough vehicles, isolation.

Unfriendly territory. Dangerous places.

A Cole Wright novella that focuses down on a single moment where the slightest error could be his last.

Still reasonably priced at $3.99 for the ebook, and $7.99 for the paperback.

So far all my paperbacks have come through Amazon, but I’m testing this one through Draft 2 Digital as well, in a slightly larger format, and ending up priced at $10.99. We’ll see how that goes.

As with previous months, I’ll have short stories out in the lead up to the releases. “Sea Skimmers”, which is the first Captain Arlon Stoddard short story, and followed by “Cardinals” which is a Cole Wright story with a difference – Lieutenant Ione Anders as the lead character (you’ll remember her from the first Cole Wright novel The Arrival) and Cole himself tagging along as a background character.

Details to come.

Remember you can explore the series from the pages available in the menu at the top of the page on the website here.

Thanks for reading.

Sean

Scorpion Bait – Cole Wright book 5 out now

21 September, 202218 September, 2022 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Scorpion Bait, book 5 in the Cole Wright series is available now through the regular channels.

$5.99 ebook. $15.99 print, $19.99 hardback

Jerome Miller lies in scorching, gritty sand, staring up out of the rugged ditch. Bleeding and broken. The start of a very bad day, for him. Cole Wright hitches into the town of Gollick, Arizona. Somewhere between Tuscon and Yuma. Looking for a good meal and maybe a bed for the night. Not looking for trouble. Sometimes, though, trouble hides away in those out of the way places. Sometimes trouble just finds him. Sometimes Wright just meets it head on.

More Cole Wright news soon – “Cold Highway” a novella is coming in November, and all things going well, book 6 Zero Kills, coming in December. The book is complete and revised and just in the queue for final copyedit and proofread and then should be up for preorder before “Cold Highway” hits the shelves.