Black Lotus Kiss
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Winter 1970. As rock stars die of excess and revolution fills the air, newly minted private investigator James Brimstone is spending his days wandering the streets of Los Angeles, looking for low rent cases as far as possible from his last work-for-hire, an unfortunate run-in with the occult on a pornographic film set. But fate has a funny way of slapping Brimstone with the dark hand of magic.
When a deadly attack on a veteran’s hall nearly kills his Korean War buddy Cactus, the only clue left behind is a leaf from the Black Lotus, a war drug used in ancient Babylonia . . . that’s supposedly been extinct since the pyramids were young.
Between bump-ins with rock star prophets and berserk professional wrestlers, Brimstone races to find out who’s behind the supernatural drug turning the City of Angel’s citizens into sex- and violence-crazed maniacs, as well as a mysterious creature of smoke and evil stalking the streets of L.A. On the boardwalk between our world and nightmares, Brimstone must face the darkness within himself to see if he, too, will fall victim . . . to the Black Lotus Kiss.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This credible follow-up to Hex-Rated is another hardboiled joyride through the weird side of 1970s Los Angeles. Magician-turned-detective James Brimstone is attending a military veteran awards ceremony when a grenade explosion wreaks havoc and severely wounds Cactus, his friend and former commanding officer. Witnesses blame a nearby crowd of antiwar protesters, but James's discovery at the crime scene of a Black Lotus a fabulously rare flower regarded in Cimmerian mythology as having awesome occult properties suggests more malign forces at work. In no time, he's mixing it up with a street preacher, skate punks, and other unsavory habitu s of the Venice Beach boardwalk, trying to find the connection between the lotus and a new berserker rage inducing drug sweeping the pro-wrestling circuit. Ridler's plot takes one outrageous twist after another, and most of the novel's pleasures derive from seeing the unlikeliest characters caught up in its byzantine shenanigans. Filled with smart-aleck banter and period pop culture references, this is a solid sophomore effort.
