The Down Home Zombie Blues Book Video

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let you all have fun with the new THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES book video. It resides on MySpace at the moment so if your ISP blocks that site, you can also find a smaller (nonMySpace) version on my site here:
http://www.linneasinclair.com/books.html

I did try to load the non-MySpace version to this blog but gave up due to technical limitations (mine).

The Down Home Zombie Blues by Linnea Sinclair

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What's neat about the book video is the music: well-known blues musician Traveling Ed Teja is mentioned several times in the book as Theo Petrakos's musical favorite (Theo's the male protagonist--a divorced homicide cop deals with stress via his guitar--in case you've just come to this blog and haven't read the teaser excerpts prior to this.)Ed graciously wrote the theme music for the video AND is putting together an official The Down Home Zombie Blues song collection, which will be posted on a special site: ZombieLight Orchestra

His "Blue Light" and "Blue Dime" have a special meaning to the book (and to Jorie!). Here's another sneak peek of the book:

(excerpt from The Down Home Zombie Blues by Linnea Sinclair)

Theo stood, restless energy unsettling him. He wanted to stay awake in case she needed something, but to just sit there and listen to his mind think—and his heart break—was driving him crazy. Hurry up and wait had never been his strong point, which was why he liked detective work. He could always find something to do.

But here, too much had happened, and so much of it had been out of his control. He needed to refocus… Yes. He grabbed his guitar case. Duty belt and weapons were carefully placed on his nightstand. Boots came off. He propped his pillow against the wrought iron headboard and brought his guitar into his lap. The well worn Brazilian rosewood was smooth and cool under his fingers—and very familiar. He dug out his slide, then picked aimlessly at a few strings until a blues refrain he’d been toying with came to mind. Zeke had been busting his butt for over a year now about his reclusive ways since his divorce. You still singing “The Down Home Divorced-Guy Blues”? was Zeke’s constant taunt.

So Theo actually started writing the song. He closed his eyes and let himself sink into the sassy notes of the music, keeping time with one foot against the blanket. He hummed the melody softly—he was still working on the lyrics.

The tension leached from his neck and shoulders. He went through the refrain twice, then something made him open his eyes. He realized the room had grown quiet. He no longer heard Jorie’s voice or her tapping on the screen just on the edge of his hearing. That’s because she’d turned, her eyes wide in question.

Skata. He should have asked if playing his guitar would bother her.

“Sorry. I’ll stop.” He shifted forward to put the guitar back in its case.

“No. That’s blissful.” A small smile played across her lips.

“I don’t want to disturb what you’re doing.”

“I’ve done all I can for now,” she said, and rubbed her hand over her face again. “Until the zombies take a new action, I can only watch and wait.”

“And the Tresh?”

“I’m no threat to them until the zombies wake again,” she continued. “And since they know more than I do about the Sakanah, they may not consider me a threat at all.”

Theo could hear the strain in her voice at the mention of her ship. He wished he had answers for her, but that, too, was out of his control.

She motioned to his guitar. “Please. It sounds so nice. And I need something else to think about for a little while.”

Was that why she let him kiss her? Was that just part of the playacting they’d started—-he’d started—-earlier? And he had started it, he admitted ruefully.

But somehow, no, he didn’t think she was toying with him. And he hoped it wasn’t just his male ego making that claim.

He glanced at his watch: two-ten. He pulled another pillow against the headboard, then patted the mattress. “Come, sit with me.”

It would be temptation, Jorie next to him on his bed. But playing his guitar would keep his hands occupied. Because after what had happened in the hallway, he knew if he touched her again, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

She pulled off her boots, then climbed across his bed on all fours, looking almost childlike, an impish smile on her face. She settled next to him and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them.

He found himself playing Traveling Ed Teja’s “Blue Light”, because it was soft but upbeat at the same time. Somewhere in the middle of the song, Jorie’s head came to rest on his shoulder. He smiled to himself and kept playing, going through the song a second time, then segued into Teja’s “Blue Dime.”

He plucked the last few notes softly. She’d curled up against him, her knees resting against his thigh.

He put his guitar and case carefully on the floor, tucked the G-1 under his pillow, then turned off his bedside lamp and drew her into his arms. She murmured something unintelligible. He smoothed her hair back from her face and she settled into slumber again.

Theo listened to her breathing, the muted clicking of her computer, and the rustle of the night breeze through the fronds of the palm trees outside.

It was Christmas, and somewhere, sweet voices were singing, silent night, holy night…

While all of unholy hell waited just beyond his door...


Enjoy! ~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Close Encounters of the Zombie Kind: Teaser from The Down Home Zombie Blues

Since in my last blog we played with Jorie's reaction to Earth, I thought I'd share Theo's--our intrepid Florida homicide detective's--reaction to working with a Guardian Force team. Essentially, commandos from another planet. Now, Theo's trained. They're trained. But training can mean two different things when it comes to fifteen-foot tall mech-organic monsters. However, office politics never seem to change...

From THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES by Linnea Sinclair

Coming from Bantam books Nov. 27, 2007

Theo had spent the last several years of his BVPD career interrogating people who lied—either by accident or design, out of fear, greed or stupidity. It was one of the first rules he’d learned as a rookie: Out here, everybody lies. Yet Theo wasn’t ready to brand Jorie Mikkalah a liar. At least, not quite.

She just wasn’t telling him the complete truth. Which fit in exactly with the corollary from Rookie Rule Number 1: Always know that you are never, ever being told the whole story.

He wasn’t. Not about the implant in his shoulder, not about the zombies and not about her plans. And especially not about whatever was going on with her team of space commandos.

He thought of that as he drove west on Twenty-second Avenue toward the mall. Jorie, still clad in her oversize sweater, was perched in the front passenger seat.

It was almost three forty-five in the afternoon. The ETA for the zombies was now less than an hour. A surge of adrenaline shot through him every time he thought about that. He tamped it down. Be calm. Think. He’d handled a zombie before, with far less preparation. He could do it again. His Glock was secured on his right hip, his zip-front sweatshirt keeping it and his gun belt with extra ammo hidden from sight. He’d also donned his black tac vest, very aware that something that could so easily trash a car wouldn’t be hampered by it. But he had to wear it—and his smaller Glock in the ankle holster. For extra protection, his assault rifle was racked in its usual place.

By comparison, the weapons the space commandos wore seemed strangely small and light. Jorie was decked out in much the same manner as when he first saw her: headset with its eyepiece (swiveled down for the moment), dual laser pistols, and various gizmos attached to a belt (all hidden by the sweater). Her high-tech rifle rested on the floor.

Oddly, it wasn’t their weaponry that was foremost in his mind at the moment. Their camaraderie—or lack of it—was.

He glanced at the passengers in his backseat through the SUV’s rearview mirror. There was a power struggle under way. He’d been with BVPD too long not to recognize one. But this one centered on him and the lives of everyone he knew.

A detective’s sixth sense told him he’d been off the mark in his initial appraisal of Commander Mikkalah. She was responsible for his kidnapping and that damned thing in his shoulder, but, despite that, he was beginning to see that Jorie did take people’s lives into consideration. That same sixth sense told him Rordan didn’t.

And that, he suspected, was where the lines were drawn. The players had chosen their sides.

On Jorie’s was Tamlynne Herryck, now wearing his old black and white Tampa Bay Lightning T-shirt over her sleeveless uniform top. Tammy, he’d dubbed her. But Jacare Trenat—Jack, wearing one of Theo’s Old Navy T-shirts—had sided with Kip Rordan. Theo didn’t speak a word of Alarsh, but he knew if he dubbed Rordan Pompous Asshole he wouldn’t be too far off the mark—though Uncle Stavros would probably call Rordan a malaka. Too bad he’d loaned Rordan his Bucs jersey. He hoped like hell he’d get that back.

Jack, it seemed, was doing all he could to get his nose far up Rordan’s butt. Though to be fair, Jack was young. Just a rookie. He had that bright, shiny look in his eyes that was a combination of a desire to please and a belief that he could save the world.

And Rordan, with his swagger, was just the kind of malaka a rook like Jack would admire.

Of course, saving the world—Theo’s world—was Jack’s job. If it hadn’t been his own world at stake, Theo might have found the entire situation amusing: intergalactic space commandos falling prey to petty office politics. He just hoped Jorie Mikkalah was up to the task of not only the zombies but whatever Rordan was planning as well.

He stopped for a red light. Jorie had been focused on her scanner gizmo since they’d left his house but she looked up at him now.

“Ten minutes,” he said, anticipating her question.

She nodded. “I need to position Rordan and Trenat first before we remove your people.”

“And Tammy?”

“Tammy?”

He inclined his head toward the Tampa Bay Lightning fan seated behind her.

“Lieutenant Herryck and I will take the opposite position. You can return to your structure. We’ll meet you back there in about one sweep.”

“Whoa, wait a minute.” The light turned green. He stepped on the gas. The SUV stuttered, then surged forward. “I’m part of this mission, remember? And it’s a long walk—”

“We’ll use the PMaT to transport back to the ship when the juveniles have been dealt with.”

Peemat? Oh, that damned thing that spins your guts out through your eyeballs, then puts you back together again as you go from Point A to Point B. A thought struck him. “Why do you need me to drive you to the park if you have that transporter?” It was certainly quicker and more efficient, though nauseating.

“Zombies track PMaT,” came Rordan’s answer from behind Theo. Another glance in the rearview showed a slight smirk on the man’s face.

Yeah, okay, so I’m a stupid nil. Theo returned Rordan’s reflected smirk with one of his own. “Skata na fas, malaka,” he said under his breath. Eat shit, asshole.

“Because all PMaT transits are unshielded,” Jorie said as if Rordan hadn’t commented. “Zombies have what we call a sensenet. Through that, they’re aware of surges created by unshielded tech. And they react.”

“But you said you’re going to transport back—”

“The zombies will be neutralized at that point,” she continued. “But to engage the PMaT in the proximity of a forming portal holds danger.”

Rordan said something in Alarsh, short and quick.

Theo saw Jorie shrug. Her answer was equally short and sounded—though he had no idea of the content of the exchange—casual, almost offhand. But her fingers were tight around her scanner.

He didn’t like not understanding their language. He liked it even less that Rordan understood his. He hoped this was just petty office politics and that they were all on the same side when it came to the zombies.

But he couldn’t be sure and he couldn’t ask. He could only remember what she’d told him earlier, denying—lying about— tampering with her tech to change what the zombies did. He gleaned from their conversations on her ship that’s what had turned Wayne, her agent, into a parchment Mr. Crunchy with moist eyeballs.

And here she was doing the same thing because Rordan—and intergalactic office politics—prevented her from saving lives at a crowded mall during Christmas week.

So Theo decided to do the only thing he could: tilt the balance in Jorie’s favor. He made his decision as he dropped Rordan and Jack at the far end of the park by the tennis courts, then Jorie and Tammy at the other, next to the baseball field. A quick trip around the perimeter announcing—via his PA system, with blue strobe going—the possible sighting of a rabid raccoon cleared away the few remaining joggers.

Theo pushed the traffic gates shut, then set the Park Closed sign in place. Jorie had told him to go home once the park was clear. But he was not going home until this batch of zombies was dead and that PMaT thing was spewing Rordan’s unworthy molecules all the way back up to the ship.

He turned the lumbering vehicle back toward the ball field, parked it just behind the row of low bleachers, and got out. Jorie trotted toward him, frowning. He leaned on the front of his SUV, arms folded across his tac vest.

“I’m staying.”

She glared at him. He glared back. When she flung her arms wide in exasperation and let out a now familiar sounding string of Alarsh curses, he knew he’d succeeded. A mixture of elation and relief washed over him.

Which ended a split second later when a discordant wail erupted from the scanner in Jorie’s hand—and echoed out of one dangling off Tammy Herryck’s hip.

Jorie favored him with one last hard glare—partially obscured by her eyepiece—as if to let Theo know he was now edging his way to the top of her shit list, then she thrust one of her small laser pistols into his outstretched hand.

“Opticals, remember?” she asked, teeth gritted. She swung her rifle around. “And legs. Stay with me.”

Opticals. Eyes. And legs. And writhing energyworms and long, flailing, razor-sharp extenders. He sprinted after her to where red-haired Tammy stood, rifle in one hand, scanner in the other, then stopped. Both women’s heads were bent over their scanners but, damn it, no one was looking around. Someone should be. He remembered the green glowing circle, the thing oozing out—impossibly—from its center. He turned, squinting through his sunglasses into the late afternoon light.

Something slammed him from behind, crushing him to the ground. Grass, dirt, and gravel were pushed into his face, and he heard his sunglasses crack. Then, with sickening clarity, Theo realized he could no longer breathe...