Internet gambling and the expansion of casinos beyond the Nevada State Line have put a financial strain on racetracks. Johnny Luck, Hong Mian triad big shot, and his beautiful blonde ex-jockey protege, Jesse James, are always on the lookout for ways to expand the triad’s gambling operation. Back in the fifties and sixties, Jai Alai was a big deal in Florida. Gamblers would fill the frontons and drop thousands of dollars betting on Basque athletics competing in a sport that was so ...

Jesse James, the daughter of a deceased mob connected rug salesman, becomes a jockey working for the Hong Mian triad in order to feed winners to State Senator Somersby. The Senator is responsible for approving California gaming licenses. To date, only Native CANGV casinos are allowed to have slots. California horse racing will die if they aren’t allowed to add slot machines to their venues. Benson Yeung, Dragon Head of the Hong Mian triad, and his chief lieutenant, Johnny...

NOIR I is four stories: The Gold Cricket, The Bastard, Cine City, and Killer Jazz.THE GOLD CRICKETDetective Joanne Leslie has a fondness for the finer things in life, including the best cocaine money can buy. Unfortunately her lifestyle and a detective’s salary don’t comfortably coexist. Drug dealer Cheesy Johnston wants his money, cash he needs to replace the five thousand dollars he’s paying Jake Klein to get him out of the country. What ...

CIA stringer, Richard Lancaster, has been tasked to search out drugs for the new MK-Meta Drug Program, a black ops program designed to use psychotropic drugs to disrupt international crime organizations in the U.S. On a routine trip to the Brazilian rainforest Lancaster discovers a new even stronger and more dangerous variant of the potent borrachero tree, the source of what the Brazilians call burundanga,a scopolamine-like psychotropic powder.The MK-Meta team dec...

The world is a dangerous place, and every country has men and women tasked to protect it. These people go by many names: secret agent, intelligence officer, and analyst are just a few. Harry is one such person. He is an analyst. He spends his time reading, researching, and analyzing, followed by writing reports that often never see the light of day.Harry is well educated with a seemingly important job, but Harry is bored. Bored, because analysts never get to be the hero, never get ...

A poisoned accountant, a Chinese painter with an infamous Italian name, the People’s Minister of Science and Technology, his brother the Director of the Enterprise Division of the Ministry of State Security, and Harry, the art dealer who moonlights as a Secret Intelligence Service agent are the players in the search for why D. D. Greyson was poisoned by a seventeenth-century Italian cosmetic favoured by disillusioned wives.The business of intelligence is often referred to as inform...

Horse trainers, Davey and Pauly Cisco are looking for a fresh start in Southern California after wearing out their welcome in their native Australia. The Cisco twins are identical in looks but not personality; Pauly, like most horse trainers, pushes the envelope of acceptable practice, while his look-alike brother rips through regulations with regularity and abandon. It didn’t take long for the two brothers to hook-up with a couple of conmen: an expert computer hacker who likes e-gaming an...

On a chilly November New York City morning in 1953, a scientist working for the CIA on psychotropic mind-control experiments walked off the tenth-floor balcony of the Statler Hotel. He had become increasingly disenchanted with the bizarre and incredibly dangerous work he had been doing in service to national security.Despite the patriotic rationale, the scientist felt his life’s work was immoral and most certainly illegal. He wanted out, unfortunately, he knew too much...

It all started five years earlier with the murder of Peter Pretty Boy Chen, a low level soldier for Benson Yeung’s Hong Mian triad. Rumor had it that the Guan Yu statute that sat on the old man’s desk, the symbol of his Dragon Head status as leader of the Hong Mian, was filled with priceless Pigeon Blood rubies, or at least that’s what Peter Pretty Boy Chen thought. Whether he was right or wrong is a tale for another time and another place. (See Noir II, The Red Emperor)What’s sign...

Stone ColdBetween a Stone and a Hard PlaceOn the surface Major William Stone (Retired) is merely a rich, English expatriate with a diverse military and financial services background now living in Palermo, Argentina where he runs a small art gallery along with his assistant Margarita Cervantes. If you scratch the surface, you’ll find that Stone was recently the chauffeur for Mrs. Josephine Murphy, heiress to the Murphy Peanut Butter Company, the largest pean...

Psychiatrist and amateur artist, Higgins Idaho is haunted by his family’s tragic past. An infamous artist grandfather, a hotshot lecherous movie director, and a murdered party girl combine to push a psychologically damaged man over the edge. The senior Idaho was an infamous Hollywood painter who designed movie posters for the industry but his life spiraled downward after he was charged with a murder he didn’t commit. Despite being found innocent his reputation was ruined along with his car...

Meet Ronny KleinbergThis is my life. My name and the names of the people and places have been changed for obvious reasons, but the incidents and experiences described all happened. This is real life, not a phony Hollywood version that demands things be packaged in a neat familiar framework with no loose ends. My life is full of loose ends, and many of them are still walking around.To understand my story you have to understand the underlying principles that ...