Kirjahaku

Brig Ellis is a new age private investigator with old school values. When he gets a call from an old flame seeking protection for her husband, he agrees to help. Seems the hubby is an artist whose star is ascending. What Brig doesn’t know, until he makes contact with the couple, is that the artist paints with the cremated ashes of human remains. While the painter’s profile is rising, so too is the number of people less than thrilled with what he is doing—and some of them are determined to stop him one way or another. Ellis soon finds himself in the middle of multiple bizarre events that could be chalked up as accidental mayhem. Of course, they could also be escalating murder attempts. From wild art house happenings in the warehouse district to glittering soirees in the manicured mansions of the upper crust, things get more and more dangerous. A tornado in far west Texas threatens to level everything and everyone in its path. A sojourn to Havana, Cuba turns deadly. An art show in Chicago becomes a nightmare when a Molotov cocktail sets a gallery ablaze. The violence keeps increasing exponentially, as do the suspects. There are jealous artists, shady gallery owners, reporters with hidden agendas, outraged Christian ministers, even Jewish groups who become incensed when they find that one of the artist’s paintings includes the ashes of a Holocaust survivor. Ellis struggles to keep the detractors at a distance, the artist safe, and the old flame from igniting a new spark while he looks for a potential killer and wrestles with his own convictions about the moral conundrums surrounding this fascinating but questionable form of DYING ART. Joe Kilgore has won awards for his novels, novellas, screenplays, and short stories. Prior to writing for page and screen, Joe had a long and successful career in advertising where his television and radio commercials, plus magazine and newspaper ads, won local, regional, and international awards for some of the world’s largest corporations.

Brig Ellis is a new age private investigator with old school values. When he gets a call from an old flame seeking protection for her husband, he agrees to help. Seems the hubby is an artist whose star is ascending. What Brig doesn’t know, until he makes contact with the couple, is that the artist paints with the cremated ashes of human remains. While the painter’s profile is rising, so too is the number of people less than thrilled with what he is doing—and some of them are determined to stop him one way or another. Ellis soon finds himself in the middle of multiple bizarre events that could be chalked up as accidental mayhem. Of course, they could also be escalating murder attempts. From wild art house happenings in the warehouse district to glittering soirees in the manicured mansions of the upper crust, things get more and more dangerous. A tornado in far west Texas threatens to level everything and everyone in its path. A sojourn to Havana, Cuba turns deadly. An art show in Chicago becomes a nightmare when a Molotov cocktail sets a gallery ablaze. The violence keeps increasing exponentially, as do the suspects. There are jealous artists, shady gallery owners, reporters with hidden agendas, outraged Christian ministers, even Jewish groups who become incensed when they find that one of the artist’s paintings includes the ashes of a Holocaust survivor. Ellis struggles to keep the detractors at a distance, the artist safe, and the old flame from igniting a new spark while he looks for a potential killer and wrestles with his own convictions about the moral conundrums surrounding this fascinating but questionable form of DYING ART. Joe Kilgore has won awards for his novels, novellas, screenplays, and short stories. Prior to writing for page and screen, Joe had a long and successful career in advertising where his television and radio commercials, plus magazine and newspaper ads, won local, regional, and international awards for some of the world’s largest corporations.

Inspired by the classic short stories of Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene, Patricia Highsmith, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Carver, Coetzee, and more, these stories take you into dark places and tight spaces. Yes, there is mayhem, even murder from time to time. There are also unfortunate decisions that can't be unmade, honest mistakes that lead to dishonesty, realizations that come too late, and dues to be paid that come too soon. Throughout, the human comedy that we call life is painted with the colors of love, hate, success, failure, jubilation, sorrow, and the lint in all our pockets, regret.As you read you'll meet assassins, adulterers, artists, gigolos, go-betweens, pretty women and petty criminals, a woman who walks her cat, a man who can't walk at all, an elderly man who just might be Satan, a bartender, a hangman, doomed denizens, and one very lucky fellow. They and more are waiting to share their stories with you, including some memorable supporting players who quite often steal the show.

Fool's Errand marks the debut of a contemporary gumshoe whose character traits are rooted firmly in the past. Brig Ellis is an ex-military and current private investigator based in San Diego, but willing to go wherever the assignment takes him. His card reads: Investigations, Security, Confidential Matters. However, this shamus is not shy about accepting work that might color outside the lines. And while most people agree that if you're smart, there are some jobs you just shouldn't take, Brig's point of view is, if you're smart, you're in another line of work. Perhaps that's why this initial Brig Ellis tale has him juggling three tasks at once...A favor for a friend puts San Diego private investigator, Brig Ellis, in contact with a real knockout. But the first time they meet, the specter of larceny hangs in the air like the stale scent of a cheap cigar. Before Ellis can decide to make a pass or make tracks, thugs turn his office into a veritable junk yard. He should try to find out why, but when money calls, he listens, and so he puts payback on hold. Hired by the black sheep of a dysfunctional dynasty, he agrees to retrieve the clan's daughter from apparent involvement with Zapatista rebels in Mexico. A tale of two cities ensues laden with hidden agendas, revelations, recriminations, mayhem, murder, and a violent conflict on the eight thousand foot cliffs of the Copper Canyon Railway. Before all the loose ends have been tied, Ellis is left to wonder if making friends, doing favors, unmasking foes, or extracting vulnerable heiresses are all, in one way or another, fools' errands.

Fool's Errand marks the debut of a contemporary gumshoe whose character traits are rooted firmly in the past. Brig Ellis is an ex-military and current private investigator based in San Diego, but willing to go wherever the assignment takes him. His card reads: Investigations, Security, Confidential Matters. However, this shamus is not shy about accepting work that might color outside the lines. And while most people agree that if you're smart, there are some jobs you just shouldn't take, Brig's point of view is, if you're smart, you're in another line of work. Perhaps that's why this initial Brig Ellis tale has him juggling three tasks at once...A favor for a friend puts San Diego private investigator, Brig Ellis, in contact with a real knockout. But the first time they meet, the specter of larceny hangs in the air like the stale scent of a cheap cigar. Before Ellis can decide to make a pass or make tracks, thugs turn his office into a veritable junk yard. He should try to find out why, but when money calls, he listens, and so he puts payback on hold. Hired by the black sheep of a dysfunctional dynasty, he agrees to retrieve the clan's daughter from apparent involvement with Zapatista rebels in Mexico. A tale of two cities ensues laden with hidden agendas, revelations, recriminations, mayhem, murder, and a violent conflict on the eight thousand foot cliffs of the Copper Canyon Railway. Before all the loose ends have been tied, Ellis is left to wonder if making friends, doing favors, unmasking foes, or extracting vulnerable heiresses are all, in one way or another, fools' errands.

In Hollywood, five people in the movie industry agree to participate in a devious and ingenious lottery to commit murder. The lottery is designed so that four of the five will have no way of knowing who the actual killer is. Their intended victim is Able Dane, a brilliant but self-absorbed film director who has damaging material on all of them and is literally making each of their lives a living hell. The lottery is completed. The murder committed. Time passes and it looks as if the crime will go unsolved. One policeman however, is not content to let this cold case freeze. He brings in his former military mate, San Diego Private Investigator Brig Ellis, to help. Soon, multiple motives come to light. But just as soon, bodies start piling up. Prime suspects, the actual lottery participants, are being eliminated one by one. By whom? And why? What is really going on, who the hell is responsible, and who actually killed Able Dane? It's up to Ellis to find out... if he can avoid becoming a target himself.

A young American, seeking escape from a tragic event, takes a job with an international conservation organization in the foreign port of Retiro de Santos. There, he becomes romantically involved with a local artist, and platonically involved with a young girl pursuing a better life. Soon his environmental group is sabotaged, his coworker dies mysteriously, and his young friend is shanghaied. Finding himself on the wrong side of unjust laws, he must decide whether to act or abdicate responsibility. As he teeters precariously on the edge of a decision, a raging storm barrels ashore to threaten everyone and everything in its path.

Private Investigator Brig Ellis is on his way to spread the ashes of a friend with whom he once soldiered. His nostalgic journey soon becomes a nightmare, however, when hideous murders occur and Ellis is labeled the prime suspect. The more information that comes to light, the more it looks as if the killings might have something to do with a military mission that went off the rails years ago. Soon, Ellis is on the run, trying to solve the mystery and stay out of the authorities' clutches. While the police are hot on his trail, his pursuit of the real killers takes Ellis not only across the country but deep into the past as well. What's the connection between the mission that resulted in a night he'll never be able to forget and the horror happening around him now? Could any of his former squad mates be involved? Are they even still alive? And if so, for how long? The clock is ticking and the bodies are falling as Ellis searches for answers.

San Diego Private Investigator, Brig Ellis, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to help him acquire the final horse in a set of twelve palomino miniatures that once belonged to the last Emperor of China. What begins as a seemingly reasonable assignment quickly morphs into something much more sinister. The intrepid gumshoe finds himself having to bargain with brigands, kibitz with kidnappers, clash with commies, and duel with a stone cold assassin incapable of feeling pain. All while navigating potentially deadly pitfalls instigated by his employer's beautiful but enigmatic daughter. Conflict and danger increase at warp speed as Ellis tries to make sure this ill-fated job isn't his last.

A Farmhouse in the Rain is a novel of war and peace, crime and punishment, love and loss, and eventually hope. It's a saga of three American soldiers and the women they love - before, during, and after World War II. During the war, the three are given shelter by a French woman. The next morning she is found dead and the trio realize they were the only ones in the house. While the three survive the war, the questions remain: Who will survive the peace? Who will unite with the love they left behind? And who will be unmasked as the murderer on that fateful night at A Farmhouse in the Rain.