Shelter by Steve Rogan

Shelter Dean Golinski’s recently deceased father, Marek, believed ‘they’ would come for everyone at some point in time, so he’d made some very serious preparations, fracturing his family in the process. Marek believed ‘they’ would seize any opportunity to test the mettle of the nation; a chisel strike here, a chisel strike there, and then the final blow to render freedom and liberty to slivers and dust. Being estranged from his sister, Jacqueline, for the most part of fifteen years, Dean couldn’t convince her not to go to the Comerica Park refuge shelter when a coronal mass ejection, 1,000 times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859, was reported to be enroute to Earth. Played down by official sources, Dean was convinced of the event’s anticipated severity after watching a video blog posted by Professor Martin Monroe, a discredited Astrophysicist from Ireland; yet everything he said, Dean found, was corroborated through other reliable sources. It was enough to convince the majority of America’s citizens into an exodus to the many shelters set up around the country. Dean, however, moved swiftly to occupy a location his late father had prepared for whatever flavor the End Times would take. As if ordained by fate, an assassination attempt is made on the POTUS at a Seattle golf club dinner the day before the CME event, and an opportunity is seized to initiate a game-changing strategy across the U.S., and refuge shelters to protect the country’s greatest asset forms a key component of that strategy. Dean soon discovers that the sins of the father are indeed paid by the son, as he finds himself and his sister somehow linked to Russian interference within the U.S. political system, in addition to becoming prime targets in a hunt to keep the country’s over-haul mission on track. Dean’s late father wasn’t crazy at all; he was right!

The Haunting of Maddy McKenzie by Steve Rogan

The Haunting of Maddy McKenzie Maddy McKenzie [mmm, why does that compel me to sing about darning my socks all by myself late at night?]. Oh well. Anyhoo. Maddy’s a 36-year-old Wollongong detective, and a hard-line sceptic to boot; she doesn’t even believe in believing in the belief of believing those beliefs. After buying and moving into a house at Thirroul, which the realtor warned her was haunted, Maddy is forced to put her scepticism aside and come to accept that there may just be some substance to this spirit-world hoohah. As always, someone’s mother is intrinsically involved. Delphine Morgan, psychedelic hippy-type beach bunny, was murdered in Maddy’s new house in August of 1969 and, as a result, missed Woodstock by a week and a rippin’ little grand final between the Tigers and the Rabbitohs in September. Unless her killer is caught, belted with a phonebook by an angry old desk Sergeant and brought to justice before he dies, Delphine will be stuck in the wrong realm and inherit her killer’s violence for eternity, thus rendering her one of those annoyingly nasty spectres that aren’t too welcome at dinner parties. Delphine’s only chance is if Maddy reopens her cold-case investigation and tracks the old codger down before he runs out of puff. That’s the tear-jerker part of the story; the rest is just an utter load of old tosh!