BODIES IN THE WATER - Book review

A.J. Aberford’s debut novel Bodies in the Water (2022) is very impressive and can stand up against many accomplished best-sellers such as Gerald Seymour and Ken Follett.

For me, he’s covering a lot of familiar ground, setting his story primarily in Malta, where I lived for almost two years.

Neatly structured, it has a prologue and epilogue which features two Nigerian youths, Abeao and Mobo. The tale begins when a body is found floating in the Grand Harbour of Valletta. Police inspector George Zammit is tasked with investigating the death – which is soon established to be murder.

Several scene changes take us to Libya where a certain people smuggler Abdullah Belkacem is intent on expanding his business, notably with links to Malta.

Another protagonist is Englishman Nick Walker who is working for a Sicilian company, the business being a front for money laundering. ‘By the time he began to suspect what he was really involved in, he also knew that walking away was no longer an option’ (p25).

George’s nemesis is Assistant Commissioner Gerald Camilleri, an influential unprincipled man who has little respect for Inspector Zammit.

Added to the mix are Marco Bonnici and his daughter Natasha, both involved with the Sicilian Family and not averse to law-breaking.

All of these different characters are linked. The threads draw together as we experience militia fighting in Libya, the treacherous illegal crossings of the Mediterranean, and the political blackmailing by powerful people in both Italy and Malta.

Aberford has clearly done his research, and this gives us an insight into the conditions in the different lands. There is humour, especially with George’s domestic existence, and also friendships are established. The book and characters cry out for another outing – which is all right, since there are now five Zammit books in the series!

Recommended. 

Halloween horror-03 - ‘How intensely gruesome…’

Especially for Halloween – the horror/romantic thriller Chill of the Shadow.

One reviewer stated ‘(Chill of the Shadow ) has a strong structure and is full of rich writing and action. The plot has page turning twists and the main characters are likeable, especially the female lead. I hadn't read a vampire book in a while and was reminded of how intensely gruesome they can be. While this one has its squeamish moments it's not atypical for the genre, and I can't help liking a well written book! The Malta setting was perfect, making this a great escape read.’

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 4: ‘The Cave of Ghar Dalam’, where the journalist Maria joins Detective Sergeant Attard and they observe the island’s dangerous politics at first-hand…

A flock of black kites flew over Valletta Harbour. The big black birds soared over the liners and steam-ships, the walled city, down to the Queen’s Square, just off Republic Street. Here a crowd of people had gathered, listening to a loud brass band. A garish float followed the band; then stopped outside the Caffé Cordina whose tables were arranged on the street and across the road in the square.

            In a corner of the square, as if tucked out of sight and out of mind, an imposing black statue of Queen Victoria loomed.

            On the float was the New Nation Party politician, Manoel Azzopardi, a megaphone in his hands. “We must stamp on the ugly face of crime!” he enthused. He was overweight and sweating in his dark suit and tie. “It is ruining our children’s futures!” Above him fluttered a banner showing his name and the party.

            “As much as we would like to think so, Malta is not the center of the universe. Nobody owes us a living. We must pay our way.”

            The big black birds – not perturbed by the music and noise – perched on a nearby rooftop. Sinister. Watching.

***

Maria noticed the birds and turned away, unaccountably uncomfortable at their appearance. She sat opposite DS Francis Attard at a table in the square. He was a rather portly man in a crumpled tan suit, with open-necked shirt. He pulled his coat tail over his belt holster to conceal his 9mm Beretta pistol.

            Their seafood meal was half-finished. They both leaned back and sipped white Marsovin wine.

            “It’s good of you to see me, Francis, at such short notice.”

            “You’re good to look at, Maria. Besides, I spend most of my breaks here, watching the world go by.” He patted his generous stomach. “And not watching my weight!”

            Many of the tables were occupied, the diners idly curious about the antics of Azzopardi. Others couldn’t care less and were wrapped up in their own private conversations. The city square was vibrant, filled with the sound of cutlery, crockery, loud talking and the hubbub of passersby.

            Police in tan uniforms and Ray-ban sunglasses stood at regular intervals along the procession’s route up Republic Street.

            Waiters and waitresses weaved expertly between tables; they were the only people who seemed in any particular hurry.

            “We must get things done today,” Azzopardi insisted, “not next month, not next year!”

            A young waiter rushed through the crowd and leaned over Attard’s right shoulder: “Excuse me, Sergeant. There’s a telephone call for you inside.”

            “Vote Azzopardi and your future will be crime-free. Vote for the party that always puts you first! Vote New Nation Party!”

            Attard sighed. “The office, I imagine. Excuse me, Maria. I won’t be long.”

            “There’s only one party – that’s the Azzopardi!” That febrile play on words got a few faint-hearted laughs.

            Attard stood up and followed the waiter through the crowd into Caffé Cordina. He passed two men without giving them a second glance as he headed into the cool contrasting dark interior of the café and picked up the phone at the bar.

***

Count Zondadari sat by the window, with Bonello. Zondadari’s image was reflected in the ornate gilt mirror on the opposite wall and revealed a handsome man with a badly scarred left cheek, glinting eyes and a smile that played on his lips. Count Zondadari was in his forties while Bonello was a few years younger.

            Bonello looked tired and drawn, his eyes sunken yet filled with a strange light.

            “Now is the time, Bonello, to exert your leadership of the Malta Power Party. Just concentrate very hard and your opponent won’t know what hit him.”

            “I will try.” Bonello closed his eyes and his faced hardened. He seemed suddenly oblivious to his surroundings. He concentrated on his opponent, Azzopardi, and sweat beaded his brow.

***

As Maria watched, Azzopardi stopped a moment to bite a sandwich a pretty girl helper had passed up to him. Then, swallowing, he lifted the megaphone again: “A vote for me is a vote for the future of these magnificent islands! Vote Azzopardi!” This must have been the signal for the band to start up again.

            And, as if disturbed by the sound of the brass instruments, the black kites flapped their wings and took off, dropping toward the float. They circled Azzopardi. Seeing them approach, he cowered, covering his face with the megaphone.

            A couple of onlookers screamed.

            Azzopardi tried batting the birds away with the megaphone. One bird snatched his sandwich and flew off. “Get them off me!” he shouted as the birds surrounded him, pecking at his face and scalp. He overbalanced and fell off the float and in that same instant a policeman withdrew his pistol and shot it into the air. With a loud thrashing of black wings, the birds flew off over the rooftops.

            Azzopardi fell directly under the wheels of the following limousine. Brakes screeched and people shrieked. The crowd backed off, away from the dead politician.

            Whistles blew and police rushed through the panicking crowd. The band players abruptly stopped, though not in unison, the sound of their instruments a squawking cacophony followed by a continuous low shocked murmur.

            Maria sat stunned. This was a day for her to see plenty of death, it seemed. She put a trembling hand over her eyes

***

Bonello opened his eyes, looking quite pleased with himself. He was flushed...

            “Enjoy that, did you?”

            “Yes.” Bonello nodded, his voice a little breathless. “Very much.”

            “Remember, that was possible through the sacrifice of a new life.”

            “Yes,” the politician replied, eyes worried now. “So you keep reminding me!”

            “Success usually comes with pain, Bonello.”

            “I know...”

            Zondadari grinned. “Preferably someone else’s pain, no?”

            Bonello forced a smile.

            Slapping the politician’s back, Zondadari chuckled. “Just think what more is possible in this election. The Malta Power Party can’t lose!”

***

Attard passed Zondadari’s table, heading outside to finish his meal with Maria. He noticed the commotion and stopped to talk with a policeman. He shook his head, patted the cop on the shoulder and walked up to Maria’s table.

            “I’ve got to give evidence at the Law Courts in an hour.”

            “Can I have the story?”

            “Sure. Family feud. The usual.” Sitting down, he thumbed back at the crowd. “Looks like his policies have taken a nosedive.”

            Maria pulled a face at the bad-taste joke and pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. “It was an awful accident. At least, I think it was an accident.”

            “Hey, don’t go paranoid on me.”

            She shook her head. “You didn’t see those birds. They seemed to know what they were doing.”

            “Maybe they didn’t like his politics.”

Chill of the Shadow

Amazon paperback and e-book here

Halloween horror-01 - ‘with X-rated parts…’

Especially for Halloween – the horror/romantic thriller Chill of the Shadow. One US reviewer stated ‘The story carefully unfolds into a complex, and chilling tale not exactly for the lighthearted. Maria Caruana, an investigative journalist and police Sergeant Francis investigate the disappearance of young pregnant women. They put their lives on the line to learn whether or not black magic is alive on the Maltese islands.
            … Some people make good out of bad, but Bryson Spellman takes his bitterness to the dark side. Zondadari, a vampire, and Bonello a politician, and his right hand man, Grech are just a few he sucks into his evil plan. Maria’s search for answers takes her to Zondadari. He has a hold over her from the moment she sets eyes on him, and even as she wonders if she loves him, she fears that he is a vampire.
            The dark forces gather, and then the story breaks wide open and reveals the depth of evil that has befallen the beautiful tourist island of Malta.

            This is a rather deep story with some X-rated parts that I feel should be placed as a warning...’

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 3: ‘Tumbling thoughts’, where the journalist Maria does some research on black magic in Malta…

As the day wore on Maria found that several small libraries locked away books, often for purely censorial purposes, a hangover from the earlier times when the church held stronger sway.

            A quick search took her through the scant collection of Malti books and offered up nothing of note, which wasn’t surprising since her country’s language hadn’t been officially written down till last century

            The English, French and Italian works had merely scratched the surface of folklore, particularly the dark side. Instinctively, she now believed that a dark side existed, but it was – not surprisingly – hidden. Where there is light, there is shadow.

            The stories were all probably oral; and the country people normally associated with earth-magic were still exceptionally insular. Perhaps they didn’t write the lore down. Of course, the secret societies, if they existed, had the Order of St. John to emulate.

            Witchcraft reared its ugly head as well. Here, too, in these idyllic islands the Inquisition had taken its toll. Blood and gore had been splattered in the name of the Pope. But she could find no substantiated accounts of devil-worship in the islands. Which seemed rather odd. Throughout history, every society and country had its share of devil-worshippers and there was no reason why Malta should be any different. Father Joseph may believe that he is right and the islands are too devout but her cynical reporter’s head told her to dismiss the priest’s assurances for what they were, self-delusion.

            She found old copies of several classics in French: Collin de Plancy’s Spectriana, Cuisan’s Les ombres sanglantes and Gabrielle de Paban’s Histoire des Fantômes et de Demons and Démoniana. And while they were true treasure troves of the black arts, they didn’t mention Malta once.

            A couple of English encyclopedias on occultism and ritual magic proved useful for definitions and practices and were of great help when she spent time on the dense but always fascinating prose of the Reverend Montague Summers in his History of Witchcraft.

            Apparently, in medieval times crossroads were grim places, where miscreants were hung and left in cages to be feasted upon by carrion. Legend suggested that the mandrake or mandragora – the semi-human – was a plant of fertility, magical virtue and occult power. When a man was hanged, his semen or urine fell to the ground and there in that spot grew up the mandrake. Never read that explanation in Harry Potter, Maria mused. J.K. Rowling got it right, though, about not uprooting a mandrake as its shrieks were so fearful that whoever dug it up would die with the yells ringing in his ears. It could be harvested by getting dogs that tugged up the roots; though a whole kennel-load of them might be needed.

            Poisoning was quite commonplace in those dark days. Fortune-tellers added to their meagre fees by acting as back-street abortionists and bargain-basement prostitutes and as a side-line they also sold poisons to duchesses, princes, marquises and lords.

            Malta jumped out at her when she read about a poison ring with connections in England, Italy and Portugal. It was formed in the 1670s and had been headed by Galaup de Chasteuil, the son of the Attorney general of Aix, a Knight of Malta, and at one time also a Carmelite prior who happened to keep a mistress in his cell. Among the ring’s membership had been nobles, a banker and a lawyer. Chasteuil fled during the investigations of the Chambre Ardente in 1680, when the Black Mass was first mentioned in any historical document.    

            She was surprised to learn that the Knights Templar had been associated with black magic rites, though in fact it was their enemies who, jealous of the Knights’ power, had spread the rumour that even now wouldn’t lie still. King Philip of France and his puppet Pope Clement V lusted after the vast Templar wealth and sought to capture and torture the Knights. The Inquisition’s torture produced many confessions, among them that the knights worshipped the idol Baphomet, a goat-headed demon. Some scholars believed that Baphomet was a corruption of Mahomet or Mohammad. Maria shook her head, finding it hard to believe, considering that the Islamic faith abhors idols of any kind.

            A person who is physically constrained or morally terrorized has no freedom of will, Maria reasoned, shuddering as she read on. How could they give credence to confessions extorted in such a manner? The victim is not responsible. The elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay insisted the Order was innocent of all but one offence against God, and that was confessing untruths while being tortured. Burned at the stake while facing Notre Dame, de Molay called out through the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. Pope Clement died a month later and King Philip was killed in a hunting accident before the year’s end.

            In 1312 the Knights Templar Order was dissolved and their assets were sequestered and some passed on to their rivals, the Knights Hospitallers who subsequently became the Knights of Rhodes and Malta. This was familiar territory for her, as she – like most of the islands’ schoolchildren – had studied the Great Siege of Malta of 1565.

            After delving into the terrible atrocities of the past – a perpetual war between good and evil in which inevitably the innocent were often destroyed – she was glad to emerge from the oppressive confines of the musty libraries.

            She spent an hour at her office computer, googling the worldwide web for anything about the combination of Witchcraft and Malta. Not a lot of useful information came up in the results, surprisingly. Wicca adherents argued for the understanding of life and nature, while there were studies of Witchcraft and sorcery during the Inquisition years in Malta, but nothing recent turned up. She hadn’t the stamina to check out all 91,300 result pages so she decided to leave for a hasty burger.

            Later in the afternoon, as she stood and leaned over the railings of Barrakka Gardens, idly watching the few ships and boats in the Grand Harbour, she breathed in the warm air and the fragrance of the flowers to clear her head. A flower arrangement spelled out MERHBA – welcome –– and had done so for many years.

            She never tired of this view. It was somehow reassuring; perhaps it was the solidity of the city-walls, a satisfying permanence – the same sixteenth century bastion walls that the knights of the Order of St. John built to protect and encircle their city of Valletta. The panorama from left to right took in the breakwater entrance to the harbour with, across the water, Fort Ricasoli, where she had covered the making of several films. Over there, too, was Bighi, once a Royal Naval hospital but now state housing, and Fort St. Angelo, still standing substantial and perfect – living history. Directly in front of her was the town of Senglea, now dwarfed by a moored rust-streaked giant Liberian tanker.

            A dghajsa crossed the harbour, the boatman standing above his tourist charges, effortlessly pushing his long oars. Maria was born the same year that the British armed forces left for good – the climax of Dom Mintoff’s political career – so she had no direct memories of the days when the water here was thick with moored warships and dozens of those water-taxis plied their way to the Customs House jetty. But her father had told her of those days and she’d seen his many photographs. Maria fished out of her shoulder bag a pair of small binoculars and studied the harbour.

            She shivered involuntarily on seeing two young boys diving off the bows of a tethered blue-painted luzzu, the fisherman having left the vessel to sell his catch in the market. The water was still too cold for her preference. The boys were having fun, though, the sun glinting off the water on their spare muscular bodies and glistening black hair. Maria was drawn to the protective eye of Osiris painted on the boat’s bow. To ward off evil. Yet another reminder of the fear of evil lurking below the surface of everyday life.

Chill of the Shadow

 Amazon paperback and e-book here