Black Lotus Kiss
Black Lotus Kiss: A Brimstone Files Novel Jason Ridler FRONTLIST | August 14, 2018 9781597809351, 1597809357 Trade Paperback $14.99 USD, $22.99 CAD, £10.99 GBP, €13.99 EUR Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal
Ingram
Review
Black Lotus Kiss is one heck of a fantastic ride. Filled with creative action sequences, over the top characters, exotic women, and a fast thinking hero, quick with both his wit and his fists, Black Lotus Kiss has everything that appeal to lovers of detective pulp. But there is more to Black Lotus Kiss - and it is the extras that make it stand apart. First, Brimstone has a conscience, one that is strong enough to stand up for others and do the right thing despite the cost. Often unappreciated, Brimstone’s conscience gets him into trouble or beaten up. In LA, doing the right thing isn’t good for business. Brimstone also has a gift for magic - the kind that’s real. Unfortunately, that gift tends to get him involved in cases that are far more complex and have farther reaching consequences.
Brimstone may have saved the world when he stopped a porn cult from summoning a Cthuluesqe elder god, but he is still broke and spending most of his time chasing errant spouses (far more exciting than you would expect). While attending a ceremony at the local Veterans Hall, a bomb is thrown through the window, critically injuring his friend Cactus. Brimstone promises Cactus he will find the culprit - a promise that looks more difficult once he finds a Black Lotus, a magic flower long believed extinct. Someone wanted it to look like a protester attacked the meeting, the question is who and why. Brimstone’s search for the truth takes him from skateboarding gangs to professional wrestlers, and beachfronts to elite hotels, in a race against time, because being indebted to a ghost is a very bad thing.
5 / 5
I received a copy of Black Lotus Kiss from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
— Crittermom
Summary
The salaciously pulpy adventures of occult detective James Brimstone continue in the sequel to Hex-Rated. Winter 1970. As rock stars die of excess and revolution fills the air, newly minted private investigator James Brimstone is spending his days wandering the streets of Los Angeles, looking for low rent cases as far as possible from his last work-for-hire, an unfortunate run-in with the occult on a pornographic film set. But fate has a funny way of slapping Brimstone with the dark hand of magic. When a deadly attack on a veteran’s hall nearly kills his Korean War buddy Cactus, the only clue left behind is a leaf from the Black Lotus, a war drug used in ancient Babylonia . . . that’s supposedly been extinct since the pyramids were young. Between bump-ins with rock star prophets and berserk professional wrestlers, Brimstone races to find out who’s behind the supernatural drug turning the City of Angel’s citizens into sex- and violence-crazed maniacs, as well as a mysterious creature of smoke and evil stalking the streets of L.A. On the boardwalk between our world and nightmares, Brimstone must face the darkness within himself to see if he, too, will fall victim . . . to the Black Lotus Kiss
