22 May, 2017

#SpecialFeature :: #Excerpts from Code Blood by Kurt Kamm



*** Special Feature - May 2017 ***


About the Author:
Kurt KammMalibu, California resident Kurt Kamm has written a series of firefighter mystery novels which have won several literary awards. He is also the author of The Lizard’s Tale, which provides a unique look inside the activities of the Mexican drug cartels and the men dedicated to stopping them. Kurt has used his contacts with several California fire departments, as well as with the ATF and DEA to write fact-based (“faction”) novels. In his chilling and suspenseful multi-award winning novel, Code Blood, Kurt takes the reader into the connected lives of a fire paramedic, a Chinese research student with the rarest blood type in the world, and the blood-obsessed killer who stalks her. Colt Lewis, a young Los Angeles County fire paramedic responds to a fatal accident. The victim dies in his arms. Her foot has been severed but is nowhere to be found. Who is the woman, and what happened to her foot? During a weeklong search, Colt risks his career to find the victim’s identity and her missing foot. His search leads him to a dark and disturbing side of Los Angeles…an underworld of body part dealers and underground Goth clubs. He uncovers a tangled maze of drugs, needles, and rituals. Emergency medicine, high-tech medical research, and the unsettling world of blood fetishism and body parts make for an edgy L.A. Noir thriller. Kurt has built an avid fan base among first responders and other readers. A graduate of Brown University and Columbia Law School, Kurt was previously a financial executive and semi-professional bicycle racer. He was also Chairman of the UCLA/Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Foundation for several years.

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Excerpts from Code Blood: 

Station 88, squad and engine respond to vehicle accident on Pacific Coast Highway at the Surfrider Restaurant.
When the tone sounded, Colt Lewis was replacing the IV bags in the drug box. A surge of adrenaline pulsed through him. He ran to the engine bay, stowed the box in the side-panel of the squad—the paramedic truck—and pulled on his gear. Brian, his partner and preceptor during his eight-week internship in the field, slid behind the wheel and grabbed his headset. Colt punched the red button on the wall and jumped into the passenger seat as the heavy metal garage door rumbled up.
“You good?” Brian asked. He hit the lights and siren.
Colt nodded and heard the deafening wail before he put his headset on. They rolled down the driveway onto Pacific Coast Highway and turned right. It was an early Sunday afternoon in mid-September and PCH was crowded with people coming to the beaches. Colt was living his dream. He had just become a Los Angeles County Fire paramedic stationed in Malibu. He was part of the firefighter brotherhood. The men on his shift replaced the family he no longer had. 
Vehicles moved aside to let the squad pass. Brian wove through the sea of traffic to the center divider lane and picked up speed. “Squad 88 respond¬ing,” he called in. “What have we got?”
“Single vehicle accident,” dispatch radioed back.
Colt’s adrenaline spike subsided. He shook his head. You never knew what you might find when you were toned out. People drove at high speeds on PCH and collisions were common. The worst were the devastating MVA’s—multiple vehicle accidents. During his two years as a firefighter before becoming a paramedic, Colt saw several MVA’s with torn flesh and metal spread across the pavement. A one-car accident at the Surf rider sounded harmless. An old woman with blue hair probably bumped her head when her husband touched the brakes in the parking lot.
In his side view mirror, Colt watched the LifeLine ambulance fall in behind them. Farther back, he glimpsed the red lights on top of 88’s engine, caught in the traffic. The squad screamed past Ferraris and Porsches, SUV’s, motor homes with satellite dishes, Jeeps with surfboards, Harleys and sport bikes—all trying to squeeze over into the right hand lane. A black and white from the Sheriff’s Department made a sudden U-turn and preceded them for the short trip down the coast. After five years in California, Colt was still amazed at the congestion. In Wyoming, where he grew up, the land was empty. The entire population could be on the highway and no one would notice. 
A mile from the Surfrider, traffic was backed up to a standstill. Sheriff’s deputies had placed their cars diagonally across the highway in front of the restaurant, stopping traffic in both directions. Brian swung out into the center lane again. As the squad approached the Surf rider, Colt saw a metal light pole lying on the ground, one jagged end in the parking lot and the other, with a smashed streetlight still attached, sticking out into the right hand lane of PCH. A silver pickup rested on the cement pad where the pole had been anchored. The impact had driven the front bumper, grill and hood halfway to the wind-shield. Colt looked for the telltale circle of smashed glass and blood and hair on the inside of the windshield, but saw nothing.
Brian pulled into the parking lot and stopped. Several feet away, a crowd from the beach wearing bathing suits, restaurant customers wearing shorts and tank tops, and the Surf rider staff dressed in black pants, white shirts, red sus-penders and bow ties, had collected. A surge of excitement pulsed through the throng. People shaded their eyes to get a better look, pointed and spoke to their companions. Several took photos with their cell phones. 
Brian was out of the squad before Colt had his hand on the door handle. “Let’s go,” Brian said. “Glove up.” 
Colt grabbed the orange drug box and followed Brian. 
The ambulance arrived seconds later and the LifeLine EMT’s trailed after them across the parking lot. The crowd parted as they approached. Colt saw a deputy kneeling next to a girl wearing a blue T-shirt, lying on her back. The next thing he saw was what remained of her right leg—a stump with shreds of muscle and tendons in place of her foot and ankle. Blood from a severed artery formed a puddle on the ground next to the deputy. Colt felt a new rush of adrenaline. 
The deputy turned toward them. “Glad you guys are here,” he said. He had pulled everything off his belt and was using it as a tourniquet.  His flashlight, radio, mace, gun and holster, two sets of cuffs and bullet clips lay in a pile at his side. He held the thick brown belt tight around the girl’s right calf, but blood continued to leak from her severed limb. Nervous sweat ran off his face, dripped onto the blacktop and mixed with the blood. His tan shirt had dark rings of perspiration under the arms. 
Colt couldn’t take his eyes off the stump of the girl’s leg. His job was to help those who needed it. Although he would never admit it, sometimes when he knew the victim had done something stupid, Colt was a little less concerned. The person lying in front of him wasn’t one of those reckless jerks injured in a motorcycle crash, or some lunatic who raced down Pacific Coast Highway weaving through traffic. This victim was a girl, badly injured and bleeding out from a severed foot. Although surrounded by Sheriff’s deputies and curious strangers, she seemed alone. Colt didn’t see anyone trying to comfort her.
Brian pulled a tourniquet from the drug box and tightened it around the girl’s leg above the deputy’s belt. “How long have you been here?” he asked the deputy.
The deputy loosened his belt and slipped it off the girl’s leg. He wiped his face on the shoulder of his shirt and looked at his watch. “It happened about fifteen minutes ago, say around 1420. The dispatch was a Code 3. They should’ve said it was a Code Blood.” 

****
Colt knelt down. “Miss, can you give me your name?”
Her eyes were open and she turned her head slightly toward him. Her lips barely moved. Her voice was inaudible. Colt had seen the glazed look of shock before. It was not a good sign. 
“Do you know your name?” he repeated, and leaned toward her. He thought he smelled scented soap on her skin.
“Bibi,” she whispered. 
“Bibi,” Colt said to Brian. “She says her name’s Bibi.” He turned back to the girl. “Do you know where you are?” She looked at Colt but said nothing. He read the response in her eyes: help me.

****

Colt heard a small chopper. It sounded like a lawnmower. He knew it couldn’t be the AirSquad and looked up. A news helicopter circled overhead. He saw another coming up the coast from Los Angeles. In minutes, news crews in vans would arrive, extend their satellite transmission poles, broadcast pictures of the accident and fan out to find people to interview. In the process, several spectators would have a moment of fame on Los Angeles network television. The accident would be a good lead-in on the 11:00 p.m. Sunday night news, but the anchors would be disappointed that a Malibu celebrity wasn’t involved. 

****
“Cold,” she whispered. “Cold.” 
For a split second, he thought she had uttered his name, Colt, and that she knew him. He took her hand again and held it in his own for a few seconds, trying to give her a sense of reassurance. “We’ll take care of you, Bibi.” He looked at her. “Don’t worry. It’ll be OK, I promise.” He wasn’t so sure it would be OK, but that’s what he was trained to say. “Get us some blankets,” he called to one of the LifeLine EMT’s. “She needs blankets.”
As he bent over the girl, Colt’s peripheral vision registered the bare feet, sandals, tennis and running shoes and the shined Sheriff’s boots surrounding the girl. Where was her foot?



About the Book:
Colt Lewis, a rookie fire paramedic, is obsessed with finding the severed foot of his first victim after she dies in his arms. His search takes him into the connected lives of a graduate research student, with the rarest blood in the world and the vampire fetishist who is stalking her. Within the corridors of high-stakes medical research laboratories, the shadow world of body parts dealers, and the underground Goth clubs of Los Angeles, Lewis uncovers a tangled maze of needles, drugs and maniacal ritual, all of which lead to death. But whose death? An unusual and fast-paced LA Noir thriller.

Book Details:
Genre: Suspense, Vampire
Published by: MCM Publishing
Publication Date: October 2012
Number of Pages: 233
ISBN: 0979855136 (ISBN13: 9780979855139)
Series: Code Blood is a Stand Alone Novel

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Code Blood Literary Awards:
* Writer’s Type - First Chapter Competition. January 2011- First Place
* 2012 International Book Awards - Fiction: Cross Genre Category – First Place
* National Indie Excellence Book Awards – Faction (fiction based on fact) - Winner of the 2012 Award
* The 2012 USA Best Book Awards - Fiction: Horror - Winner
* LuckyCinda Publishing Contest 2013 First Place – Thriller
* Reader's Favorite 2013– Finalist – Horror Fiction
* Knoxville Writer’s Guild - 2011 Novella or Novel Excerpt – 2nd Place

Giveaway
6 Winners can get their choice of Kurt Kamm's books in Digital format.


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1 comment:

  1. Good luck to your followers that enter the giveaway because this was a great read!

    ReplyDelete