#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.

Visit his author Website & on Facebook!

These are excerpts from Code Blood which describe Markus’ girlfriend Audra, a woman with a full body tattoo. Audra works as an “exotic” dancer at a club in Hollywood, and Markus has a tumultuous (to say the least!) relationship with her.

The inserted picture below was supplied to me by Justice Howard, a world famous photographer of tattooed women, and was adapted for the cover of Code Blood.  The tattoo took several years and reportedly cost $30,000.

Excerpts from Code Blood: 

During the 20-minute drive from the beach to his apartment near the California University campus, Markus leaned against the passenger side door and admired Audra’s body. He wondered what she looked like six years ago, without her tats. She must have been hot even then. Some days he hated the bitch, but today she looked particularly delicious. She was wearing her cut-off jeans, short enough to show the beginning of the curve of her awesome ass, and a tank top that revealed the colors and mosaic of her upper body tattoos. Her long black hair cascaded down over her bare shoulders. While everyone in the parking lot was staring at the accident or looking at Audra, it was easy to pick up the foot. 

****

Audra had lit the candles and Markus could smell the aromatherapy scent drifting out of the bedroom. He didn’t like it nearly as much now that he real¬ized she had the same scent on her hands from the massage oil when she came home from work. He paused at the door of the bedroom and saw her lying face-up on top of the bed wearing only a bra and panties. He watched her stretch, keeping one leg flat and bringing the other up at a right angle. She held on to the piece of old wrought iron cemetery fence they used as a headboard. A small patio table on one side of the bed functioned as a nightstand. A weath¬ered church pew and a massive Victorian dresser with spiral-turned legs were the only other pieces of furniture. Before Audra dragged him to the Salvation Army to buy furniture, Markus slept on a mattress on the floor.

****

The first time he saw her at the Alley Kat, with her tattoos, he couldn’t get over her intense body. He dreamed about her. He thought about her. He kept coming back to look at her like all the other men and even some women. Everyone liked to inhale Audra’s body and fantasize about what they wanted to do with her. He decided he had to have her. He wanted her to belong to him. Now she had moved in with him, but he still had to share her with everyone else at the club. Markus couldn’t bear to go back and watch her dance while everyone ogled her tats and reached out to touch them. 

****

She stormed into the bedroom. “Shut up. I’ve told you, don’t ever say that.” She kicked off one of her high heels. It sailed over the bed and hit the far wall. “You sound just like my father.” She stepped out of her other shoe. “’Audra honey, come to bed with daddy.’ That’s how he always started it.” She moved around the room in the semidarkness, her voice rising. “Every time I heard it, I cringed. When I got older, it got worse. He got more demanding and more impatient and then it was, ‘Audra, NOW!’” She lit several red candles on the dresser, walked to the side of the bed and stood over him in the flickering light, hands on her hips. “You sound just like him. I don’t ever want to hear that again. Not ever.”

****

Audra rolled away from Markus.
“If you like white skin so much, how come you covered yourself with tats?” he asked.
“Because my father’s fingerprints were all over my body. It was like everyone could see what he did to me. As soon as I got off the bus in LA, I started checking out tattoos.”

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.

a Rafflecopter giveaway