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    A Simple Assignment
    A Simple Assignment
    A Simple Assignment
    Ebook51 pages35 minutes

    A Simple Assignment

    By Russ Crossley

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In Degenerate City there is only one private dick that hunts the names on the naughty list. Christmas Elf Cheerful Baby Vickers, C.B. Vickers to her enemies and Vickers to friends and coworkers, cleans up the streets to safeguard the integrity of the lists. 

    When a new case draws her into murder and conspiracy Vickers must uncover the truth and bring a killer to justice to complete her investigation.

    Teaming with her sometime partner, DPD homicide Lieutenant Jack Spike O'Malley, they must face the thugs and scum of the city to solve this deadly case. They soon discover a scheme that will disrupt North Pole operations for decades to come and change the naughty and nice lists for billions of people around the world.

    Will Vickers and O'Malley survive a confrontation with a killer and save the future of North Pole operations in the bargain?

    A thrilling noir elfin mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat as Vickers discovers this case is not a simple assignment.  

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisher53rd Street Publishing
    Release dateFeb 14, 2019
    ISBN9781386107453
    A Simple Assignment
    Author

    Russ Crossley

    International selling author, Russ Crossley writes science fiction and fantasy, and mystery/suspense under the name R.G. Crossley. His latest science fiction satire set in the far future, Revenge of the Lushites, is a sequel to Attack of the Lushites released in 2011. The latest title in the series was released in the fall of 2013. Both titles are available in e-book and trade paperback. He has sold several short stories that have appeared in anthologies from various publishers including; WMG Publishing, Pocket Books, and St. Martins Press. He is a member of SF Canada and is past president of the Greater Vancouver Chapter of Romance Writers of America. He is also an alumni of the Oregon Coast Professional Fiction Writers Master Class taught by award winning author/editors, Kristine Katherine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. Feel free to contact him on Facebook, Twitter, or his website http:www.russcrossley.com.  He loves to hear from readers  

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      Book preview

      A Simple Assignment - Russ Crossley

      A Simple Assignment

      A Simple Assignment

      Russ Crossley

      53rd Street Publishing

      Publisher

      By

      Russ Crossley

      Published by 53 rd Street Publishing

      Offices in Gibsons, B.C. Canada and Lincoln City Oregon, U.S.A

      A Simple Assignment

      Published by 53rd Street Publishing

      Copyright © 2019 Russ Crossley

      All rights reserved

      Cover art © STYLEPICS/depositphotos

      Cover designed by R. Edgewood

      Cover design and layout © 2019 by 53rd Street Publishing

      53rd Street Publishing

      Head office: Gibsons B.C. Canada

      www.53rdstreetpublishing.com

      This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

      Dedication

      For Rita, my wife and my best friend, I love you more every day.

      Contents

      A Simple Assignment

      About the Author

      Also by Russ Crossley

      Also available from 53rd Street Publishing

      A Simple Assignment

      Cheerful Baby Vickers, known to her clients and her enemies as C.B. Vickers and to her friends and coworkers as Vickers, stared at the computer screen on the cigarette-scarred oak desk in her dimly lit office. Her office was on the top floor of a sixty-year-old three-story brick walk-up in the seedy part of town, known more commonly as the wrong side of the tracks.

      The message on the screen was from headquarters and it didn’t make the digestion of the baloney and cheese on white bread she ate for lunch any easier. I shouldn’t have asked for the extra mayo, she muttered under her breath as she read the message.

      Being a private eye in Degenerate City, which was brimming with human flotsam who lived perpetually on the naughty list, had seemed a fairly simple assignment. Every December she reconfirmed the names of many of the city residents whose appearance on the naughty list remained valid. Alternately she confirmed if any had reformed to move to the nice list or had died by gunshot, suicide, or drug overdose and thus were no longer eligible for any list, either nice or naughty.

      But every now and then a request like this came in that she dreaded because it usually involved an individual she recommended be put on the naughty list for the first time as they had recently moved to the city. A city where she was responsible for cleaning up the mean streets and sweeping away the trash. Now this message meant that she would have to find one of those people and confirm he hadn’t reformed from his naughty ways. Indigestion swelled from the pit of her stomach, sending a taste of unprocessed sandwich mingled with the acid of bile to the back of her throat. She swallowed to calm her innards.

      The oak captain’s chair creaked in the quiet as she stood and used her hands to smooth the fabric

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