Book Title: My Name is Jimmy
Author: Garrick Jones
Publisher: MoshPit Publications
Cover Artist: Garrick Jones
Release Date: June 1, 2022
Genres: LGBT mystery thriller, LGBT crime fiction
Themes: Lies and deception, murder mystery, finding Mr. Right, war and its aftermath
Length: 17 930 words/53 pages
Heat Rating: 4 flames
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Amazon AU | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb
In 1947, James “Jimmy” Bacon becomes involved in a violent workplace altercation fuelled by a PTSD-induced rage. His boss, a fellow war-veteran, tells him to take a few months off work, have a holiday, go somewhere warm, and get his head together.
Jimmy decides to take a coastal steamer to the northernmost outpost of Australia, Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, to visit the grave of his oldest friend, Sandy, killed during the Japanese bombing of the city in 1942. Upon arriving, he discovers that Sandy’s death is not as simple as military records seemed to indicate. After learning that Sandy’s grave contains only an arm with no distinguishing features, he starts asking questions around town in order to find out what really happened to his mate.
The more he asks, the more he discovers that Darwin is less about post-war reconstruction and more about drugs, gambling, and the excessive consumption of alcohol. It’s a lawless city where 95% of the population is male and prostitution is banned, creating a thriving underworld where rough frontier-town blokes and men from the armed forces are doing more with each other than having a beer and passing the time of day.
While digging deeper, Jimmy discovers a terrible truth, arousing the interest of men who would do anything to keep the past a secret—men who consider his life of little value. Jimmy is forced to rely on quick thinking and his army training when death comes looking for him in the dead of night.
Pomfret and his oafish mate hadn’t scared me one bit. The owner of the car looked like he’d break at the first punch and his friend, Manlay? I’d seen the type: built big, but most of it fat, not muscle. He was the sort of bloke who used his fists only when in an extreme rage—the rest of the time it would be weapons. Guns, knives, anything that he thought would give him an advantage. I’d been trained in jungle warfare and had gone on to fight for nearly five years—even if both of them had come at me at once, there was no way I couldn’t have looked after myself.
It had been the sly way Pomfret had asked me for my address that had alarmed me. I had no idea why they’d become so defensive under a veneer of politeness, but I didn’t like it one bit. There’d been one quick glance, the merest fraction of a second between the men, as Pomfret had passed Sandy’s photo to his bodyguard. It was as obvious as dog’s balls that they’d recognised him but had pretended not to.
Drugs? Gambling? Sandy liked hashish, usually before a long, sensuous root somewhere we wouldn’t be disturbed. He had a flutter every weekend on the nags, but he wasn’t a gambler, too careful with his pennies. I couldn’t believe my mate had been mixed up in anything crooked, so it left one option: somehow Sandy knew something about Pomfret’s “business dealings” and when he’d been killed in the raids, Pomfret had felt his secret was safe. He didn’t want some city bloke asking too many questions in case he discovered something he wasn’t meant to.
I stopped in the pandanus palms to light a cigarette, not far from Barry’s shack, and it was just as well. Between the stick-like stems and leaves of the undergrowth, I saw him sitting naked—except for his boots—on his front step taking care of things. I smiled and was about to turn and go back to the road so he could finish his business when he called out.
“I see you there, Jimmy. Come on, don’t be shy.”
I laughed and made my way to the edge of the clearing in time to see him grit his teeth, throw his head back, and let loose a long ropy string of semen that splattered over his thigh.
“Ah, that feels better,” he said, flinging a gobbet of spunk from his fingers with a quick flick of his hand.
“Jesus, Barry. You say Sandy managed that fucking monster?”
It was as Gordon had said, a two-hander.
“You’re welcome for a test drive any time you like.”
Normally I’d be on it like a shot, grunting my way to paradise. “As tempted as I am, thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass this time around.”
“My, my, you have got it bad,” he said, wiping his thigh with his singlet, which had been on the step next to him. He threw it over his shoulder into his cabin. “Beer?”
“Thanks, that’d be nice.”
As I followed him inside, he reached behind and squeezed my dick. “Made you hard, even though you declined my offer.”
“Watching always makes me hard,” I said, which was true.
“So, to what do I owe the honour?” he asked, as he uncorked a bottle of his frothy firewater—I’d had a headache for most of the rest of the day after the last time I’d been here drinking his grog.
“I need a gun.”
“What for?”
“Protection.”
After a thirty year career as a professional opera singer, performing as a soloist in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, I took up a position as lecturer in music in Australia in 1999, at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, which is now part of CQUniversity.
Brought up in Australia, between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, I retired in 2015 and now live in the tropics, writing, gardening, and finally finding time to enjoy life and to re-establish a connection with who I am after a very busy career on the stage and as an academic.
I write mostly historical gay fiction. The stories are always about relationships and the inner workings of men; sometimes my fellas get down to the nitty-gritty, sometimes it’s up to you, the reader, to fill in the blanks.
Every book is story driven; spies, detectives, murders, epic dramas, there’s something for everyone. I also love to write about my country and the things that make us Aussies and our history different from the rest of the world.
I’m research driven. I always try to do my best to give the reader a sense of what life was like for my main characters in the world they live in.
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