“It’s a total pop-culture fantasy. But because hitmen have been a staple of books, movies and TV for the last 50 years, good luck getting anyone to believe their existence is all a myth.”

In truth, Gary’s part-time work for the New Orleans Police Department as an undercover hitman in murder-for-hire cases couldn’t be further from the truth of who he is. You see, the real Gary is a college psych and philosophy professor. He likes birding and electronics. He lives alone with two cats.

But when he enters the field, he plays an entirely different role. For one meeting, Gary adopts a Russian accent and wig. For another, he takes on the role of a skeet-shooting redneck. Each character he plays is a disguise donned to cater to the fantasy of what those looking for hitmen believe such a man looks like. And when the target confesses to wanting someone murdered and hands over the cash for payment, that’s when the police swoop in with enough evidence to put the person in jail.

At least, that’s how it usually works.

But that was before Gary (or, this time, the suave Rob) sat down with Madison. She’d contacted him in the hope that he might eliminate her abusive and controlling husband. And “Rob” senses that she’s not a killer at heart. So instead, he tells her to take her money and use it to start a new life—and if she needs someone to talk to, she can text him.

Well, Madison does walk away. And she does text him. Madison and “Rob” hit it off. And soon, Gary finds himself pretending to be Rob the hitman more often than he’s Gary.

And soon, all that faking just may come back to bite him.

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Those states of being aren’t, frankly, things that we often dwell on.

I mean, sure, everyone is aware of the fact that we’ll all die someday. But it’s the someday part of the equation that helps us focus on other things. And that’s particularly true for Miami detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett.

These two cops have been partners and putting their lives on the line for decades now. And focusing on the fact that they may get hit with a stray bullet or a speeding vehicle at any moment will only make them hesitate, potentially at the wrong time.

But both of these guys are still thinking pretty hard about life and death these days.

Mike just got married, for instance. And having a loved one he could lose or leave behind if he makes the wrong choice has left him unsure of himself. He’s even had stressful moments lately that amount to a panic attack in the heat of gunfire.

Marcus, on the other hand, is thinking about life and death from a totally different perspective. While celebrating at Mike’s wedding, Marcus had a heart attack and died. He was literally dead and gone for a while there.

And in that space of time—while the paramedics were shocking him with a defibrillator and hustling his body to the hospital—Marcus saw visions. He saw his life (and past lives) flash before his eyes, and he met with Capt. Howard, a beloved officer who was recently murdered. 

Marcus came back from that experience with a new zeal for life. Not only did the good captain encourage Marcus to relish the family and loved ones he has, but he assured him that he couldn’t be killed. It wasn’t yet his “time.”

So while Mike is becoming overly cautious, Marcus is ready to charge into gunfire with no fear at all. As you might expect, that isn’t a good balance for cops facing danger. And the fact is, Marcus and Mike need all the balance they can get right now.

You see, someone is setting up the deceased Capt. Howard as a corrupt cop. There’s incriminating evidence spilling out and Mexican drug cartel money in the mix. The bad boy cops are the captain’s only defenders. And before you can sing, “Whatcha gonna do?” Mike and Marcus are being stitched into the frame up, too.

The FBI is after them. Their own police force has them on its radar. And there’s a gangland bounty on their heads. Who’s behind all this? And why is it happening now? 

Mike and Marcus haven’t got a clue, but they’ve got to lay low, dig in and find out what they can.

After all, this has now become a matter of life and death.

The post Bad Boys: Ride or Die appeared first on Plugged In.

It’s a bad night on Devil’s Night.

Crime-ravaged Detroit is already a tough beat for law enforcement. But on the night before Halloween, police officers and firefighters have their jobs cut out for them.

Every year, the city is engulfed in countless fires as arsonists take to the streets in grim celebration, all led by the elusive crime boss Top Dollar. Now, Top Dollar sets his sights on a string of apartment complexes he’d like to burn. So he orders the residents to clear the building.

But he doesn’t account for Shelly, a resident who protests the eviction. So Top Dollar sends some goons to take care of her. And as they beat and rape her, her fiancé, Eric, walks in. Soon, both Shelly and Eric are murdered. Devil’s Night rages on.

But exactly one year later, Eric bursts from his grave. He stumbles back to his apartment, and all those horrible memories come rushing back to him. And as he cuts his hand on the broken glass on the window those criminals pushed him through, he finds that his hands heal immediately.

Eric recognizes that he’s been brought back from the dead for revenge: to right the wrongs that were perpetrated upon Shelly and him.

And this year’s Devil’s Night won’t see the sun before he does just that.

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They all know where the blue missives are coming from. It has to be the foulmouthed, heavy-drinking Irish woman who lives in the rowhouse next door. Rose is her name. She’s a single mother of a young girl, God save her. And she has a live-in boyfriend named Bill. Even for forward-thinking folks in the 1920s, this woman amounts to trouble with a capital T.

Truth is, Edith originally befriended Rose. They would walk together on the beach near Littlehampton and laugh over the things of life. Rose’s raw sexual language would make Edith blush—much the same as Rose’s wall-thumping late-night sex did—but Edith soldiered on in the hope of bringing the younger woman to God.

Then the letters began to arrive. The sheltered and middle-aged Edith had never read or heard such crude things before. They were filled with ugly sexual comments about Edith’s bodily orifices and her secret depraved behaviors. But she’s never had sexual relations in her entire life!

“There’s only one judge, and we are all judged equally,” Edith piously declares when Rose’s name comes up. She doesn’t want to make a big deal about the foul letters. But her father rages about them. And then when her mother says that she could be an example to others for her virtue and sacrifice, Edith finally decides to go make a statement to the police.

Of course, as mentioned, Rose is Irish. And she has a questionable lifestyle and a mysteriously missing husband. So the community eagerly believes Edith, and Rose is summarily locked up. The local paper even writes a glowing article about Edith and the abuse she has suffered.

It’s right about at that point, though, that a local policewoman named Gladys Moss begins to wonder if they got the right person. Gladys is told by her supervisor to keep her trainee nose out of it, but the evidence doesn’t all fit.

Gladys’ deceased father was a constable himself.  And he always lifted up the law, always stood for truth and justice.

And Gladys, young and inexperienced as she is, can do no less.

The post Wicked Little Letters appeared first on Plugged In.

And honestly, Lou needed a little “fine” in her life.

She grew up in what could (only charitably) be described as a dysfunctional home, under the thumb of her gun-running, insect-loving dad, Lou Sr. But while she’s tried to put a little distance between she and her pops, it’s hard to do in this 1980s New Mexico backwater town where they both live. She pays the rent by managing a rundown gym—turning on the lights, checking cards, cleaning out the clogged toilets with her bare hands.

But then she walked in—dark, tall and built like a brick house. Jackie. From Oklahoma, making her way slowly across the West to compete in a Vegas bodybuilding competition. And, whaddya know, Jackie liked girls—just like Lou.

They hit it off right away. Before you could say biceps curl, Jackie was shacking up in Lou’s apartment, doing pull-ups and push-ups and posing in front of the mirror. Lou was able to take Jackie’s bodybuilding to the next level, too: Hard work is fine, after all, but steroids help that hard work pay off all the more.

Yep, everything was going fine. Better than fine, really. For once in her life, Lou felt just a bit of hope, like sunlight on her skin. She could imagine—perhaps even look forward to—a better future.

But then Jackie killed a guy. And that’s not fine at all.

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But most importantly, never forget to show proper respect to Michael’s father, Vito Corleone, “Don” of the Corleone family and “Godfather” to all who offer him friendship.

Of course, not everyone seems to have gotten this memo.

Although the five Italian mob families that run New York’s crime syndicate generally avoid going to the mattresses, Sollozzo, aka “The Turk,” starts an all-out war after Vito turns down his offer to add drug-dealing to the Corleone family’s business ventures.

Sollozzo had hoped that Sonny, Vito’s eldest son who showed interest in Sollozzo’s plan, would take over the family in the event of Vito’s death. What he hadn’t counted on was Vito surviving the assassination attempt and Sonny seeking vengeance.

But Sollozzo won’t give up hope just yet. He has the backing of the Tattaglia crime family, after all. And he’s pretty sure that he can reason with Vito and Sonny by appealing to Michael, who’s been kept out of the stickier elements of his family’s dealings and who generally avoids violence after seeing his fair share of it in the war.

Unfortunately for Sollozzo, Michael also learned this lesson: Never takes sides with anyone against the family.

The post The Godfather appeared first on Plugged In.

That, however, is exactly what the court is accusing Daniel’s mother of being: A heartless, cold-blooded murderer. The evidence? Well, there isn’t much. But there definitely was a fall. A fall that left Daniel’s dad, Samuel, quite dead.

It all took place on a typically ice-and-snow-covered day in the family’s isolated French mountainside chalet. Sandra, who happens to be a successful writer, was being interviewed by a young female writing student. Meanwhile her visually impaired son, Daniel, was upstairs giving his service dog a much-needed wash.

The two downstairs were talking jauntily. Smiling. Casual.

The boy and his dog, upstairs, were splashing and making a small mess.

Then the music started. Very loud music. Up in the attic of the house, Sandra’s husband, Samuel, had obviously begun his renovation work for the day. If you listened from below, you might hear an occasional thump of a hammer nailing in insulation. But only if you listened very, very carefully. For the obnoxiously blaring steel-drum music quite literally drowned out any and every sound in the whole house.  

It drowned out every thought.

So, Sandra’s interview soon succumbed to the inevitable. And the two women smilingly put things off for another day. The interviewer drove away.

Soon after, Daniel and his newly cleaned dog set off for a walk in the snow; something that Daniel sometimes did when things got unbearably loud at home.

They walked. Daniel threw a rock or two. The air was crisp. The sun was bright. And when he finally got back near the house, he could hear the incredibly loud music still playing, just as it was when he left. But there was one difference. Now, the attic window stood open. And his father was on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

And the music roared.

And Daniel screamed.

Eventually Sandra ran to the bedroom window to see her son, and husband, below. When she called emergency services, while hugging Daniel in the snow, the music still bellowed from the attic above.

But was this murder or suicide? And was there really a monster in the mix?

The post Anatomy of a Fall appeared first on Plugged In.

Cyrus doesn’t like the term “art thief.”

He prefers phrases like “borrow” and “lift” to describe how he and his band of misfits take the art from others, all to artificially boost the price of each piece.

“Leonardo da Vinci sold The Mona Lisa for $25,000, and nobody [cared] for 400 years until someone stole it,” Cyrus explains. “That smile is now worth $860 million because there’s a crazy story behind it.”

But they got caught after their last heist, and Interpol can send them to prison for a very long time. Interpol agent Abby is more than excited, since she’s been looking to bust the group for a very long time.

But then, Interpol offers the art thieves a deal. It involves Lars Jorgensen, a wealthy man who’s profited by funding terrorist groups and shorting the stocks that drop as a result of said attacks. Recently, Interpol has learned Lars has been in talks with a terrorist group called Leviathan, a hacker group who specializes in flooding cities.

All Interpol knows is that Leviathan only deals in gold. And Lars is transporting half a billion in the stuff from London to Zürich in order to pay them. And while Interpol can’t intervene (since moving your own gold around is perfectly legal), the agency can hire a team of thieves to steal it for them to sabotage the impending deal.

Abby tells Cyrus that if his team succeeds in the difficult mission, they’ll be granted pardon for all of the felonies they’ve committed over the years. And if they choose not to help Interpol, then they’re more than welcome to spend the rest of their days in a jail cell.

To little surprise, they all agree to help.

But the plan will need to be perfect. Because if they’re caught or otherwise fail … well, Lars Jorgensen isn’t the kind of guy who will just let bygones be bygones.

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Helena heard this question from her father 20 years ago. They were stalking a deer—and hopefully their supper that night. The 10-year-old Helena scanned the terrain and knew the buck wouldn’t have chosen the marshy meadow sprawling in front of her. No, he would’ve done deeper into the woods, hoping to hide.

For as long as Helena could remember, she’d hunted with her father. He’d ask her questions all the time (Is the blood warm or cold? Is the animal walking or running?), teaching her with each one how to hunt a little better, kill a little easier. For Helena, it was heaven: Just her and her father, Jacob, surrounded by green and blue, water and dirt. And, if they were lucky, dinner.

Helena’s mother didn’t understand the beauty and power of nature. She couldn’t. Jacob said she never had much imagination, and Helena believed it. Oh, Mother was OK sometimes. But she was nothing like Father. He was her hero, her guardian, her best friend. Jacob called her “Little Shadow.”

And then her mother had to ruin it all.

Mother’s perspective of that “idyllic” life? Far different than Helena’s—and far from idyllic. A dozen years ago, Jacob kidnapped the woman and kept her a prisoner. Helena was the product of the habitual rape she suffered. But she loved the girl. And when the opportunity came to escape—thanks to a doomed, lost adventurer and his ATV—she wasn’t going to leave Helena behind.

It’s been 20 years since her mom pulled her from the marshlands and into the civilized world. Her mother committed suicide years ago. Her father’s in prison—and should be for the rest of his life.

And Helena? She’s tried to move on. She has a job. A husband. And most importantly, a little girl of her own. No one knows who her father is; no one knows about her 10 years in the marsh.

Until, that is, Jacob escapes—killing two guards along the way.

Helena doesn’t think that her father knows where she is. How could he? But she feels him. She senses that he’s close. And even though she knows, rationally, that her dad was a bad, bad man, she still remembers those days in the woods, when it was just the two of them.

But she has her own life now. Her own family. She thinks of her own daughter, Marigold. And she worries.

If you were afraid—running for your life—where would you go?

She hopes it won’t come to that. But her father also taught her to be prepared … always.

The post The Marsh King’s Daughter appeared first on Plugged In.

Tom’s a struggling fisherman—and not only in the financial realm. He’s grappling with the emptiness he feels in his life, too. Meanwhile, the scatterbrained Charlie, pressured into Boston University’s law school by his father, isn’t so sure his life is going the way he wants, either.

That’s why Charlie’s approached his stepbrother, Tom, hoping that maybe the fisherman has room for one more crew member on his boat. He hopes that somehow, the ocean will offer up more than sea creatures for his future.

Turns out, Charlie loves fishing, and he goes back again and again. And the two of them start thinking that maybe life on the open ocean isn’t so bad.

That’s until they get caught by the Canadian Coast Guard fishing in Canadian waters—a crime for any United States fisherman. The boat’s impounded until they pay a $100,000 fine. And to make matters worse, the boat they were using was Ray’s, Tom’s father, who is dying of cancer. It’s Ray’s pride and joy, and Tom can’t handle thinking that losing his father’s boat is how he’ll say goodbye.

But how can the two possibly come up with $100,000 to pay the fine?

Charlie has an idea. He reaches out to his girlfriend, Mabel, asking if she could set Tom’s crew up with a job: a one-time gig that’ll get them the full amount of money in mere days. No, it’s not transporting fish. It’s transporting heroin.

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