Drama – OmegaBooks

Excerpts from The Murder Rule, Part One, Chapter One

I have completed my new novel, The Murder Rule, to be published by OmegaBooks likely in either September or October, 2023, and to be copyrighted by myself, Deborah Lagarde, and to be registered at the Library of Congress soon. The genres it will be registered under will be Adult Fiction, Drama, Suspense, Spiritual, and perhaps one other. Unless I change my mind and decide to sell it through an online platform (such as Amazon), The Murder Rule will be posted as a FREE PDF download at this site, as with The Prodigal Band, which has well over one thousand downloads since stats have been recorded starting in 2019.

During this month, August, 2023, I will be posting excerpts (© Deborah Lagarde) from Chapter One of each of the three parts to The Murder Rule. In subsequent months I might post excerpts from other chapters from Parts One, Two and Three. With the excerpts will come necessary details regarding these excerpts and how these excerpts play into the parts as a whole or stem from the three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy of which The Murder Rule is a “spin-off” novel. However, I will not post entire chapters–they can be read by downloading the entire FREE PDF of The Murder Rule, if one so chooses.

The first excerpt begins Chapter One and features Part One’s victim, rocker Denny Spradlin of the fictional band Wolfin, a ‘friend’ and ‘advisor’ that is visiting him, and the Part One narrator, pop-culture pundit Lloyd Denholm, who writes for X-Zine, a magazine edited by an editing team known as ‘Cal.Edit.’ All of the characters in this chapter (and most in Part One) are British, including the writer of the mentioned ‘hand-written letter.’

Continue reading “Excerpts from The Murder Rule, Part One, Chapter One”

The Prodigal Band Trilogy Original Deleted Scenes Series, Part Three

Welcome to another episode of the scenes and sections that were deleted from the original OmegaBooks self-published ‘Prodigal Band Trilogy’ novels.

The time frame of this deleted episode is December, 1990 as the band is banned from their UK homeland over ‘obscenities’ by the fictitious ‘Ministry of Culture’ on the orders of the powerful evil side that runs the music business there. The band Sound Unltd moved to the NYC area during the ban. Two of their women, Ger (girlfriend and future wife of singer Erik) and Jarris (wife of bassist Keith) are in the Hollywood area as they are featured in a ‘zany train chase’ movie.

This is referenced in Chapter Four of Battle of the Band within the trilogy book: ‘Meanwhile, Ger and Jarris co-starred in a comedy-action Hollywood flick.’

Above that line was a phone conversation between guitarist-band leader Jack and his woman, Laurie, a super-model, concerning her decision to return to England on a modeling assignment which led to Jack reading about her seeing other men at a fancy nightclub within the pages of a fictitious tabloid newspaper, Tattle Tales.

This deleted episode is from the original Chapter Four of Battle of the Band.

Continue reading “The Prodigal Band Trilogy Original Deleted Scenes Series, Part Three”

The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Keith, the Bassist

Next up is in The Prodigal Band Trilogy character snippets is Keith, the bassist. As told here, he had a steamy sexual relationship with a pop singer while he was also married to a super-model-cosmetics mogul, Jarris, a woman he began dating as a teen and a woman he vowed to protect from her abusive father. He is also described as a “skuz addicted womanizer” in Chapter Four of The Prophesied Band. Skuz is a fictional opioid-cocaine laced designer drug that is used by the band and various other wealthy rockers living in the world of ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll.’

His physical description? From Chapter One of Battle of the Band: ‘The dark, strapping bass player with bushy black curls and coal-dark eyes walked without his trademark gold chains.’ He is ‘dark’ because his grandmother is from Nigeria, on his mother’s side.

Continue reading “The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Keith, the Bassist”

Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Tragedy

Since this “snippet” series began with the genre category of Comedy, it is fitting that it ends with the category of Tragedy. Both are the hallmarks of theater that began in ancient Greece and are historically headlined by the immortal William Shakespeare.

When it comes to plays, NOBODY rivals Shakespeare! Tragedies IMHO are his magnum opus (especially MacBeth and Hamlet) but my favorite comedy character, theatrical or otherwise, is the ‘buffoon’ known as Falstaff, who appears in several of Shakespeare’s plays about various kings named Richard. Then there is Romeo and Juliet, which has inspired any number of spinoffs, one of my favorites being Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, where an Israeli special ops agent takes on his main rival, The Phantom, a Palestinian “terrorist” leader with Hezbollah ties. But Zohan gets tired of that job and wants to be a hair-dresser. So he secretly moves to the US (after failing to take down Phantom) and becomes a hair-dresser. At a salon owned by Palestinian Dahlia, who turns out to be sister to the Phantom! They fall in love and marry–the Israeli-Palestinian “Romeo and Juliet”!

The greatest tragedy? When Hamlet ponders his existence using the immortal line, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” And then the rest of the soliloquy.

Continue reading “Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Tragedy”

Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Romance

I have read few Romance novels, and I have seen few Romance movies that I have any affection for (but Romance Adventure movies like High Road to China, Jewel of the Nile, and Romancing the Stone are outstanding, IMHO). But one thing I know about the Romance genre–all Romance-themed novels or movies have this in common: sexual tension. It is not tension during the act of sex, but tension between the sexes involved with the romance relationship.

For instance: in High Road to China–one of my fave movies ever–the Bess Armstrong character and the Tom Selleck character (named O’Malley), in between hugging and kissing and bedding with each other, are constantly arguing, yelling at each other, her screaming, “O’Malley!” every few seconds or so, and O’Malley all pissed off because she demanded to fly her own plane and later crashed his plane named Dorothy in Nepal, as they headed to China to find her father, who was being screwed out of millions by his crooked business partner. In the end, of course, they decide to build a good relationship upon leaving western China where her dad is leading a rebellion against some overlord in the 1920s. All novels, Romance genre or not, that build some sexual tension, always have that tension relieved at the end, when love abounds.

And there is plenty of sexual tension in The Prodigal Band Trilogy. I have already discussed this marriage tension between the bassist Keith and his wife Jarris, in the Drama snippet.. In fact there is sexual tension between each band member and his woman throughout the three-books-in-one trilogy that get resolved at some point.

But the key “romance-sexual tension” partnership within the band and their women is between keyboard-synthist Bryan and his wife, Mo, who marry early and then things begin to go awry as they bring forth children. Prior to having kids, the relationship is as good as it could be; having children become the linchpin for what develops into a rocky relationship, as I will describe below in three snippets.

Continue reading “Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Romance”

Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Horror

I grew up immersed in the Horror genre, movies mostly, but also some comic books. When I was a pre-teen and teenager, some local TV station had aSaturday night movie series called “ChillerTheater.” Today that has morphed into the DirecTV and DishTV channel “The Chiller Channel” or whatever it’s called now. It was on this show series I saw “Godzilla,” “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” “The Crawling Eye,” and various Japanese and other monster movies, various zombie/ghoul/vampire/Frankenstein-type monsters and serial murder movies many of which starred my fave actor at the time, Vincent Price. Basically, if Vincent Price was in the movie, I watched it.

In my twenties, I started reading horror genre fiction but I thought horror movies were more exciting. There was one book–I have no idea what the title was but it’s one of the few I actually finished reading–about some vampire-like rock band that recruits roadies or fans or whatever and then turns them into vampires, but one small group of fans turns against the band. Eventually, the vampire band gets “burned” if you know what I mean. But I did not buy the book because it had vampires, but because it had vampires who were rock stars!

And around this time, Ozzie Osbourne was making it huge…And. Oh yeah, AC-DC, “Highway to Hell” and all that…

One of the reasons I began writing the books that make up the trilogy was the notion, which has some merit but which can also be debunked, that rock stars are all “devil worshipers” and rock music is “the devil’s music” which quite a few Christians still believe is true. Many supposedly Christian YouTube channels try to verify this over and over and over while mentioning a few, such as the guitarist for MegaDeath–I forgot his name–are avowed believers in Christ (as is rapper DMX). My point is not to prove rockers are not devil worshipers; some clearly are (such as Marilyn Manson). My point is wanting folks to get over the notion that listening to rock music is going to turn one against Christ or for Satan. As if listening to country music and someone like Miley Cyrus is going to turn one to Christ!

But anyway…

To contrast the band called Sound Unltd’s beginning and rise to fame and fortune with their inability to handle it wisely later, and then the coming trials and tribulations they face, I thought it would be a good idea to bring in the most debauched period of their ‘supremacy’ in rock music. This is where the horror comes in. There are no monsters or vampires or zombies or mass murders, but it still has horror themes including ‘rituals of the craft’ if you know what I mean.

Continue reading “Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Horror”

Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Drama

Throughout the three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy, drama is everywhere, between the six band members, between their women, and especially between a band member and his woman–with double the drama when the two are a married couple. The snippets in this post concern bass player Keith and his wife, Jarris, whom had married prior to Keith rejoining the band Sound Unltd on the cusp of their huge success.

Continue reading “Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Drama”