Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Synopses for A65 and CK...

If anyone's willing to give me feedback on whether or not these work, I'd love it.
(I should note -- CK is done like I'm told some producers prefer, telling the full story; A65 is like I prefer to write my synopses.)
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CARLI'S KILLS
by
Kyle Michel Sullivan

Revenge can destroy the innocent as well as the guilty.

First comes the death of Anastasia and her married lover, set up to look like a murder-suicide. Then in a bar called Cantina Madriza, Carli picks up a damaged man named Grady, in a game of pool. She takes him home, drugs him, and shows him a video of him raping a young woman -- her daughter, Lara. Several other men were helping, and Carli is going to punish them all.

She leaves Grady staked to the ground in the middle of the desert to be eaten alive by ants and buzzards. When his body is found, there's not even enough left for fingerprints, but the county sheriff, Anson, suspects his death is connected to Anastasia's murder-suicide.

Now Carli focuses on the other men who raped Lara, a biker-gang led by Dax, who is also the local drug kingpin and owns Cantina Madriza. An ex-Marine named Zeke, who lost part of a leg in Afghanistan, tends bar there. In fact, all of Dax's men are damaged ex-military who were tossed aside by society. Carli snuck a bug into the bar when she played pool with Grady, and can now listen in on their conversations. She learns Anson is in league with Dax.

Dax and his boys make plans for the next day and leave, then Zeke closes the bar. He lives in a shack behind the building with his dog, Loki. He can't sleep so plays his guitar on the porch. Carli approaches him and they talk...and she realizes he was not one of the rapists. Interest grows between them.

The next day, Carli spies on a meeting between two of Dax's men and a college student who deals for them. Once the student is gone, Carli shoots both men, to disable them. But when she comes down to confront them, one is still able to fight her. She kills him then kills the other one the same way she killed Grady.

Afterwards, she cleans up, then calls her mother and asks her to use contacts to find out who the college student is. Finally, she watches a video of Lara sending her a Christmas greeting, indicating Carli has not been around much. Carli weeps.

She goes back to Cantina Madriza and talks with Zeke. He takes her to some rocks in the middle of the desert, a place where he loves to watch the sun come up, and they have an impromptu picnic. They learn a bit more about each other...and love begins to grow.

Later that day, Carli tracks down the college student, Chase, and learns Lara was set up to be raped as payment for a drug debt owed by Anastasia. Zeke was there and tried to stop it but was beaten back. Carli convinces Chase to work with her in sending Dax to jail.

En route back to the bar, Carli is confronted by Anson, who knows she is involved in the deaths but cannot prove it, yet. Afterwards, she goes to Zeke. He has a makeshift target range behind his shack, so she fires off a rifle to vent some anger. He reveals he knows she is Lara's mother, and he feels guilty about not stopping the rape.

They wind up in bed and Carli finally reveals she was a troubled teen who had Lara at an early age. Unprepared for motherhood, she left the girl with her own mother and joined the Army, finally becoming a sharpshooter in Afghanistan. She pretty much remained out of her daughter's life until the girl was raped by and driven to suicide after a video of it was posted on her college's website. Now her own guilt is gnawing at her.

Zeke reveals he's been disowned by his family and had nowhere else to go once he was done with rehab for his leg. Dax gave him a job and a place to stay...but he misses water and trees.

When the next two bodies are found, Dax thinks another gang has moved in on his territory so kills some of them. Anson is furious; that has brought in the State Police and FBI, and all hell is about to tear loose.

Carli and Zeke make plans to leave, but at work that night Zeke overhears Anson and Dax discussing Carli and realizes she killed three of his friends. Torn between protecting her and the horror of what she has done, he calls Carli and tells her to go away. But Anson and Dax overhear him and try to force him to tell them where she is hiding. He refuses and is brutalized.

But thanks to the bug under the pool table, Carli overheard it all and roars in to face them in a battle to the death...one neither she nor Zeke may survive.

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THE ALICE ‘65
by
Kyle Michel Sullivan

Books are ADAM VERLAIN’s life, so being an archivist of rare volumes for a London University is exactly right for him. But when they insist he go to Los Angeles to pick up an extremely valuable first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, he asks not to be sent because his father was killed while transporting another copy of the book up to Scotland, 15 years ago. But it is that or lose his job, so he agrees. Won’t even stay the night.

What he doesn’t expect is CASEY BLANCHARD, the top line movie star who inherited the book from her grandfather. She wants Adam to accompany her to a movie premier to show her ex-boyfriend, LANDO GRISSOM, this year’s butch action-movie hero, that she has moved on.

Problem is, Adam brought no clothes, so Casey's style guru – ORISI, a snarling boot-camp-drill-sergeant who never heard the word, “No,” -- has to slam him through an insane makeover (during which Adam winds up more than a little drunk) and into a five-thousand dollar suit. Then off they go, followed by a pair of paparazzi who will haunt their every move.

The premier is for the last movie Casey and Lando made together before breaking up, and they are quietly catty with each other about it but are doing well-enough...until the after-party at Lando’s Beverly Hills home. Their argument becomes vicious , so Adam comes between them...only to wind up ejected by Lando's bodyguards. Worried about Casey, he tries to sneak back in but almost drowns, ruins the suit, does his own verbal sparring with Lando, and nearly becomes dinner for a pet black panther named GERTRUDE. He also realizes why Casey wanted him with her – she knew that being seen with a guy who was such a bookish nerd, after having been on big, bad, beautiful Lando's arm, would be the perfect insult to the arrogant jerk.

By this point, all Adam wants is get the book and go home. But then he discovers that it has vanished...and that Gertrude has escaped and wants to be his girl...and that despite all the chaos and hurt and duplicity, he has fallen for Casey...even though he now suspects that her copy of the Alice '65 may be the same one that was stolen from his father...meaning her grandfather may have had a hand in his father's death.

Talk about tumbling down the rabbit hole...

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