Janus a Bullet for Benji

Janus is an old school detective fighting modern day crime in San Francisco and the Bay Area and beyond. He is brash, witty and cunning. Is he dumb enough to enter the dark side? Of course he is. Fate takes a hand and pulls him into a murder case the takes him into the glitzy world of Hollywood and as far as he's concerned it is a fate worse than death.

It was just a liesurly stroll through Golden Gate Park on a beautiful San Francisco Sunday when fate takes hold of Janus. A man walking in front of him is murdered, shot with a high powered sniper rifle. Confusion follows when the victim's twin brother shows up and asks Janus to take on the job of finding out who killed his brother Benjamin, or "Benji". Unfortunately for Janus the investigation takes him to Hollywood or LaLa Land as he calls it. He is required to enter the dog eat dog world of show business and mingles with talent executives, actors and the hangers on who surround them. As the investigation proceeds other murders begin stacking up and Janus is hard pressed to find a connection for any of them. The murderer or murderers use strange teqniques to carry out their acts causing even more confusion. As the investigation proceeds Janus is mugged and clubbed and suffers two concussions. He returns to San Francisco in search of a mystery woman who was connected to Benji. He locates her and is directed to a small time gangster who has promised to put her in the movies...porno movies. Janus returns to Hollywood and in a strange twist Benji's killer knocks on Janus' hotel door in the middle of the night. Alden Rossi tases Janus and for whatever reason confesses to all the murders and explains in great detail why they were necessary. It is a bizarre confessional from Rossi and his demeanor and gentle explanations have Janus completely riveted to his explanations. Janus knows he will be Rossi's next victim unless he makes a move and at his first opportunity starts a hand to hand battle in the darkened hotel room. Rossi has a knife, Janus is without a weapon but they struggle and Janus decides a table lamp is his weapon of choice. As they battle Rossi's knive hand gets tangled up in the lamp and Janus is able to end the struggle by strangling Rossi with the lamp cord. The case is closed and Janus is happy to leave LaLa Land but feels the pain for all the saps trapped in the scramble of the Los Angeles basin.

J.D. Blair developed a 30-year career in journalism and television production as a Writer and Producer. He was nominated twice for Emmy Awards for writing and producing documentaries and in 1998 was a awarded a Chris Award at the Columbus Film and Video Festival and was recipient of a Telly Award in 1999 for writing and producing the statewide program "California Heartland". During this same period he was awarded a Knight Journalism Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley for media coverage of urban development. Since 2000 he's been writing one-act plays, short fiction, and essays. His work has appeared in several literary magazines including, Pearl, Writer's Journal, Carve Magazine, Third Wednesday, Fog City Review, Hear Us Roar, Calliope, The Common Line Journal and California Quarterly. His noir e-books, "Janus: Private Eyes" and "Janus: Death In Deep Waters" are available through Amazon, Apple iBooks and Barnes & Nobel. And e-book "Stories, Short, Sweet & Sour", a collection of short stories is also available.