Rise of the Basilisk- (Basilisk Files Book #1) - Published January 15th, 2024

Trapped in a prison unknown to most Americans, James Whitmore - a man most people have forgotten ever existed - has spent the last five years in solitary confinement, condemned by a government that convicted him without trial. And now that same government has come begging for his help.

Agent Murphy is an intelligent, ambitious young woman newly promoted to the rank of Special Agent in the mysterious government agency known only as Management. While navigating complex politics and competing agendas she must convince James to help the people who have forgotten about him, not to mention the government that imprisoned him without due process.

After a year of studying him and his past, Agent Murphy is convinced that within James lies the key to the dilemma she was tasked to solve: assassinating foreign leaders while leaving no trace evidence tying the act to the US. After all it was James' inexplicable ability to kill that got him locked up in the first place. She is so convinced, in fact, that she's staked her career on it, maybe even her very own freedom. Because she believes she did what so many others could not: she discovered how James managed to kill both his parents as well as a handful of others.

Though she can't explain it, her investigation has led to the conclusion that James has the ability to kill by sight. The power of the mythical Basilisk in human form.

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The Turning Night - Published: October 31st, 2022

Vince Passero is a small-town detective who gets a call late one winter's evening to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Arriving at the girl's house he finds the scene of a nightmare, signs of a break-in, a struggle and blood. Lots of blood. But no girl. The investigation leads him to uncover an evil hiding in his town and the discovery reveals a nightmare he could never have believed existed. This struggle brings him to question everything he holds dear as he's faced with an unbearable choice in his own Turning Night.

The Turning Night is an Honorable Mention recipient in the 2019 Writers of the Future contest and the first published work of Charlie Clayton.

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Untitled Basilisk #2 - (Basilisk Files Book #2)

Overworked and exhausted from a series of assassination missions ordered by Management, James, Murphy and Tack are given a few weeks rest. Murphy soon discovers that this vacation was ordered, not for the team to recover, but to pull James back into the country to keep him under surveillance.

Adele Marcus is kidnapped and in spite of their best efforts Management is unable to determine her whereabouts. As his former orphanage manager and the only person who believed he wasn't what people portrayed him to be, Adele is of utmost emotional importance to James. It is clear someone is making a play to get to James and using Adele as leverage, but who?

When bodies begin to pile up, with no evidence as to cause of death, but plenty of motive, James becomes the prime suspect. Unsure if she can trust him and afraid of how he will take the news, Murphy hides the truth from James. Will Management allow Murphy the time necessary to uncover the identity of the kidnappers? Will she find out if James really has added to his tally of murders he's committed now that he's been freed?

And most important of all, will Management, convinced that James is an asset too valuable to lose to a rival power, simply decide to pull the plug on their operation, and have him killed?

And if so, where would that leave Murphy and Tack?

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The Judicator

The Judicator walks ever onward tracking the steps of his quarry, The Man of Shadows. Having forsaken the others of his kind he is bound by his blood oath to track down The Man of Shadows and bring him to justice. Ever onward he trods. One step after another. As it had always been with his kind.

As it ever would be.

The Judicator's path takes him to the village of Quay, a dark and desolate place even before the corrupting touch of the Man of Shadows. The people of Quay are starving, their town and society is crumbling around them, and within their midst is one who is literally eating away at their very future.

Everywhere he goes the Judicator is hated and feared. His cabalistic power inspires mistrust and loathing in all. Right up until those very people who despise him and call him Blood Demon come to need him. And the people of Quay need him.

Even if they don't know it yet.

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A Blood Stained White Collar

Calder Halloway is a man who gets even with people for a living. Not for the petty sort of squabbles of everyday life. There's not enough money in that. Instead he works for the unlikeliest of clients: Bank CEOs.

That's right. He's in Bank Collections.

Calder and his team of misfits work contracts for banks against people who steal their money. Recently returned from a job in the Ukraine, he's given a contract that takes him to a college dorm, and an abandoned research facility posing as a warehouse. But instead of finding the hackers who stole the bank's money, he stumbles into a nightmare.

Calder is a man who wears many faces, doing a job he couldn't tell his mother about. It's not a glamorous life, but someone's got to do it. Where can you find him?

Craigslist.

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Darkened Doorways

Razat Yung is the scourge of humanity. Invincible and committed to the genocide of the entire Jalantri race, he has cornered the few remaining survivors of that once noble people and stands on the threshold of their extinction.

When the city falls, Razat Yung relishes his victory. But his victory is short-lived when he discovers that by killing the last of the Jalantri, he's given birth to something he could have never imagined.

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Untitled Urban Fantasy

Samael is a man of many names, a man that doesn't exist. His boss Pep Marzaletti has established an organized crime monopoly across most of New York City by taking advantage of Samael's services as a high-end contract killer.

Late one Halloween night, while on a job for Marzaletti, Samael discovers a little Chinese girl trapped in a cage in a warehouse by the docks of Hell's Kitchen. While trying to get her to safety, Samael uncovers a world he didn't know existed, and that this particular little girl, might be more than he first suspects.

But when Marzaletti decides to end their arrangement by setting up Samael's death, the mob boss discovers that it's not wise to double cross a man with nothing to lose, no attachments and no identity.

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A Job of Three Parts

After discovering an exploit weakness in the software of the Mech-10 soldier droids developed by her company and then developing the fix to close the exploit, saving her company billions in losses, Maria Jimenez loses her job. In the middle of a divorce and a bitter custody dispute over her daughter, she's at the lowest she's ever been in her life.

Or so she thinks.

She awakens in a small, concrete, bunker-like room with a slight headache. She's face-to-face with one of the mechs she used to work on, one that goes by the call-sign Hugo. She soon discovers that she's strapped to her chair, she's had an operation and her daughter has been kidnapped.

Hugo is the representative of her captor, Eli, a man she's never met. He offers her a job, a job of three parts. The problem is, the terms of her employment are not negotiable. To make matters worse, she only has eleven hours to get the job done.

Maria is unwillingly thrust into a chess match involving The Immortals, a group of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, and her only way to save herself and her daughter is to do everything Eli says no matter what.

Before her time runs out.

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The Gunslinger

This sketch quickly became one of my favorites and it was a real joy to make. But the best part of it, is seeing my daughters' faces when I show them the drawing I did for them.

Zombie Head

I am a HUGE fan of the board game Last Night On Earth and I often force my children to play with me. Luckily they go along with it - for now. The girls found this Zombie Head in one of the sketch books and asked me to give it a shot. Turned out pretty good.

The Gargoyle

This is one of my earliest drawings. In fact this was my second after taking about a twenty year sabbatical from sketching. I've always liked Gargoyles and I found this one in the first art book my girls bought me.