Author’s Proof
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Copyright 2025 James LaFond
A Crackpot Book
Lynn Lockhart Publisher
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Dust Cover
Beneath the lengthening shadows of the Superstition Mountains, within the dollar-gabled doors of The Hitching Post Saloon, under the Eye All-seeing, J. R. sipped his whiskey, from an over-poured, over-priced commemorative shot glass. There they gathered, his cryptological quarry, to express their godless need, he, their remorseless hunter, among them. And so he sipped, in the Year of Redemption 2025, on Good Friday, April 18, staggering towards inception in search of that which should not be by common men found. So, in she walked, her silence a breeze in a lonely night, the smile of the angel he sought upon her liquid lips. And America’s boldest seeker into darkness was caught…
Extended Dust Cover
While embracing respite above Phoenix, Arizona, on a retiring mesa clear, at the foot of the mountains crowned weird, America’s foremost, and therefore least known, Cryptozoologist, Jon R. Imbolden, known to his rare peers as J.R., encounters the sum of all his kilter-tilting desires, and soon stumbles into the clutches of those whose season do not by normal wise expire.
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Inspirational Quote
Looking up at the “Suppers” or Superstition Mountains, between boxing rounds under a wind-wracked tree, whose resident Chinese doves scolded we below, “They’re not from here [motioning to earth] and they rest uneasily up there. When I hike those mountains, I talk to them, to keep them from rising. They might have once been men. But I think it is more likely that they are the children of he who was cursed to lose his legs—probably four of them—and to slither upon his belly.”
-Banjo, 4/17/25, Mesa, Arizona
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Dedication
To Curator Rex, my host in Mesa, who towers in brain and brawn, above this guesting squib spawn.
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Setting
Mesa, Arizona is windswept and sun-seared, home to a dozen forms of cacti, strange evergreen trees offering dubious shade, roses, drab rocks, sand, colored rocks, bright sands, and festooned with low houses and high palms that are of the obvious intruders to this dour land. The men are diligent and wind-bitten, the children happy and rosy-cheeked, and the women too cute by half. The land seems to whisper that the men who built upon it lied about its virginity and that their darling half now serve some shuddersome force as spies. The man who halted here to rest for a day shy a week, cannot shake the sense that eyes unseen measure his form as the centerpiece of some dismal feast. The birds here call weird and shrill, indicting the men beneath them as if they once ruled in some other age. What can a mind do but wonder what wiles this way work against his brief purchase on the same rope swaying in mad time?
Blood Hate
Contents by Chapter & Protagonist
-1. Thirst Responder
Jon R. Imbolden
-2. Screen Team
Rodrigo & Billy
-3. Cryptologist Rex
Jon R. Imbolden
-4. Holy C!
Veronica Vegan Star
-5. Eighteenth Hole
Clyde Burl
-6. Dinner Bell Pose
Jon R. Imbolden
-7. Apache Land
Jon R. Imbolden
-8. Bisbi Bound
Ernie Rodriguez
-9. Enjoy, Baby
Jon R. Imbolden
-10. Orb of an Opal Moon
Canscape Dan
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Thirsty Work
A Saga Of Three Jests
Blood Hate, Book 1
Blood Bait, Book 2
Blood Fate, Book 3
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Exclaimer
These events occurred out of the time here implied.
The author was present at the dates of composition.
The guilty have not been positively identified.
The crimes illuminated will reoccur with drear repetition.
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Disclaimer
Blood Hate is a work of fiction, only in the manner of exposition. The acts documented in the following pages have been commonplace for all those ages during which man has shared creation with those most hateful angels.
-James LaFond, 4/18/25, Mesa, Arizona
