Paul Stonemore has a lovely baby girl. As she develops teeth, she begins to bite. She begins to kill small animals. When she switches her attention to people, Paul finds himself becoming first embarrassed, then horrified, as it emerges that Marie has become an efficient killer. A job offer from MI6 leads to Paul and Marie’s flight from Istanbul and across Europe as they search for a place of safety and profit.
Read an excerpt here.
Novel: approx 200 pages
Out now on Amazon Kindle.
Posted November 11, 2013 Posted by Adam in Uncategorized
I’m thinking of producing a classification of Australian Lizards based on their bites…
Shingleback, Sleepy Lizard (Tiliqua rugosa) – huge mouth but surprisingly painless, lets go immediately
Common Bluetongue (Tiliqua scincoides) – Big mouth, more painful than Sleepy, hangs on longer.
Eastern Water Dragon (Physignathus lesueuri) – real pain here, it clamps on like a jagged nutcracker and adjusts its grip occasionally, mashing a finger fairly convincingly. These could swim to the bottom of a swimming pool and stay there for three hours.
Central Bearded Dragon (Pogona vitticeps) – a bit of a sweetie, this one. I think these only bit me when they were eager for whatever food I was giving them.
Common Bearded Dragon (Pogona barbata) – more likely to bite and bite harder than the central beardies. Still not too bad.
Golden Water Skink (Eulamprus quoyii) – A beast. A small skink, looks fairly harmless until it latches onto your hand and doesn’t let go. A black fingernail at the very least. Several species of striped skink also bit me but I could never work out an identification to species level. They were innocuous compared to the Golden Water Skink.
Cunningham’s Skink (Egernia cunninghami) – Painful. Another one that grabs and doesn’t let go except to adjust its grip when it senses that you’ve lost a bit of attention.
Frilled Lizard (Chalamydosaurus kingii) – Afer all that energy expended on the threat display, the frilled lizard desn’t seem to have much left for the bite. A quick nip at most. Can draw blood but its heart’s not in it.
Long-nosed water dragon (Physignathus longirostris) – An amazing beast. We called them bicycle lizards as they ran on two legs. I don’t know whether they can do the basilisk trick on water. Sharp, painful bite that they inflicted quickly, then tried to run away.
Stoke’s (Gidgee) Skink (Egernia stokesii) – similar in appearance to the Cunningham’s Skink but nowhere near as virulent in the bite department. Gidgees didn’t seem to have that killer instinct of hanging on and on.
Gould’s (Sand) Goanna (Varanus gouldii) – Surprisingly non-injurious considering the size of the beast. Draws blood but then calls it quits. My brother was bitten by a Perentie (Varanus giganteus), which pierced an artery and sent spurts of blood the length of an EK Holden. He needed several stitches.
Pygmy Ridgetailed Monitor (Varanus acanthurus brachyurus) – needs a very good excuse to bite someone. It’s small and inoffensive. I think bites were mistakes, when I had been preparing mince mixed with egg and the poor thing couldn’t tell the difference between my hand and its food.
