Author:
Corey McCullough is an independent copy editor, proofreader, ghostwriter, and author. He lives in western Pennsylvania with his amazing wife Vanessa and their two beautiful daughters. His favorite pastimes are reading, writing, playing video games, spending time with his best friend (Vanessa), and, most of all, being a dad.

Night lasts for days on the planet Jannix, and when the sun goes down over a city brimming with corruption and organized crime, no one can be certain they will see another dawn. Retired police detective Jack Tarelli has turned to the bottle to cope with these long nights ever since the unsolved murder of his wife, but when he's called to the home of an enigmatic starship tycoon just hours after a high-profile homicide, he knows his longest night yet has just begun.

Led on a chase deep into the shadows of a city that never wakes, the hard-nosed and uncompromising Jack finds himself on the trail of a killer whose true motives shrouded. Was it revenge for an interplanetary business deal gone wrong? Or something more personal?

As connections to Jack's own bloody past rise to the surface, it becomes clear that this is more than a search for answers. It's a race against time. And the body count is going to rise long before the sun.

A Knife in the Dark is a gritty tech noir story combining elements of "used future" science fiction and film noir in a fast-paced, futuristic thriller.

A Knife in the Dark

Consciousness fades back in as I'm in mid-sip of a drink of water. I'm sitting up against the wall, my hands still cuffed behind my back, and Yvonne is helping me drink.


"It's all right," she lies. "Maybe I shouldn't have left you alone like that."


I take a great gulp of the water. My head is pounding, and my throat is very dry.


"I'm not really sure what came over me," I say. "I've had some bad nights, some close calls, especially right after I lost Maria. But I've never... I've never let it get that bad before. I thought I was tougher than that."


"It has nothing to do with tough," she says. "It has to do with triggers."


Chapter 33: Promises