Brandon
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Hanwell loved to entertain and was very hospitable, often taking three or four of his students home to continue an informal tutorial, or to show them what musical project he was working on. Clarisse received us very coolly on one of the few occasions I accompanied him with some other friends and informed him that if he wanted a cup of tea or coffee, he knew where the kitchen and the kettle was. “Have you seen your Children today?” She asked curtly whilst still gazing out of the window. I could not take my eyes away from her as she stood framed slightly silhouetted against the afternoon light. What a perfect picture. What a well-toned figure with stepped thick dark hair just below ear length. Her simple fine white blouse and smooth petrol blue denim skirt accentuated every curve. She was British and still retained her perfect accent. She could have stepped from a pre-Raphaelite painting by Burne-Jones in spite of her more modern stylishness. Clarisse was not expecting guests but she wore black medium high heels and was perfectly groomed. She eventually turned slowly to grace him with a cool impartial gaze whilst ignoring the rest of us. “Yes, are they alright?” Hanwell replied. “Of course they are, but no thanks to you.” Clarisse retorted with just enough bitter resentment in her refined tones to make me almost want to shiver. “Oh well that is good, I have just brought a few friends – we will go to my studio.” Hanwell replied gravely, as he indicated us to follow him. “So I see.” Clarisse replied with as much disdainful dismissiveness that she could deliver with three curt syllables, as she turned back to the window. It was a Saturday afternoon that I recall, and apart from his studio the apartment gave the impression of being cold and bare. Somehow light grey and blue and bare, where not even the sparse furnishings allowed even the faintest glimmer of warmth or love. It was like entering an avant-garde minimal stage set in which a morbid and terrible tragedy was about to be enacted. And a tragedy there certainly was. It was not the fact that one day he returned home to find his computer and some of his musical equipment smashed, so that he lost his current project. No. On no, Hanwell and Clarisse had still lived together through scenes like that. Somewhere buried beneath the ice, there must have been the love and passion which first brought them together. Hanwell occasionally sat with me by the South River Park, and I had sketched and taken photographs for my Printmaking and paintings, and he had found similar peaceful and resplendent inspiration there for his songs and poetry. There are some weather worn protrusions from a former structure that give the appearance of breakwaters. To some people these might be an eyesore, but to us of an artistic nature, they made an interesting contrast to the polished and glinting steel railings and smooth concrete of the quayside. I often jog along there and sometimes follow the decking path through the shrubs, and I often ride a bicycle too, I am not a sedentary person and I like to keep myself well-toned and fit for my Karma Sutra, as well as meditating on my artistic work. One very early Sunday summer morning whilst I was jogging and thinking about the home made ‘New Yorker’ breakfast I was going to return to with eggs over easy, and maybe fresh grapefruit instead of orange, I saw an unfamiliar dark shape spiked on one of the points of the worn posts. It crossed my mind that it might be a Sea Lion that had somehow drifted with the melting arctic waters. After all, stranger things had happened. The Hudson lapped around it, to and fro, backwards and forwards but it did not move. As I drew close and leaned on the railing I could see it was a man wrapped in black polythene, and then suddenly a small wave pulled the polythene from his face and I knew that face. As cold shivers ran up and down my spine with shock realisation that I tried to suppress, I saw the face of my friend Hanwell Nnagobi. It was bruised around the mouth and forehead, and his eyes were fixed open in an expression of fear. The spike of the post protruded from his body just below his rib cage and the apparent stiffness indicated that he had been dead for some time. It was too far for his body to have been thrown from the quayside, so he must have been planted there by someone in a small boat. Why? What or whom was he involved with? Had he been left there as an example, as a warning to whomever it might apply? He certainly was not the victim of a casual mugging, and it certainly was not suicide as he could not have wrapped himself and spiked himself so neatly. Without thinking of the consequences of my own involvement I called 911 on my cell phone and sat down in mild shock on a nearby seat to await the Police.
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About the Book
“Just call me Brandon,” says Dr Brandon Edwin Martin-Schally to Chief Detective Inspector McArthur when he is asked to give a statement about his discovery of the body of his best friend, Hanwell, wrapped in black polythene and pinioned on a breakwater in South River early one Sunday morning. Further events force him to realise that his secure and happy life with his wife, Naomi, and their children, Kurt and Andrea, is about to change. He decides to hunt down and expose those responsible for Hanwell’s death and who still pose a danger to himself. Could the mastermind be someone very close to him at the university? Who is the mysterious and ethereal squatter, Eric? As he embarks upon his mission, little does Brandon realise the additional heartache which he will have to endure. Brandon is a new detective mystery story by Lee J Morrison. There is murder, passion, romance, and unknown danger as Brandon becomes embroiled with subversive forces committing heinous crimes against humanity.
About the Author
Dr. Lee J Morrison was born in the UK, in Lancashire, with an Afro Caribbean father and ancestors from Kenya. His White English mother was from Derbyshire, with French ancestors and Viking ancestors from South Yorkshire. Lee qualified for a BA honours degree in London and graduated from the University of Reading, Berkshire (affiliated to Oxford), with a master of fine arts degree. Studying also in Paris, Lee taught at the University College London. He is now a PhD graduate. Lee was also a tutor with the University of Sussex, at Brighton, and at Hastings. Whilst married for twenty-five years and living in Brighton with a son and daughter, Lee extended his life experiences in other professions. These included construction and a very enjoyable time as a head chef at a popular restaurant next door to the Opera House. For several years he operated a successful landscape gardening business and sold and exhibited his own graphic art and paintings on a regular basis. Working also in London theatres and behind the scenes at the Royal Ballet, Lee counts actors and dancers amongst his friends. His musical tastes are diverse and he enjoys jazz, opera, Latin, and Caribbean genres. He was a semiprofessional singer and dancer himself with several musical theatre groups, a stand-up comedian, and a street performer in St Tropez and appeared on stage in Tunisia and Brazil. Writing has always been close to his heart, and he has penned poems, songs, and short comedy scripts throughout his life. Brandon developed along the lines of a detective story. Again it is based upon elements of reality, but it is definitely a fictional story. Although written in the first person, the book is not autobiographical to the author. Brandon is a young graphic artist and painter teaching at a university in New York. He finds himself endangered after he discovers one of his close friends, Hanwell Nnagobi, murdered in mysterious and gruesome circumstances in the South River. He becomes entangled with a subversive mob carrying out heinous crimes against humanity in his attempt to track down his friend’s killers, who are a threat to his own and his family’s safety. He is befriended by chief detective inspector McArthur, whose son Nigel is one of his students and who is also trying to crack the ring. Brandon’s relationship with his wife, Naomi, deteriorates, and there is much heartache to face with his children before he meets the mastermind of the ring face-to-face. As usual, Lee J Morrison presents his characters poetically with humour as well as with traumatic sadness, but here he moves away again from the passionate romance genre of his previous novels in the Chrystabell Trilogy and the happy ending of the romantic detective story The Many Faces of April Jade. He is acutely aware of social issues in the world and has travelled fairly extensively, but he nevertheless aims is to be entertaining and to present a gamut of emotions which encompass Brandon. The original hand-drawn black-and-white illustrations by Derek Vernon-Morris highlight the author’s vision of the drama, Brandon. Previous publications include the following: —Chrystabell’s Secrets (December 20, 2011) —Theo: A Nephew of Chrystabell (June 5, 2012) —Christina: A Sister to Chrystabell (June 28, 2013) —The Many Faces of April Jade (January 24, 2014) —Xerses Franklin: The Saga of Gabriel & Melona (January 30, 2015)