Harry Watt Bounty Hunter
Rob Guy
Author Bio
I have been interested in science fiction and space travel since a young boy. Growing up with the Apollo moon missions helped I suppose. In school, when asked to write fiction during English class, it was always science fiction for me. I never considered writing anything else. Fiction can take you anywhere, the limit is your imagination, but science fiction can take you so much further. To the stars and back!
I first took up the pen to write seriously in my early 20’s, and wrote scores of short stories, one of which was publish in a local newsletter. I am originally from the UK, having emigrated to Australia’s Gold Coast in 2007 with my wife and two children.
I write whenever I can, and do not believe in writer’s block. I write anything, even a shopping list! Harry Watt, Bounty Hunter, is my current novel, and I’m hard at work on the follow up, as well as a collection of short stories. So stay tuned.
I love to write, but just as important to me is the feedback I receive from my readers. I am always available to answer any questions, so feel free to ask anything, or even post a review, good or bad!
Description
Harry Watt, Bounty Hunter is a science fiction novel written in a humorous style.
Harry Watt is an interplanetary bailsman but prefers the title bounty hunter.
He is charged by a judge to travel to Mars to bring back an inventor/hydrologist accused of stealing funds from his employer.
Harry soon realises something is not right with the case and so first travels to Venus Station without the judge’s knowledge in order to interview another company employer that has also gone missing.
On the ship to Venus he meets a member of the crew called Raquel. With her help Harry discovers that the judge’s company has the contract to supply pseudo asbestos, the material being used to cool Venus down ready for colonisation.
Once on Venus Station Harry meets and befriends two women who aid him in his quest to get to Mars.
Whilst on the station Harry is framed for murder, but manages to change his identity in order to board the ship bound for Mars.
He has frequent encounters with his dead partner who gives him help with the case. Onboard the Mars ship he encounters the man who killed his partner. From him Harry learns that the judge’s company plans to illegally take water from one of Mars’ moons in order to extract the vast amounts of water needed for the pseudo asbestos to work. But the only way to get at the water is to destroy the moon. The two men fight, and Harry kills the man but is badly wounded in the process.
Once on Mars Harry finds the hydrologist but in doing so inadvertently kills the incumbent sheriff. However he gets elected new sheriff once it is determined that the old sheriff was working with the judge.
Harry learns that the Mars council reneged on their promise to supply water to the judge’s company. As a result he declares war on the colony. However the judge informs then that war can be averted if the colony gives up Harry and the hydrologist.
The ultimatum results in the beginnings of a civil war.
The story concludes with Harry and the Council deciding how best to defend the colony against the judge.
To complicate matters still further Harry’s ex wife and daughter turn up.
Book excerpt
It was Tuesday. Harry hated Tuesdays. Only one thing he hated more than Tuesdays was a wet Tuesday, like this one. They were filled with grey skies and grey people. Take his latest client, back again. Grey suit, grey eyes, grey hair, grey teeth. The Honourable Judge Joseph Belmont Headlock III Junior was sat in his office, relaying all the usual bullshit, trying to make the trite sound interesting.
“I want this guy back in custody by the end of the month, understand?” the Judge was saying.
“End of the month, check,” Harry replied, leaning back in his chair. He was expert at balancing his athletic, eighty odd kilogram body on the two back wheels. Headlock eyed him suspiciously. Harry fell back, his wavy brown hair falling across his forehead. He brushed it away and then idly opened a drawer in the desk to check his gun, a replica Smith & Wesson .45 semi-automatic with a thirteen round clip, laser sight, palm print ident grip, the works, circa 2030. Yep, still there. Still ready and loaded. He pictured it up against the Judge’s skull, the look on his face right before he pulled the trigger.
“Are you listening to me Watt?”
“What?”
“I said are you listening?”
Harry grimaced and closed the drawer. “I heard you. End of the week, like you said.”
“Month you dumb ass! End of the month.”
Bang!
“Even you can’t get to Mars and find this guy in a week, though I admit that would be impressive. Once you have him back here, you take him to Tyrell’s on Burgundy first. Okay?”
Harry frowned. “Tyrell? What does he want with him? Isn’t this a federal case?”
“He owes him for dry cleaning. How the hell should I know? Just make sure he sees him first before you bring him back to the courthouse. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good. Questions?”
“Just one if I may. According to the last press release you’re only looking for one man. But it’s really two isn’t it?”
Headlock narrowed his eyes. “Who told you that?”
“I have a source.”
“A source eh? This source wouldn’t happen to speak with an Irish accent would it?”
“Is it true?”
“Even if it were I’m not giving you any more information than you need.”
“Fair enough.”
“Very well. The State will pay the usual fee plus expenses. And in answer to your earlier query the Feds have given me autonomy on this one.”
“Really?”
“Cut out the inquisitor crap Watt, you’re not with the Bureau anymore.”
Harry moved his lips but didn’t say anything.
Would that I were smartass.
Headlock paused in preparation for his next sentence. “And there’s another fifty once Tyrell’s finished with him.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Fifty? Something tells me this isn’t no ordinary criminal.”
“A double negative. Stop trying to sound like a gangster Watt, it doesn’t become you.”
Harry shuffled in his chair and coughed.
Gangster eh?
He pictured the .45 pushed into the Judge’s mouth, his damn grey eyes pleading for mercy.
“Too late Judge, you had your chance to apologise, now it’s clover pushing time.”
“Daisheys.”
Bang!
Author Website
http://www.facebook.com/robguybooks