Klub Päris Fantastiline

On Saturday, June 25, 1921, nine year old Michael 'Mikey' Alden and his brother, Jack, were playing in the garden outside The Roseberry, a rural guest-house owned and run by their parents, Jim and Aileen. Jim wasn't around when Aileen called Jack inside to help with the chores, but according to all concerned, Jack was only gone a few short minutes, long enough for Mikey to disappear without a trace.

​

Theirs was a small community, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else. Most were aware that Mikey was slow for his age and size, and a little too trusting. Nevertheless, when he vanished they all chipped in, close friends and neighbours alike doing everything in their power to help Jim and Aileen find their missing boy. Despite best efforts, however, and the help of Ginster, a small-time private detective, Mikey was never found.

​

​From the outset, police officer Pyke's suspicions fell on Mayor Willoughby, a corrupt, pompous veteran of the Civil War, a man with dubious tastes and known connections to the wrong kinds of people. Pyke's conviction never waned, except that at the time of Mikey's disappearance, Willoughby just happened to be sitting in his office with Jim Alden, Mikey's father.

 

​On a distant skyline beyond The Roseberry, the immaculately designed Feikes residence had cast an ominous shadow over its wary neighbours for almost two centuries. According to Merrielle Mathilde Feikes, the current incumbent, the house and its estates were built brick by brick by her Prussian ancestors way back in 1781. If her account was to be believed, the Feikes family had long been associated with nobility. By her own admission, however, not all of her family's wealth had been gained by virtuous means.

​

​Upon the death of her mother, tradition dictated that the estates should pass directly into Merrielle's young hands. Instead, her father seized control, an act that proved to be the most cataclysmic wrongdoing in the Feikes' long history. Prohibition was already at its height when he decided to form a business relationship with an Estonian hoodlum named Aadu Haukanõmm, an act that delivered shame and misfortune to the Feikes' name and reputation.

​​

​Forty-five years after the event, Carl Knudson, a balding, middle-aged police detective with undiscovered abilities, inherits an innocuous suitcase and a small key from his father. Inside that suitcase he finds a collection of antique police files, every one marked for secure destruction. Also in the suitcase is a pocket-sized canvas pouch containing twelve small slivers of human bone, each of which bears a name. Scribbled in what appears to be a kid's handwriting, one of those names is Mikey!

 

​Utilising a multiple timeline narrative, Klub Päris Fantastiline presents a fictional noir account of Mikey's disappearance. This novel is the first in a series of literary works that delve into the events surrounding each police file and its corresponding piece of bone, cases that Detective Carl Knudson is compelled to solve.

​

​Cautionary Note: This work contains elements that some readers may find disturbing. It is unsuitable for juveniles or those of a sensitive disposition.