The heat was murder. July flexed her sweaty muscles, eyed the goal, and drop-kicked New York into the sweltering steambath of summer. Some managed to escape, fleeing to their shore homes where they could sip cold drinks and bask in ocean breezes while they did their business via telelink. Some loaded up on supplies and hunkered down inside their air-cooled homes like tribes under siege.
But most just had to live through it.
With humatures into the triple digits, and no end in sight, moods turned surly, deodorants failed, and petty annoyances elbowed even the mildest of souls toward violence.
Emergency medical centers were jammed with the wounded soldiers of summer, 2059. Many who, under normal conditions, wouldn't so much as jaywalk saw the inside of police stations and holding tanks, forced to call lawyers to explain why they had attempted to throttle a co-worker, or shove a complete stranger under the wheels of a Rapid Cab.
Usually, once cooled off, they didn't know why but sat or stood, blank-faced and baffled, like someone coming out of a trance.
But Louie K. Cogburn knew just what he was doing, why he ... read full excerpt from Purity in Death ebook
