Colt Lewis, a rookie fire paramedic, is obsessed with finding the severed foot of his first victim after she dies in his arms. His search takes him into the connected lives of a graduate research student, with the rarest blood in the world and the vampire fetishist who is stalking her. Within the corridors of high-stakes medical research laboratories, the shadow world of body parts dealers, and the underground Goth clubs of Los Angeles, Lewis uncovers a tangled maze of needles, drugs and maniacal ritual, all of which lead to death. But whose death? An unusual and fast-paced LA Noir thriller.
Awards:
Code Blood was awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2012 International Book Awards Fiction-Cross Genre category
Writer’s Type - First Chapter Competition. January 2011- First Place
2012 International Book Awards - Fiction: Cross Genre category – First Place
NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE BOOK AWARDS® – Faction (fiction based on fact) – WINNER OF THE 2012 AWARD
The 2012 USA Best Book Awards - Fiction: Horror - WINNER
The 2012 USA Best Book Awards – Fiction: Mystery/Suspense - Finalist
Knoxville Writer’s Guild - 2011 Novella or Novel Excerpt – 2nd Place
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The author has very obviously done his homework on the background of this techno-thriller, but unlike many novels in this genre, his characters come alive. They live, breathe, make mistakes, and stumble toward their individual dreams, even though one of those dreams is a blood-soaked nightmare.
From the Author
CODE BLOOD was awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2012 International Book Awards in the Fiction: Cross Genre category
Kurt Kamm I live in Malibu CA. I have used my contact with CalFire, Los Angeles County Fire Department, Ventura County Fire Department and the ATF, as well as my experience in several devastating local wildfires to write fact-based firefighter mystery novels. I have attended classes at El Camino Fire Academy and trained in wildland firefighting, arson investigation and hazardous materials response. I am also a graduate of the ATF Citizen's Academy
Each of my novels has a firefighter with a special skill: Wildland / Arson Investigation / Fire Paramedic / HazMat Specialist. Each mystery is told from the viewpoint of the firefighter and the story revolves around his specialty. I am currently working on my fifth novel a USAR mystery
***
My latest and fourth mystery - HAZARDOUS MATERIAL, is now available. Hazardous Material recently won the Hackney Literary Award for Best Novel of the year.
Bucky Dawson is a HazMat Specialist with Los Angeles County Fire Department HazMat Task Force 103. His station is in Lancaster, CA--an area populated with meth labs and outlaw motorcycle gangs, as well as Edwards AFB, NASA, and top-secret aerospace facilities.
Bucky--divorced and lonely--struggles with painkiller addiction. One night Task Force 103 is toned out to support a Sheriff's raid on a meth lab. Bucky thinks he sees his sister at the door of a double- wide trailer in the Mojave Desert just before it explodes.
Bucky's life is in chaos. While he searches for answers to his sister's death, he is drawn into a conflict with the Vagos, who are selling drugs in the Mojave Desert. After a confrontation in which the Vagos nearly kill him, Bucky exacts an unusual revenge that only a HazMat firefighter could accomplish.
The novel twists and turns, bringing together firefighters, a sinister aerospace engineer, the Vagos -- led by the Dwarf, their seven foot tall Sergeant at Arms, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in a surprise ending you will not anticipate but you will certainly enjoy.
***
CODE BLOOD tells the story of a rookie fire paramedic who is obsessed with finding the severed foot of his first victim after she dies in his arms. His search takes him into the connected lives of a research student with the rarest blood in the world and the vampire fetishist who is stalking her. Within the corridors of high-stakes medical research laboratories, the shadow world of body parts dealers, and the underground Goth clubs of Los Angeles, the paramedic uncovers a tangled maze of needles, drugs and ritual, all of which lead to death.
CODE BLOOD was awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2012 International Book Awards in the Fiction: Cross Genre category. CODE BLOOD was also awarded FIRST PLACE in the 2012 National Indie Excellence Book Awards in the FACTION (fact based fiction) Category
***
RED FLAG WARNING - A SERIAL ARSON MYSTERY has won three first place mystery fiction awards. Los Angeles County is burning. A serial arsonist is setting the parched hills on fire. Plunge into infernos and face the smoke, heat and danger with the men of the fire lines. While NiteHeat prowls in the darkness, setting fires and taunting investigators, the Los Angeles County Fire Department Arson Unit struggles to find the fire-setter and stop the devastation.
***
My first novel, ONE FOOT IN THE BLACK - A Wildland Firefighter's Story tells the story of a young firefighter who joins a helitack crew, is called out to a massive wildland fire, and loses his captain in a burnover. After the tragedy, he succumbs to post traumatic stress and has a difficult time overcoming it. ONE FOOT IN THE BLACK has become a favorite with firefighters and other first responders.
***
I maintain a fire related website at http://www.kurtkamm.com/ It includes fire pictures sent to me from all over the world.
It has been suggested that ordinary people become evil when they identify with evil ideology. This might be the case with the villain in "Code Blood" who is a wannabe vampire. The sight of blood arouses him. He has started a collection of body parts, including the foot of an accident victim which he stole from the scene of a car crash. He somehow normalizes acts that the rest of us would consider unthinkable. Author Kurt Kamm has crafted a truly despicable, yet believable villain in Markus the albino, who tumbles into an evil that is far greater than his own drug-addled attempts at blood-letting. I actually ended up feeling sorry for him.
Stories of vampires are found in all cultures, as we learn from another "Code Blood" character, who is a PhD student from Tibet (or as the Chinese now call it: "The Tibetan Autonomous Region) at the University of California:
"The Tibetan Book of the Dead told tales of the Wrathful Deities, also called the Blood Drinking Deities. These spirits stole blood from sleeping people and drank it from cups made of human skulls."
A Li has her own personal demons, including a 'deceased' twin sister, a PhD advisor who seems to scorn her work, and lastly Markus the wannabe vampire, who has hacked into her personnel records at U of C and has discovered that she possesses one of the world's rarest blood types: Bombay blood, which occurs in only 1 out of every 250,000 people world-wide.
Colt Lewis, the hero of "Code Blood" is a paramedic-in-training who is obsessed with finding the missing foot of an accident victim who died en route to the hospital.
The chain of events that connects Markus, Colt, and A Li is filled with fascinating details about the California Goth scene, the workings of Los Angeles County Fire paramedic teams, shady morticians, life in Tibet under the Chinese invaders, and research into the DNA of blood. The author has very obviously done his homework on the background of this techno-thriller, but unlike many novels in this genre, his characters come alive. They live, breathe, make mistakes, and stumble toward their individual dreams, even though one of those dreams is a blood-soaked nightmare.
The book opens with a young woman who is obviously delusional. And, in a strange set of circumstances, Colt Lewis, a new EMT encounters this same young woman at the scene of an accident. As he tries to save her life, he sees her for what he'd like to imagine her to be, but when she dies he becomes entangled in trying to find her severed foot which has gone missing. It threatens to become his undoing as he makes it his own personal quest and eventually a vendetta against the person who's responsible for stealing it.
Then there's Markus, whose life as an albino has lead him into the bizarre desire for status as one of the city's vampire types. And, then there's a young Asian scientist whose unusual blood type makes her a target these same wanna be-vampire types.
I suspect that most of these characters are from the author's collection of strange characters he's met during his career as Southern California fire fighter. You should also read his first book: Red Flag Warning
I was impressed with how the author managed to connect these wildly divergent characters into one intersection. There are no heroes here... eveyone is flawed, from the brilliant young scientist to the EMT who is driven to recover the foot. This was a VERY satisfying read, unique in its take on the underbelly of Southern California and I, for one, look forward to reading more from Mr. Kamm.
Kurt Kamm is on his way to becoming to stories of fires and firefighters what W.E.B. Griffin is to war and the military. "Code Blood" teeters into the somewhat paranormal for most, but quite normal for a vast section of the society. What fits as true, is the broad cross-section of culture that firefighters commonly engage in a day's work. This 'brotherhood' so overflows the boundaries and tenets of simply fighting an angry, out of control blaze, Kurt Kamm's books have become a compelling portrait of society. In his third book, "Code Blood", Mr. Kamm takes us into the heart and soul of a paramedic firefighter, a career all of its own within a career, actually. When called to an accident, Colt Lewis, fresh out of Paramedic training, has one main thought driving him . . . if a life is in jeopardy, save it. What happens when he can't and his obsession then becomes finding a missing body part that carries him, and the reader with him, into a world of cult tattoos and blood lust and a realm of underground tunnels and Nano-tech labs beneath a California University? What is most frightening to this reader is how close this story teeters into the world of 'normal'. Being faint of heart, this book's content may not have been what I'd have chosen to read for time off pleasure, but past readings of this author's work would sway me. Once picked up, I found myself steadily inching closer to the edge of my seat; I'd been overtaken by a compulsion to keep turning pages to reach the end of this eerie tunnel!
