Black Smoke Rising

Young lawyer Millie has fallen madly in love with the mysterious Liz, but romance turns to betrayal when Millie, about to prosecute a vicious thug, discovers that the love of her life works for him. To make matters worse, two killers – the dangerously methodical but bookwormish Beckett and the seriously deranged Hansen — appear on the scene to forcibly extract information from Millie. Who she should trust and who is bent on murder are the overriding questions as loyalties are tested, guns are drawn and knives are flashed.

Trevor is 'between jobs'. He spends his days avoiding his nagging heifer of a wife by hiding out in his allotment shed and painting figurines for his wargames with his agoraphobic friend, Graham, and dreaming of his heroic alter-ego, the battle mage Casimir the Destroyer. When Mr Parsons, one of the other allotment tenants, petitions to have Trevor removed from his disgrace of a plot (he's not there to grow stuff!) an argument ensues that leaves Trevor with a corpse to hide. Unfortunately, this untimely accident coincides with the zombie apocalypse and Mr Parsons' return is just the beginnings of Trevor's problems. More pressing is whether or not he should try and save his wife and her beautiful best friend, who both he and Graham have a thing for.

In the Old West, the assassination of an ageing cowboy is thwarted by a sultry vampiress, the would-be killer left for dead in the dust. A hundred years later an ancient obsidian mirror, long unearthed from the Mesopotamian desert, is liberated from an American collector's vault and illegally transported to Europe. Jacob, an unscrupulous antiques dealer, moves to a remote farmhouse with his pregnant young wife, Lauren, and his difficult ward, Rachel. His goals are clear: to pass this near-priceless mirror to the highest bidder, and to prevent these two women from ripping each other apart. Nearby, a beautiful ornithologist, in nocturnal pursuit of the Screech Owl, is disturbed in her hide by a couple of noisy hikers. Her efforts ruined, she joins them by their campfire, but when one of them is mysteriously mutilated in the woods, she and the other are forced to flee and seek refuge at Jacob's farm. Something has been unleashed into the dark of that night...

Voluntarily locked in a cell for 48 hours with no restrictions and no outside help three emotional archetypes battle for psychological supremacy before they can be destroyed by their own weaknesses.