Fifteen years after climbing the beanstalk, giants are the least of Jack's problems.
Years after saving his home village from an invading giant from the sky, Detective Jackson Slade of the NYPD is at his lowest; addicted to mysterious magick beans and spending each night drunk and alone in filthy bars.
But one night, Jack stumbles across the shattered corpse of media mogul and esteemed businessman Dick Dumpty outside a hotel, which sends him spiraling into the horrifying and magickal criminal underbelly of New York City. Along the way, Jack teams up with notorious outlaw Goldilocks after getting blacklisted by his chief of police, who proudly claims to be a descendant of the evil tyrant of centuries ago, Old King Cole.
As the reluctant duo of Jack and Goldilocks take on the criminal mastermind Papa Bear, as well as all those the huge grizzly has under his control, Jack sets in motion a chaotic chain of events that will change the world, for better or worse.
Fifteen years after climbing the beanstalk, giants are the least of Jack's problems.
Years after saving his home village from an invading giant from the sky, Detective Jackson Slade of the NYPD is at his lowest; addicted to mysterious magick beans and spending each night drunk and alone in filthy bars.
But one night, Jack stumbles across the shattered corpse of media mogul and esteemed businessman Dick Dumpty outside a hotel, which sends him spiraling into the horrifying and magickal criminal underbelly of New York City. Along the way, Jack teams up with notorious outlaw Goldilocks after getting blacklisted by his chief of police, who proudly claims to be a descendant of the evil tyrant of centuries ago, Old King Cole.
As the reluctant duo of Jack and Goldilocks take on the criminal mastermind Papa Bear, as well as all those the huge grizzly has under his control, Jack sets in motion a chaotic chain of events that will change the world, for better or worse.
‘Give me another one. Hell of a night.’
I snatched the glass of whiskey off the bar and slumped into the nearest seat. The numb feeling I’d been seeking out the last couple of hours was starting to slip away, and my surroundings had become too real again. Too loud, too close.
I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed out viciously through my teeth. My tie was too tight around my throat. I yanked at it aimlessly until it was loose, and it slipped to the sticky floorboards. I let the whiskey wash through my body once again while I vaguely took in the blues tune wailing from the jukebox. I soon gave up, my ears greeted with the drunken murmuring and hollering of various other bar-dwellers instead.
It was a dull place. An overhead fan whirred loudly, practically dangling from the cracked ceiling, barely spinning as if it couldn’t be bothered to do its job. Faded posters promoting bands that had broken up five years ago peeled away from the wooden walls; the big round tables were stained with old alcohol and probably vomit and piss.
Seeing double now, I looked out the window to my side, past the flickering neon sign out into the dimly lit streets. Nothing to see.
Everything seemed to be getting louder, and for a second I considered reaching for my gun and blowing my brains out there and then as a way of getting some rest, but thought better of it.
A rough laugh nearby took me out of that fantasy. I looked up from my drink to see the bartender above me. He was grinning, flashing his black teeth. I scowled and gulped the rest of my drink, my stomach burning.
‘No offense,’ growled the bartender, ‘but the way I see it, you just ain’t cut out for that line of work. Look at you. You care too much. I can tell.’
I scowled, confused. ‘Excuse me?’ I hadn’t spoken since getting drunk tonight – I slurred even those couple of words.
‘You’ve always been a real country boy, ain’t ya, Jack? I don’t get why you don’t just take it back down south. Go with what you know.’
I’d had enough of this day. The stink of cigarettes and sweat was now shooting through my nose at a sickening pace. I pushed the empty glass away from me, snatched my tie off the filthy floorboards, and got to my feet. ‘You barely even know me,’ I said to the barman, not bothering to look him in the eye.
The barman shuffled aside when I shoved past him, but didn’t shut up yet. ‘You wanna know what I’d do in your position, what I’d do if I was your age?’
‘Nope.’ I dropped a twenty on the table and stumbled past the guy. He was still talking behind me, but thankfully my ears became selective about what they took in. The rest of my body wasn’t so merciful. My stomach felt like it was devouring itself and my brain had pretty much been caved in with a mace.
It’d been another night of dead ends and failures. Ever since the new chief of the NYPD came in, that’s what my career as a detective had come to. Dead ends. Failures. When I should have been investigating homicides, unlawful use of magick, and complex corruption scandals, I’d been assigned to cases of minor road traffic incidents and petty thievery, or maybe on a really exciting day, the odd complaint of shit being posted through a pensioner’s door.
I should take some of the blame myself, sure. But when you spend most of your time drunk or going off the cliff on a magick bean comedown, you find it’s easier to separate yourself from responsibility. I could clean myself up, yeah, but I’d discovered these last few years that whatever I do, I’m screwed. Because of that self-righteous asshole up there at the top of the food chain, wasted on power because he has royal giants’ blood.
Allegedly.
I stepped out into the annoyingly bright haze of the purplish lights through the back exit, in the hopes I’d avoid the chaos of the city streets. Streetlights and air vents buzzed aggressively as I stood there. My fingers trembled, and a boiling rage danced with the heap of whiskey in the pit of my stomach.
I rolled up the sleeve of my coat, now soggy with alcohol, and checked my wristwatch: 1:48 a.m. It was around about shitstorm o’clock, and I needed to get home. Gunfights, illegal sorcery, trafficking right under the nose of every cop wandering the city, it would all be going down right now. Sure, I’d love to be able to put an end to it, and of course, I’d tried. But I’m just one guy, done with it all.
I slithered down the back alleys of just about the roughest area in town, and I’ll admit, part of me felt right at home. Do I like that or not? Probably not, but it was the only sense of belonging I’d felt for some time.
Continuing my pleasant night stroll, I passed the back ends of clubs, warehouses, and convenience stores in the gloom and mist. When I reached an abandoned parking lot, I passed a substantial number of junkies and prostitutes who wouldn’t have looked out of place in the morgue. I stopped walking and peered into the purple fog, making out the silhouettes of various figures slowly approaching me. It was straight out of a John Carpenter movie. After examining the scene like I was at some godless art gallery, I decided to continue my patrol. Experience has shown me waiting to find out what’s lurking in these familiar shadows is far from a bright idea.
I wasn’t far from my apartment now. Dance music boomed in time with purple neon lights bursting out into the alleyway. I made out a group of small figures gathered around a dumpster, yelling in harsh voices. I paused and scratched at my cheek, looking for an alternative way out – I wasn’t about to get dragged into this shit.
‘Oi! Detective?’ called a hoarse voice. British, I think.
I sighed, sniffed, and shoved my fists into my coat pockets. I had a couple of magick beans on me if needed, and a Glock 19 in my holster. Like every other cop around here, if something went wrong and I felt like I had to discharge my weapon tonight, losing sleep over possible consequences wouldn’t be necessary. Not in this department.
I tilted my head as the figures emerged from the purple fog and found myself reconsidering the whole consequence thing – I was being confronted by the Seven Dwarves, one of the most notorious gangs in the city, a gang with the top dogs of the NYPD firmly in their pocket.
I made a clicking sound with my tongue and wryly smirked at the ground. Today just wouldn’t do me the favor of ending, would it?
‘Gentlemen,’ I called.
As I blinked away some of the haze, I realized there was another figure among the crowd of smaller men, a hulkingly brutish one, twice their size. He appeared to be carrying one of them by the collar, a brilliant way to get yourself stabbed to death. Blood loss from the legs while sprawled out on the odious ground of some back alley surely isn’t anyone’s idea of a good way to go.
‘A nice evening for it,’ I said, more to myself than them.
One of the dwarves came rushing over to me out of the fog. I stumbled back, my reactions slow and pathetic. Doc, the so-called mastermind of the gang scurried up to me, grim expression on his aged face.
‘Easy,’ I drawled, feeling the holster beneath my right hand. ‘Who’s that?’ I motioned to the big guy in the haze.
A grin crept along Doc’s face. ‘Why not do your job and find out? Twat.’ He spat on the ground and stepped aside.
‘Fuck is this?’ I murmured. I took out my gun and stepped toward the scene. The dwarves were yelling all kinds of insults and accusations, some of them aimed at me. Whatever they were, I blocked them out pretty effortlessly. I got a better look at the big guy – an ogre, unflinching, tough as hell, now with his giant hand wrapped snugly around the dwarf’s throat.
‘Alright, drop him,’ I called, my gun now raised at the ogre’s head. Quickly as my mind and body could muster, I surveyed the scene. Five of the dwarves here, two of them holding knives, Doc to my left, his beady eyes on me. A blueish shade of blood leaking from one of the ogre’s calves, dripping swiftly onto the concrete, forming a puddle.
For a split second, I thought about calling it in, but that would’ve sooner ended up with me getting arrested, no doubt.
The ogre’s black eyes met mine, and his voice boomed above the squawking raucousness of the dwarves. ‘What are you gonna do about this, Detective?’
I breathed in sharply, again looking down to my left at Doc, who looked back and forth between us. This some sort of trap? Everything felt off, surreal. Like I was half sleepwalking.
The ogre fully turned his attention to me then, loosening his grip on the dwarf and letting him fall to the ground with a splat. I think he landed in the ogre’s pool of blood.
He stood about seven feet tall, wearing a huge leather jacket and dark jeans, which the blood was still dribbling out of. It didn’t seem to be bothering him at all. The air smelled like gasoline, booze, and iron. He started to walk toward me then, no limp, no grimace, nothing.
I was frozen where I stood, hardly noticing that the dwarves had stopped their yelling and were now backing away from the ogre. My face was level with his massive chest. I realized then that I’d lowered my gun.
‘Look at you,’ he growled. ‘Just like the rest of ’em.’
Rain had started to patter against the dumpsters lining the wall of whatever club we were gathered outside. It trickled through my hair and down my face. As did my sweat. There was nothing for me to say.
The ogre gritted his teeth, maybe from the pain surely starting to come as the blood continued to pour. ‘Slade, right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ I heard myself whisper.
He looked down, grimacing now, and a sort of laughing sound came out of his mouth. ‘You people took everything from me. My wife, my children. I had to stand and watch them die because of you. What have you done? This city is hell. Everything’s rotten, broken. And you haven’t even noticed.’
My mouth was dry, ears were ringing. I needed a drink again, or a magick bean. I was crumbling. ‘I . . . I don’t know who you are,’ I said to the ground. The rain was getting heavier. I shook my head slightly and looked back up at the guy, dwarves looking on. I noticed both knives they were holding were tipped with blue blood.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked, his voice reaching a lighter, weaker tone that made my hairs stand up. ‘Where’s the man that took down a goddamn giant?’
I felt myself shaking slightly then. Something was not right.
‘I thought I heard them say you were one of the good ones,’ he went on. ‘Why won’t you do something?’
‘No, you don’t— You don’t know me.’ Did he know me?
‘My kids, they—’
There was a motion to my left. Blue blood sprayed across my face. I jumped back, blinded. I yelled something, then heard laughter. I wiped the blood from my eyes and saw Doc standing in front of me. He was in between me and the ogre, who was now on his knees, a stab wound in his stomach. I turned away, looked to the sky. Felt the rain on my face. It was all I could do.
When I looked back, I saw the ogre try to grab Doc by the face, and finally my body came to life as I brought up my gun again and called out, but I was too late. Doc slashed the ogre across the neck, finished him off.
‘Miserable beast,’ the leader growled.
I felt eyes upon me, but all I could do was stand and stare again, trying to process everything. Why was I so stunned? If they wanted to, the dwarves could’ve murdered me in cold blood there and then. There would be no punishment, no inquiry. Maybe in their eyes that wouldn’t be to their advantage, do more harm than good. They wanted me to see this, to remember it. They knew I wouldn’t – couldn’t – stop them.
I was spiraling. I had to leave, but my body wouldn’t let me. The ogre’s body was completely still now, being battered with heavy raindrops. ‘Who was he?’ I asked the gang, my eyes fixed on the corpse. I patted my breast pocket, checking for my flask. It was there, so I drank.
Doc looked up at me with a mockingly solemn expression, then to the body. ‘A loose end. Someone who needed to . . . not be around anymore, quite simply.’ He raised his eyebrows, dead eyes meeting mine. ‘He was attackin us! You saw.’
I chugged the last of my whiskey, shook my head at Doc.
‘One of the good ones, are ya? That what you are? Oh, you showed it tonight alright!’ he said, and snickered. The others burst into a chorus of laughter.
I gritted my teeth and holstered my gun.
‘Call it in,’ said one of the others. ‘Dare ya.’
I didn’t. I turned away, failed to light a cigarette, and started to slither through the alleyways in the general direction of my apartment. The dwarves jeered and laughed behind me. I blocked them out with a yelling voice inside my head. This night needed to end.
***
I passed through the near-empty blocks leading to my street, fleeting thoughts whirling around my aching head. I started to think about what they would do with the body, about the fact I was probably the only cop who knew about what had happened. Doing nothing. I’d turned blind eyes countless times before, but tonight was just screwing me up.
After typing in the passcode on the greasy keypad, I climbed the hollow creaky stairs leading to my apartment on the fifth floor.
Empty beer bottles lined the kitchenette sides, case files scattered on the floor. The smell of takeaway leftovers hit me as I staggered toward my dimly lit desk revealing the latest case file assigned to me. A speeding offense. Endless cases of missing women and children, and the NYPD assigns one of their best detectives a case involving some nineteen-year-old kid speeding through Queens.
A weird laugh forced its way out of me, then I started to bash my forehead repeatedly with my palms.
As if this would remedy all the drinking I’d done tonight, I went over to the kitchen sink and shoved my mouth under the faucet, letting the cold water rush through me. All it did was make me dry heave and splutter.
I stripped off my coat and my stinking shirt and collapsed into my desk chair, staring at the case file. I had a decision to make. Tomorrow morning, was I going to head over to Queens and issue some dumb kid a speeding ticket, or walk into Chief Cole’s office and demand what I want?
As I tore the sheet of paper in half, the tip of my finger sliced open a little, the red of my blood staining the case file.
I made my choice there and then, in that drunken, fucked-up stupor. I could only hope I didn’t feel quite as courageous when I woke up in the morning, hungover and alone.
The rest of my night was filled with vivid fever dreams and cold sweating, my mind racing even in my state of half-sleep.
When I woke up, courage wasn’t exactly what I was feeling – more like unbearable sickness and disorientation. It took me a few minutes to even realize I’d woken up on the floor.
I decided I ought to go for the timeless remedy known as a glass of cold water. I brought it to my lips with the intent of delicate sipping, but my wrist jolted and washed the water down my throat in absolute desperation.
Straw-like hair dangled in front of my eyes as I caught a glimpse of my disheveled face in the mirror. Somehow I looked worse than I felt. I stumbled over to my desk chair and groped the pockets of my jacket. When I flung the thing upside down, cents and quarters clattered to the ground.
Then I found what I was looking for: the black metal container holding my supply of magick beans. A now limited supply, I shook the container around to find there were barely any left.
I dropped a pellet into my palm then held it underneath the sunlight leaking through my blinds. The multicolored shimmer of the bean never fails to mesmerize me, like I’m a baby quickly escaping some state of despair upon the sight of its crib mobile. I threw the bean down my throat along with the last of the water, clicking my neck, taking a deep breath and exhaling sharply as the burning sensation instantly started to grasp at my chest.
A minute passed and I felt like a new man, or at least as much as my system would allow. My temperature dropped and my vision cleared, the walls of my apartment beginning to shift and take on a more transparent form. Without trying, I heard various conversations and sounds throughout the building. I honed in on one or two for a few seconds – nothing to do with being some tattler; it’s just a good way to adjust my senses.
I turned back to the mirror and brushed my hair out of my face. I looked my age again, not two decades above it. My blue eyes, although unnaturally glimmering a little because of the magick coursing through my veins, had life to them again, and my skin actually appeared to belong to that of a living person.
My use of this stuff is hardly a secret, especially to the others in the force, including my superiors. I usually try to take it in private to avoid the gawking of my peers, who find the whole situation fascinating, and are usually the ones trying to nudge me into telling them all about the day I got my nickname, ‘Jack of the Beanstalk.’ Moments like that more often than not end with me providing a dismissive expletive and moving to the next room.
As far as I can tell, officers like Chief Cole don’t tend to care about my almost daily and illegal use of this substance, provided I don’t use it to intervene in sensitive cases or, I don’t know, harvest valuable and compromising information on people like him. Not that he would have any way of knowing. You don’t need to channel sense-enhancing magick to dig up the dirt on the Chief Coles of the world, anyway. They can’t bury every grim scandal or malfeasance-ridden story that comes out about them. The truth is, they don’t need or want to because there aren’t enough people in this city who care, so they don’t need to invest the time and effort to lie.
I thought back to the ogre in the alley last night. He cared, he knew. But that wasn’t enough.
With the effects of the magick bean now really kicking in, I put on a change of clothes, checked and holstered my Glock 19, and left the apartment, jogging down the wooden stairs to the ground floor so swiftly, I was almost floating.
When the magick beans take such a hold of you, staying grounded isn’t the easiest thing. I’d need confidence and sharpness to confront Cole, but boiling over into blind arrogance and aggression was very much in the cards if I was careless.
I took my cruiser and made my way down Central Park West. It was pretty hot out, especially for fall, and barely a cloud in sight. Only the orange leaves of the trees either side of me and the glimmer of skyscrapers disrupted the vast blue of the sky. The streets, as usual, were swarming with taxis, people, creatures, angels, and demons. More demons than angels, most likely.
I tuned into my senses, looking out for a street that might be a little less chaotic and a little more traversable. There wasn’t one.
A side effect of ingesting a mysterious and magickally engineered bean, which elevates your senses to the point where you can literally feel another person’s heartbeat, is an excruciating and tormenting sense of restlessness.
After taking a few deep breaths and managing to subdue some of the hundreds of sounds and scents threatening to turn me insane, I switched on the red and white emergency lights hanging above the dashboard, blue ones at the rear window. The siren blared a few times and the traffic slowly but surely edged to the sides, just enough that I could sail through. It’s illegal, but I was probably just about the only person on that street at risk of going deaf to New York chatter and traffic – although no doubt half the population of the city would claim otherwise.
When I made it through the worst of the obstruction, I let out a huge breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding in. My body relaxed and slumped into the car seat. Different voices and vibrations whirled past my ears, the same way traffic does on a highway with the windows down.
When I noticed how close I was to the station now, I realized there wasn’t exactly a planned speech in my head, no specific case to make before the chief who’d been purposely steering me clear of the investigation I wanted.
I shrugged it off. Something was gonna come up.
I turned into the parking lot and parked the cruiser, the sky now gray, matching the dull appearance of the NYPD headquarters. The adrenaline shooting around my body needed to be tempered a little, so I took out my flask of bourbon from the glove compartment and swigged. Whatever ancient order or clan or mage that came up with these beans probably never intended for them to be mixed with liquor, but I’m innovative.
With the magick and its effects more muted, I headed for the sliding doors of HQ. And thank the gods I did get the magick under control because inside it was deafening. Officers and detectives shot around in all directions, waving around files and papers, yelling and cursing. Receptionists attempted to deal with angry and despairing phone calls in vain, lieutenants barking orders to various officers all around the lobby.
Everything in the place was painted white or gray, dented steel cabinets lined almost all the walls, and houseplants that had been dead for months sat in broken vases. It was humid and muggy, a smell of salt and fish haunting the air, and now I really was regretting taking the bean.
I plugged my ears with my fingers, which only slightly muffled the frantic yammering. For a split second, I had the naivety to think maybe the commotion was to do with the multitude of missing people, the story finally breaking through, the incompetent force unable to bury everything any longer. But after focusing on a few of the conversations around the room and building, I heard nothing but trivial arguments and officers being yelled at – not for failings that had anything to do with the people of the city, but their shortcomings when it came to protecting the reputation of some politician, or how an officer might have shot down an innocent person or creature a little too recklessly.
I had to scoff.
Shifting myself through the onslaught of bodies, I made my way to the end of the room, toward the double doors that led to the elevators. People were practically bouncing off me, thanks to the magick in my veins. Without it, I’d have been stampeded.
When I got to the corridor, I slammed the door behind me, the rambling and yelling now just muffled, not silenced. I looked down, realizing my fists were clenched. My eardrums were banging inside my skull. I used the elevator ride as another chance to try and compose myself, but all I heard was crashing machinery. I caught myself murmuring, then growling.
The ping of the elevator screamed into my ears and I stepped out onto floor seven. Up here it was a different world entirely. I still heard the chaos of the station, but it was far away, obscured. Up here, I only really heard the clicking of keyboards and the passing traffic. In amongst it, I also heard the deep rumble of Chief Cole’s voice. It started to hush when I began walking forward. Like he already knew I was there.
The corridor was pretty impressive: wide and vast, its walls painted a blood orange. Plants and décor were placed symmetrically all the way down to the huge double doors at the end of the hallway, with blurred glass and ridiculously huge handles specially made for the grip of the descendant of a giant.
There is a path, Jack. I see it, through the haze, the fog, the sorrow, the fear. The demons you have to face, they are far from here.
Detective Jackson Slade is known as the Giantslayer, but he's a long way from the beanstalk that made his name and the small village he outgrew. In the mean streets of New York, his glory days are behind him. He might have been a good cop once but now he needs a drink and magick beans to get through the day. Until one night he's first on the scene to what looks like a suicide but soon becomes an investigation into missing girls, murder, and dark, twisted magic.
This is a really cool world to step into. It has characters from fairy tales in an urban fantasy setting with film noir vibes. If you've played The Wolf Among Us or Heavy Rain, I think you could really have fun with this book. It would also make a great game as there's a lot of mystery, action, and some really cool magic. I loved the heightened senses the magick beans gave Jack and how they tied into witchcraft and prophecies. I also think the Hatter's experiments added some extra darkness to the magic and hinted to more world-building in future books with Wonderland being somewhere to explore possibly?
So the setting and characters were definitely really interesting to me. Where I think this book missed the mark was in its pacing. The writing was immersive and had some great lines, but it's incredibly over-written. There was just too much detail. Every action, every thought, every sound or smell would be given to the reader. We'd get so many meaningless details in a scene that it would distract from the scene itself. Conversations would be similarly stretched out with so much back and forth before anything useful was said. Although the descriptions and dialogue match in with the world, they felt like overkill at times and made me lose focus on the actual story.
I also wasn't sold on the ending. I do appreciate that it's made super clear that this is a series so of course I'd expect to have some loose threads by the end, but I didn't get a lot of satisfaction from the big show down. Throughout the book there are hints of Jack's destiny and he himself gives this very cool line about how the giant made the mistake of underestimating him, but his role in the end is more of a To Be Continued moment. Which is fine that he has a bigger role to play in later books, but I would have liked to have seen him have a more significant moment in this one - he felt a little too much like a spectator towards the end.
Overall, I think this series has a lot of potential and it's highly imaginative but the story itself could have been a lot tighter if bigger edits had been made to the prose.