Azure Blues

By John E. Douglas

A hilarious tale of life, love and travel. Set against the beautiful backdrops of Capri, Sicily and Venice, one man experiences a series of adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326596903

John E. Douglas

John Douglas is the legendary FBI criminal profiler and former Chief of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit where he researched, investigated, and conducted interviews of some of America’s most violent criminals. Over the past half-century, he either directly worked on or had overall supervision in over 5,000 violent crime cases. He is one of the foremost experts of the criminal mind, its methods, and motivations. Douglas is a veteran of the United States Air Force and holds a doctorate degree in Education, and lives with his wife, Pamela, in the Washington, DC, area.  

Book preview

Azure Blues

Azure Blues

by

John Douglas

Chapters.

Now.

An unwelcome arrival.

Capri.

Sicily.

Venice.

Two months later.

Downfall.

NOW

She fucking hates me. Fact, spot on, 100% cast iron fact. How am I aware

of this?. Easy, the letter from her solicitor now laying crumpled on the

kitchen table amongst the remnants of several days of take-aways, seems a

dead give away . Adultery with an unnamed female it claims. Rubbish. It

was a slight slip up caused by a minor mid-life crisis. Lets be honest if she

hadn’t gone off gallivanting all over Europe it wouldn’t have happened. So

if blame to be apportioned then she’s got to take some responsibility. I mean

what was I suppose to think, when she went swanning off to Italy with some

toy boy called James , whilst there I was at home with conveyor line of

microwave Korma curries and the cat licking it’s backside.

Regrets, I don't believe in them. When I was a small lad and miserably

trudging off the football pitch following yet another crushing defeat, my

father would chide me.

' There is no point crying over spilt milk' he would declare sage like. This is

from a man who spent his life in a betting shop, bemoaning his bad luck.

The fates were always conspiring against him. Jockeys who didn't know

their business, crocked horses and unscrupulous trainers.What really got me

was that he owned the bloody betting shop. No, I'm not one to lay the blame

anywhere, particularly at my door. My life was uprooted, shaken and thrown

on the scrapheap, by a heady cocktail of jealousy, exaggerated ego and

sordid sexual adventures. Which all came together in one mad week and

shattered my idyllic existence.

' Crying over spilt milk'. Of course I bloody am. We all go through life

dodging the slings and arrows of outragous fortune, which are constantly

destroying other people's lives, hoping to remain unscathed. Unfortunately

for me, through my own stupid actions I was struck by an inter-continental

ballistic sized arrow and buried in the ground like a tack.

So now I've ended up as a forty five year old, father of three, owner of a

successful haulage company, on the verge of a divorce and I can tell you, it's

no fun. Married men who dream of living alone are deluding themselves. It's

not constant partying, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful, willowy blondes

desperate to clean your house between mind blowing sex marathons. In

reality youv'e become a social leper, invited occasionally to old friends for

barbeques, but forget dinner parties. The wives want to keep it to couples

( boy, girl, boy, girl ) unless they have a girlfriend whose been on the shelf

for the past thirty years, due to halitosis and a tendacy for bunny boiling. Or

worse, women whose husbands have recently left them and are desperately

searching for an emotional life raft. They can all fuck off, this lifeboat is full

to capacity carrying me, there's not even room for a little one. As for the

husbands, in their eyes you've become a lone preditory lion seeking a new

harem, willing to muscle in on another's pride and displace them.

What I can't understand is, if they long so much for this idyllic dream of a

single life, why are they so bothered if somebody steals their wives. They've

been married so long that they forgotten the boredom of being on your own.

Where's the enjoyment in cooking for one and retiring to an empty bed. You

end up eating ready cooked meals and starting an argument with the

television for the sake of conversation.

I've been recently latched onto by my nephew Liam. He's going through a

divorce and considers himself a soul mate, a band of brothers fucked up by

women. Thats what the idiot thinks, the moron. I was married for twenty

two years and his wife sprinted off after about twenty two minutes. Well it

was a bit longer than that, about a month, until he discovered that she had

been around the track more times than a greyhound and had laid on more

balls than Frank Lampard.

So recently I've been dragged on an endless series of sleazy nightclubs,

quietly nursing gin and tonics in dark corners, whilst Liam danced and

frantically tried to pull any female who showed the slightest interest. In fact,

it doesn't worry him if they're completely disinterested, he's hoping to catch

them during a moment of weakness. All I ever end up with is damaged

eardrums from the music and a raging hangover, whilst artfully avoiding

any contact, if possible, with the badly dressed Harpies who populate the

club's interior like a swarm of sharks waiting to encircle a lone male and

move in for the attack. Last night I was accosted by a five foot vision of

ugliness, dressed in the standard ' little black dress' with scuffed stilettos.

' Ello my names Naomi Campbell ' the decrepit munkin informed me in her

Thames estuary accent. Apart from the lack of height, folds of white fat

erupting from her stomach and black roots cascading from her proxide hair,

I was almost completely fooled. I lowered my glass and stared earnestly into

her eyes until a glimmer of hope appeared on her face.

' Fuck off '.

I'm now on my second black coffee, downing aspirin like Smarties and

vowing to tell Liam to fuck off next time he suggests going out. The

morning's newspaper is laying beside Kate's solicitors letter on the kitchen

table, so I fruitlessly endeavour to crack the crossword, before admitting

defeat and accepting that I am clueless about the capital of Outer Mongolia.

A sound of footsteps on the stairs brings me back to reality and I'm

desperately fumbling in the kitchen draw for a carving knife to defend

myself ( which is stupid, because I know it must be in the dishwasher and

than hasn't been emptied for the past week), whilst expecting to be

confronted by a masked intruder weilding an axe and intent on decapitating

my head from the rest of my body. As the footsteps reach the hallway, I'm

firmly gripping a teaspoon, gratefully retrieved from the overflowing sink,

and holding it out in a desperate effort to ward off any blows from the

expected axe. A sense of relief sweeps over me when into the kitchen walks

a short female wearing my dressing gown.

' Any chance of a coffee ?'.

' I'll just stick the kettle on Naomi ' I reply reaching across the sink and

silently vowing to lay off the booze for a while

SIX MONTHS AGO

I’m sitting in the Red Lion nursing a pint of real ale, the watery liquid

resting on the counter before me. I don’t even like the stuff, it’s got all the

strength of Dale Winton in a rugby scrum, but its the only beer that Robert,

the Innkeeper sells. The pub is empty of people but full of shit. There's a

two foot high carving of Tin Tin skiing on the counter next to a gallon

bottle of scotch collecting for sick kids, or rather not collecting as no

bastard puts any money in it, due to the Innkeepers habit of emptying it for

change and to produce a note to replace the vanishing pile of coins.      

On a table is a collection of cookery books and numerous empty wine

bottle gathering dust . The labels are all quality ones, Châteaux Julian,

Châteaux Lafette, which is strange as Robert only sells Châteaux Shit,

procured all the way from the local supermarket. The place is piled high

with Junk, posters from circus's which disbanded thirty years ago, a New

Years party for 1989, ancient pitch forks jostle for space with mounted

stuffed fish, whilst overhead amoungst the nicotine stained hops, copper

pots and kettles are hiding, waiting like Japanese snipers to brain any

unwary