Dead Funny

By Jinx James

A comedy crime fest with dark humor and thrilling suspense!

A former celebrity is on a mission to grab the headlines once more. She'll do whatever it takes. A world-famous supermodel is hiding a dark secret. Can she manage to stay out of prison? A call girl loses the plot when she narrowly escapes a hit man. Killing her dream was not what obsessed fan Robyn ever intended, but fate got in the way. Wickedly funny and suspenseful, Dead Funny will make you laugh, gasp, and think twice about trusting anyone. The bodies mount up in this killer collection of short stories - four women, four dead bodies...well ok, five. Throbbing with dark humor and thrilling suspense, Dead Funny will have you laughing till it hurts, while looking over your shoulder in apprehension. Meet Annabel, Tayla, Anit and Robyn, four women with complicated lives, and see why Dead Funny was a big hit in a recent event celebrating "Laugh-Out-Loud-Whodunits"!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jinx James
• Release date: Sep 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645903140

Jinx James

Crime fiction author Jinx James was born in the UK, and lives in Australia. He has worked in music, advertising, and TV comedy. He has always been fascinated by charisma, satire, and what makes people laugh. That’s his usual way of looking at the world, but he is also intrigued by how his characters react when confronted by a terrifying dilemma, or a moment of confrontation. As he always says, it’s the characters that write the stories. They insist that their voices are heard. Today Jinx lives in a wine-growing area in regional Australia with his wife and two dogs. As Kit James, he also writes a humorous dog book series, Mutt to Megastar, starring Elliott, a wisecracking dog.

Book preview

Dead Funny

Jinx James

Published by Jinx James, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

DEAD FUNNY

First edition. September 28, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Jinx James.

ISBN: 978-0645903140

Written by Jinx James.

DEAD FUNNY

FOUR WOMEN, FOUR DEAD BODIES… WELL, OK FIVE

JINX JAMES

KIT JAMES PUBLISHING

CELEBRITY ROAST

Annabel’s Story

CHAPTER ONE

"A aaaaargh! Not her again. I’m sick to death of that stupid tart hogging the celebrity pages!"

A touch non-PC these days? Well, Ok… but that was still exactly what almost everybody used to say about Annabel Aviemore back in the day.

You couldn’t open a newspaper or magazine in Sydney during the Eighties and Nineties without seeing yet another picture of her plastered across the front page. And you could always count on her being in the throes of doing something idiotic at the time, too.

Annabel was the one making the most outrageous bids for overpriced society tat at Charity auctions. She was endlessly photographed in a state of haute couture undress. There she’d be, presenting a cheque from her filthy-rich industrialist hubby, Piers, to a grinning penguin-suited dork. Inevitably, during these photo-ops, Annabel would manipulate her huge, enhanced breasts to oh-so-nearly pop out of the strapless Givenchy gown she wore. And you could bet that the king’s ransom the dress had cost would be highlighted in the picture’s caption.

Hers was the collagen-stuffed face of pretty much everything awful about Eighties excess. Throughout that dizzy decade, Style-hound paparazzi frenetically snapped shots of her at event after event. Sydney watched on as Annabel eagerly frittered away Piers’ many fortunes almost as quickly as he could amass them.

Her purchases were invariably a grab-bag of that season’s ultra-fashionable crap. Instantly disposable silly clothes. Baubles, ludicrous accessories, and all kinds of implausible and patently useless knick-knacks. Every over-the-top item that caught her eye was fair game. No jewel was ever too expensive, and no dress too exclusive. Each trend, fashion or whim, however oafish, was jumped upon, posed in for the cameras, and then immediately discarded. Her complete disdain for, and disinterest in cost bordered on the criminally insane. Bucketfuls of coke were stuffed up her cute and extensively remodelled nose and gallons of bubbly were swilled by her and her legions of hangers-on.

Annabel cruised the decade and most of the next in an increasingly desperate search to find permanence in the public’s ever-fickle eye. What she needed and craved constantly was attention and fame. Plus, of course, a half-decent stud on the side to tide her over.

And during all this time, thanks to Piers’ Midas touch, money remained no object.

Annabel so enjoyed being a well-known Sydney personality. Perhaps it was just good fortune that a total lack of taste furnished the icing for her appearances, rendering so many of them unforgettable.

On the opening night of Aida at the Opera House, she showed up dressed as Cleopatra. Four sweating Nubians carried Annabel in on a litter, preceded by Esme, a rented circus elephant.

Sadly, Esme rather overshadowed that particular grand entrance by disgracing herself in the forecourt. But even worse was to follow. A sandal of one of Annabel’s slaves skidded in the hot elephant shit. He went arse-over-head and AA’s entire palanquin flipped, depositing the latter-day Cleo brusquely onto the tarmac, directly in front of the guffawing reptiles of the Press.

However, there was one iconic image of the Eighties for which she will justly be remembered. That was her classic pose astride the bonnet of a magenta-coloured Rolls-Royce, its Flying Lady mascot tastefully sticking out from her crotch. As one bitchy reporter gloated, That’s our Annabel! Always smiling to camera, with the most expensive, ten inches she could find stuck between her legs!

Which brings us to her notorious love affairs.

These ran the entire gamut of the rich and famous. TV Soap stars, high-profile lawyers, sportsmen, pop singers, politicians, film actors, you name it.

But then, in the Nineties, Annabel’s publicity profile began to wane. She became, dare we say, ‘less relevant to the times’.

Despite some of the best cosmetic surgery money could buy, those famous Aviemore knockers eventually began to sag, oddly enough in perfect synch with her career.

That was when Annabel’s desperation brought anybody she could find who was male, reasonably well-hung and willing into the frame for their feisty, fifteen minutes.

Ski instructors, personal trainers, plumbers, gardeners. They all had their shot, but sadly to no avail.

Even though all that sex made her feel a lot better, it still didn’t seem to solve AA’s underlying problem.

Her credo had always been simple. She lived and died for publicity. When Annabel saw her face in the mirror, she never saw the occasional, encroaching wrinkle. She only saw the star within; the star she’d always imagined herself to be. But this burgeoning lack of public adulation had nevertheless began to play on her mind.

Annabel’s hubby, Piers, was a business phenomenon; a money-making machine.

He’d somehow managed to be completely cashed up two-and-a-half hours before the Stock Market plummeted in ’87. Piers doubled his fortune by buying up everything in sight for two cents when the market hit the kitty-litter some three days later.

A jovial, genial man, seemingly unperturbed by his financial savvy, Piers exuded energy and bonhomie. Shadowed by Giles, his creepy, personal assistant, who stuck to him like shit to a blanket, Piers would flit from meeting to jolly meeting.

But as much cash as his fantastic business acumen and string of blockbuster deals ever generated, it was never enough. Annabel relentlessly Massey-Ferguson-ed through it. She made that dear old Imelda Marcos lady of yesteryear look like a novice nun in an Order dedicated to frugality.

AA’s eternal craving to be continually in the public eye cost Piers the GDP of a medium-sized Third World country.

But did the mogul ever complain? Or even perhaps gently suggest some slightly thriftier approach on her part?

Never!

On the contrary, Piers loved his wife being a star. He encouraged her, feeling that it gave him the room he needed to live his own vibrant life exactly the way he chose.

Because of his legendary largesse towards suppliers and regulators, the Australian Federal Police had long had Piers in their sights. For decades, he’d been right at the top of their list of targets for bribery charges.

And that appeared to be exactly the situation when Mr Aviemore invited Chief Inspector Murgatroyd, head of the Federal Anti-Corruption Task Force, codename Onslaught to lunch. Piers had even had the nerve to suggest Malvolios, Sydney’s most expensive restaurant!

On hearing the news, the entire squad had sprung into action. They couldn’t believe their luck. Every man jack of them was convinced they’d finally hit pay-dirt!

CHAPTER TWO

The private booth Piers had booked for their meeting had been so extensively bugged by the Feds that the restaurant’s burglar alarm kept going off for no apparent reason. Taskforce Onslaught had to discreetly negotiate with the management to make sure it was disconnected on that particular day.

The Chief Inspector made sure his most stylish suit had been dry-cleaned and let out. He needed to look his best for posterity. Alan Murgatroyd understood only too well the twisted humour of the constabulary. He naturally assumed that a selection of out-of-focus video excerpts of today’s lunch would feature endlessly on TV for years to come.

The two men met cordially in the restaurant lobby and exchanged business cards before being shown to their heavily monitored table by a suitably fawning waiter.

After some small talk, the meal had progressed with great courtesy and lots of genial chit-chat. Piers seemed genuinely humbled being in the presence of such an important senior police officer.

It wasn’t until some time after they’d ordered their desserts, plus a couple of glasses of Gewurztraminer, that the entrepreneur had got around to the subject of money.

‘Oh, before I forget,’ said Piers, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a large, thick envelope. ‘Here’s fifty thousand dollars that I’d respectfully like you to accept as a gift from me.’

He smiled and bowed his head deferentially.

In the unmarked Onslaught police van parked outside, all the lads’ jaws simultaneously froze. Open-mouthed and mesmerised, the entire team stopped munching their ham, cheese and pickle sandwiches. Various pairs of piggy eyes were by now glued to the screens that were recording this momentous event.

It was incredible! They had him. Piers Aviemore! The biggest name they’d ever nailed–and they’d caught him red-handed in the actual act! The brown manila envelope was about to be passed over to the boss on video!

Even the Chief Inspector was taken aback by the seemingly callous openness of it all.

‘You’re, um... offering me a bribe... just like that?’ he said, looking astonished.

In return, Piers flashed him back a look of genuine bewilderment.

‘A bribe?’ he said. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Chief Inspector. There must be some mistake.’

The financier looked mortified.

‘I hope you don’t mean