The Ville Volume 1: The Ville, #1.1

By Aaron Stephenson

Louisville community college professor Jared Longley had grown comfortable with his life and was excited to start a new chapter in love.  But a regular guy in everyday America getting to keep his seemingly mundane life is dependent upon the odds working as they normally do.  Odds are that one won't become intertwined with dangerous mobsters when performing, routine, everyday tasks.  But it does happen.  Jared discovers what happens when the odds work against him and dark forces work to rob him of the life he took for granted.

 

As he hides for his life from these mobsters, Jared must rely upon unlikely sources of assistance to scrap to get his life back.  He must grapple with who gets hurt and what gets lost along the way to save one's self…even if one deserves to be saved.  The first volume of the crime novel series The Ville looks at the fight that one man must put up to maintain an average American life and the toll that comes from this fight.

 

To be clear, this title is Part 1 of Volume 1.  There is something about the way that the system is set up that does not allow me to clearly mark this, so I want to be clear to all readers.   The full volume is also available. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aaron Stephenson
• Release date: Dec 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223586012

Book preview

Aaron Stephenson

Copyright 2023 by Aaron Stephenson

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Author’s Note

I am not big on the idea of forewords, prefaces, or (to some extent) introductions.  For the most part, I am fan of letting a book speak for itself.  But, I am going to allow myself a brief moment to indulge in what I call pre-clarifications before you begin what I hope to be a highly enjoyable ride.

First, any time a story of any kind is created about a city, there is always a breakdown that occurs analyzing how accurately the author captures the particular city in question.  For readers of The Ville, you will likely find that in some ways this novel effectively captures what Louisville is and in some ways it does not.  That blend is intentional as this novel is simply some imagined version of Louisville, part real and part not...simply a version that seems ripe for storytelling.  Any events in the novel that are in settings based upon real places are for entertainment purposes only, and should not be viewed as representing the real life practices of these places.

Second, I discovered that certain moral questions arise when writing a crime novel.  I’m not simply talking about the existence of fictionalized violence itself.  Many regular, hardworking people are used to unwinding by binge watching their favorite crime shows (or perhaps binge reading their favorite crime novels).  I won’t get into psychological analysis about the impact of violence in entertainment.  It is likely that most of us can separate real and fictionalized violence.  But there was one thing that did stick in my craw a bit more when creating this novel...It became apparent that in creating villains, at times you have to create innovative ways for them to do terrible things.  It has been my goal in writing this novel to create interesting villains, so I have attempted such innovation.  My end goal in creating innovative criminal wrongdoing is simply entertainment—the last thing I want it to serve as is inspiration for any wrongdoing.  This statement is my way to make peace with putting criminal thoughts out into the ether...and hoping that they are simply received as the source of entertainment that they are intended to be. 

Finally, I have been fortunate to hear that those who have read the book thus far have enjoyed it.  However, one observation that they did make is that it was difficult to pin down the protagonist’s personality.  They felt that his behavior and thought processes were inconsistent.  Readers believed that they could describe who the book’s other characters were in a cohesive manner, but not the protagonist.  This was an observation that I did think about quite a bit, but ultimately I realized that this confusing version of him is who this character is.  Many writers come to know their characters and come to see deep inside of them.  This protagonist is an interesting mix of genuine and grounded, but also being one of those people in the world who can not be easily understood, even by himself.  Thus, if you are confused by the protagonist then you are probably reading him correctly.

All things considered, I hope you will be entertained by this little yarn I have spun that I have called The Ville.  It’s always a bit presumptuous to boast about one’s work, but since I have decided to create a brief, foreword-like section, this is the place where I’m supposed to do my sell.  It is my hope that you find this book to be fun journey...One that is rich, visceral, character-driven, with snappy and strong dialogue, suspenseful, something that makes you think, and a romp that interweaves hard questions about life into its narrative.  Thank you for reading the first volume of The Ville, which will be the first of many deep dives into this little world.

Chapter 1

Jared Longley was a community college professor.  There was nothing particularly special about his life, but it was comfortable and a life that he enjoyed and valued.  For the year 2020, he was a bit of a throwback.  He drove a 1994 Volvo that he had refurbished, with a meticulous royal blue paint job.  It’s not a car that was typically considered a classic.  But there was something about the boxiness, the barred seats and that sachet-pattern grill on the front end that did something for him.  It reminded him of a simpler time, but was also a very casual status symbol during that simpler time.  It was the kind