Robert Curreli - Stories of madness, mayhem and murder...

It's hard enough being a teenager without a talking bug harassing you.

Has Christopher Bennett lost his tortured teen mind? Or is the bug whose life he saved real? Unsure, he is drawn into a reluctant relationship with the inquisitive beetle and names him Billy.

Christopher questions his reality as he struggles to understand his life with the help of the wise yet odd Old Margaret, obliging ghosts, and, of course, the beetle who is intent on setting him in the right direction to become, as Billy says, a creature of great consequence.

Billy inflicts the boy with visions of his loathed sister-the narcissistic sister, Angela, AKA, Chicken Wing working at her new and profitable but dangerous job dancing at Doozie's, a mob-backed strip joint.

Christopher is determined to ignore these hallucinations and continue to shed his stubborn virginity with KC, the love of his life, until Angela becomes the kidnap target of Carlo Cuccini, a deranged lovesick hitman, and her best tipper.

Christopher and the Mystic Beetle or Creatures of Great Consequence is a zany coming-of-age story about a disillusioned boy and a curious beetle about to prove his truth and what it takes to be a creature of great consequence.

They're all trying to destroy him. But doesn't risking your life to save another's make you a hero?

Winston case is a regular guy who indulges in fantasies so wild and realistic they would make Walter Mitty jealous.

But his all-encompassing daydreaming turns treacherous fueling thoughts of suicide when he's arrested for conspiracy to murder Mike Russo, the man who laid him off from his job at Prahfetz Pharmaceuticals.

Baffled why anyone would even suggest he was involved in Mike's murder, Winston asserts his innocence and becomes obsessed with discovering the truth. With the aid of his exotic lawyer, Chao Arjwana, he navigates through the sludge of corruption surrounding his life.

The prospect of prison, financial collapse, and losing his beloved family preys on his already questionable sanity, leaving him a depressed, paranoid loony. But his irrepressible illusions spring him into devising a plan-a plan that surely will set the story straight and exact revenge on his enemies.

Often, though, plans go awry.

Christopher Bennett and Winston Case may be purchased from Amazon.

The new novel in progress...