Jim Murray's Story Inventory

The following are outlines of my finished stories, I have divided them

into several different areas to keep them all organized.

1. NOVEL

2. STANDALONE STORIES SET IN CANADA

3. STANDALONE STORIES SET IN THE US

 4. TWO-PART STORIES  5. TRILOGIES  

7. FOUR-PART SERIES  7. SCI-FI STORIES

1. NOVEL

LILLI'S LOST & FOUND

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/08/lillis-lost-found.html

Lilli’s Lost & Found is the story of Lilli Braithwaite and Ethan Thomas and the life they shared. Lilli is a writer. Ethan is a software designer. They meet in the middle of New York City, fall in love and carve out a life together. Along the way, they meet up with Delbert Fry, a rich Texan who, like Lilli and Ethan, want to wake the world up to the increasing threat to humanity that the fossil fuel industry represents. Lilli’s idealism draws her into his idea and together the three of them, each in their own way, work to try and make a difference. This is primarily the story of the life of a writer. In this case, a writer whose journey was not the climb from rags to riches, but the quest to put the time her wealth has given her to good use, to create a life worth living and maybe even change the world for the better.

2. STANDALONE STORIES SET IN CANADA

THE LOCKER KEY 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-locker-key.html

Jake Morrison is a well-known syndicated newspaper TV review columnist and a radio personality for an ‘all-guy’ station and likes his life just fine. But Jake has no idea what he’s stepped in when he meets up with an old school friend who gives him a locker key to hold and it very quickly turns his whole life upside down. Because the contents of the locker is something that can make whoever owns it extremely powerful. And Jake is just a regular guy who is standing in the way of all that. But with a little help from a new friend, he can get through this mess. He hopes.

BLIND SIDE OF THE HEART

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/08/blind-side-of-heart.html

Tony Shaw, a famous mystery writer, was blinded in a car accident. Today, he is just starting to turn the corner off self-pity street, with the help of his wife Olivia and a young friend. But things get complicated when Tony starts investigating the life of a mysterious new neighbour. If he doesn’t do the right thing, it could cost him his marriage and his life. A lot to ask of a blind man.

THE BROTHERS BOTTICELLI

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-brothers-botticelli.html

The three Botticelli brothers Harry, Angelo and Lou, are anything but private eyes. But when their dad’s final wish was to find and punish whoever killed him, they really have no choice. The cops think it was nothing but a tragic accident, but the brothers know better. So they team up to figure it out. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, they start to see that there is something dark at work here, quite literally a blast from the past.

THE PASSION OF JOHNNY VALLONE

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-passion-of-johnny-vallone.html

Johnny Vallone is a writer for a crime story publication and a would-be novelist. Through a cousin of his, he wangles an invitation to a drug party where he meets and is very attracted to the dealer’s woman. She is attracted to Johnny as well, because she is trapped in a loveless relationship with the dealer. Together they work out a plan to get her free from him. But Johnny has never done anything quite like this before, and the last thing he wants to do is mess it up, because that would mean certain death for both of them.

A LITTLE RAY OF HOPE

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-little-ray-of-hope.html

Phillip Winslow and Jenny Stone met each other quite by chance at a Starbucks in Toronto. Phil had been drifting around trying to figure out what to do with his life and Jenny was a singer, working mostly for the advertising business. Phil was very rich, Jenny not so much. But they were attracted to each other, Over time they came to understand that Phil was really interested in becoming a lyric writer or poet and Jenny a songwriter and singer. This is the story of how this all came together and turned into a reality for both of them, with a few bumps along the way. 

3.  STANDALONE STORIES SET IN THE US 

HURRICANE SEASON

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/11/hurricane-season.html

Ryan Gamble had a great 10-year run at the top of the album charts and concert stage, which made him very wealthy. But he was sidelined by inoperable nodes, which brought his performing career to a standstill. After a year and a half of isolation, he decided to pay it forward and develop a new singer that he had heard about from a friend. This is the story of how he goes about doing this, and how the project almost got derailed just as it was getting started. 

AKA CHARLIE MCQUEEN 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/aka-charlie-mcqueen.html

Charlie McQueen, a mathematical genius and sports gambler, is on the run from a mobster he used to work for in New York. He settles down in a small town in Maine and starts an online sports book there. Everything is going fine until one day, someone shows up looking for him, leaving Charlie with just two options: either pack up and run or, with the help of a good friend, get the issue resolved once and for all and get his life back.

THE AMANDA PROJECT

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-amanda-project.html

Jeremy Sand has an AI project, called Amanda, that he designed and used to get his Master’s degree at MIT. Jeremy’s dad, Jordan, is an industrial spy with enough capital to fund the final development of his son’s AI program. Jeremy had his pick of blue-chip digital companies to work for but instead chose to work with his dad, secretly determined to get him out of the criminal world and get his program launched successfully.

INTO THE HEAT

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/into-heat.html

Bobby Granger, one of the US Special Forces’ sharpshooters, thought he was finished with that life. After his military career ended, he was working as a fashion photographer in New York. But one day Bobby’s past caught up with him. An old associate needed him to photograph an illicit arms deal taking place in the Bahamas. Bobby doesn’t realize it at the time but saying yes to the job will substantially change his life in a couple of different ways.

FRANKIE CARLINO'S LEGACY 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/08/frankie-carlinos-legacy.html

Frankie Carlino, a retired hitman for a Chicago crime family, is well hidden in the witness protection program, in New Haven Connecticut. One day he gets an idea for a legacy project and hires a young writer named Ryan Bixby to help him. But there are a few things he needs to take care of at the same time. Including holding onto the money he stole from his former employer, a finder who is on his trail and a crooked US Marshall who knows exactly where to find him.

SENOR MICKEY FARRELL

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/10/senor-mickey-farrell.html

Mickey Farrell, is a high school graduate, wannabe writer and a pretty good auto mechanic from Madison Wisconsin who is out to see America and gain some life experience that will help make him a better writer, which is his real passion. In central California he helps out an older man stranded with car trouble and ends up working for him on his massive grape and fruit growing property. He eventually falls in love with the old man’s granddaughter, becomes part of the family, and soon finds out that he has to grow up much faster than he ever imagined he would. 

THE MIKALOV CASE

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-mikalov-case.html

Dale Hogan, a US State Department operative, has blown a major assignment. He had been assigned to safely move a Russian defector, a  scientist named Anatoly Mikalov, to Washington for debriefing, in return for political asylum. But something goes very wrong and Dale, with help from his dad, Jim, a former State Department agent himself, has a strange mystery to solve in order to both salvage his freedom and preserve the balance of power in the world.

DEACON LOVES PENNY

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/deacon-loves-penny.html

Deacon Fredericks is 22 years old and a US Marine veteran, who has just moved to Virginia Beach and is waiting for his 23rd birthday when he will inherit more seven million dollars that was left to him in his grandmother’s will. One day, he meets a girl named Penny Jones, who is a recent Virginia Tech graduate with a big AI idea. All she needs is about five million dollars to actualize it. After she explains it to Deacon, he makes the decision to partner up with her and get her idea developed. This is a story about two smart young people who work their way to the top of the AI business in a very short span of time, all of which was made possible by Deacon’s millions.

JULIET’S GIFT 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/10/juliets-gift.html

Juliet (Jules) Deacon has a gift. She has the intuitive ability to unlock things. Whether it’s a school locker, a password-protected bank account or almost anything in between. Jules discovered this talent very early on, and kept it to herself until, in her early twenties, she fell in love and eventually teamed up with Travis Dupree, a young thief working with an art dealer in New Orleans, breaking into the homes of very wealthy private art collectors. Jules and Travis started out simply working to get rich and have a good life with each other. But as they travel that road together, they ultimately realize that Jules’ gift is worth much more than they ever imagined.

TED’S MILLIONS

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/01/teds-millions_22.html

Ted Phillips was a senior accountant in a blue chip firm in New York. But he was unhappy with his life and was starting to hate the city. One day, for some strange reason, he bought a Powerball lottery ticket. Three days later his life changed dramatically. It  was goodbye NYC, Hello Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with more than seven hundred million dollars in the bank. But he also left wit the idea to send a message to some of the more greedy clients he had worked wit h over the years. With the help of a new friend, he might be able to achieve that. But his overriding challenge was to simply to make the kind of life he wanted and figure out what the hell to do with all that money. 

THE HUMAN LEAGUE

 https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-human-league.html 

Recent MIT grads, Terry Moorehouse and Shawna Lennox are working to take Terry’s family marketing business, located in Plymouth Mass. into the AI world. They have a lot in common with each other, including a deep concern about the negative effect that unrestricted and unregulated AI is going to have on the world. And together they are determined to do something about it. The Human League is the company they form. It's dedicated to finding ways to keep AI from wreaking havoc on the world. And with a little help from some very important people, they just might pull it off.

   As Terry and Shawna are preparing to leave for DC to show their AI fake detection software to a special Congressional Committee on Cybercrime, Terry is asked to investigate a crime being perpetrated on a daughter of a wealthy businessman in Stamford Connecticut. This leads Terry on a mission to stop the extortion, which is not exactly what he signed one for, but something he is more than willing to do with the help of his team in Plymouth.

4. TWO-PART STORIES 

MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/maxwells-silver-hammer.html

Parker Nash and Victoria Desmond have been drawn together as the result of a mass shooting that claimed the lives of both their parents. Parker is a gifted computer genius, Victoria, or Tori as she prefers to be called, is a young writer. Together they devise a plan to seek retribution for their parents’ deaths and finally bring about some much-needed gun control legislation in the US. This is the story of how they go about achieving this.

MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER II

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/10/maxwells-silver-hammer-part-2.html

Having achieved a good deal of success in persuading the major weapons manufacturers to remove semi-automatic weapons from domestic markets, Parker and Victoria set their sights on a new target, the radical Republicans in Congress, who are doing their best to undermine the government. This time Parker has something new in mind, which he hopes will do the job. If not they always have their tried and true formula to fall back on. All the while FBI Cybercrimes Inspector Robin Pierce is starting to put things together from her end. This time, however, the pressure is coming from very high places.

5. TRILOGIES 

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES SERIES

1. THE JACKSON LYALL STORY

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-jackson-lyall-story.html

This is the story of Jackson Lyall, a former Marine Corps sniper who moves to Richmond, Virginia with a new identity and more than half a million in cash, which used to be jewelry, opium and hashish appropriated from the Taliban in Afghanistan. His aim is to become a photographer, which was a passion he picked up in his travels. Jackson meets up with a lady named Marlena Ross, whom he hires to help him market his photography business. But Jackson finds out the hard way that escaping his past is a lot trickier than he thought. He is recruited into a small clandestine group whose aim is to assassinate the leaders of some of the country's more radical right-wing groups. This a story of love, patriotism and a few secrets. All of Jackson's warrior skills, and some other talents he never knew he had, are put to the test.

2. THE JARRETT MORROW STORY

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-jarrett-morrow-story.html

Jarrett Morrow AKA, Ace was a British Special Forces sniper who spent six years killing Taliban. But since he went back into civilian life he had been feeling restless. A friend at 

MI-6 had a solution that would help him, and help Britain’s relationship with the US. With no hesitation Jarrett accepted the offer and headed off to America to satisfy his jones and do a spot of work for in infamous and nearly invisible Blue Fin Consulting (Killer Instinct).

3. THE COREY SIMMS STORY

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-corey-simms-story.html

With Jackson Lyall’s retirement from the group, and his desire to pursue a career 

in photography, the group needed to recuit a new shooter. They found him at a shooting competition in Charlotte North Carolina and skillfully indoctrinated him into the group, 

along with a second hacker, because this project needed to be letter perfect, 

because they would not have the ‘get out of jail free card that had earlier. And the targets 

would draw a great deal more heat than before.

6.  FOUR-PART STORIES

THE VIRGIN DETECTIVE SERIES

1. THE VIRGIN DETECTIVE

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-virgin-detective.html

Emil Haven IV genuinely dislikes being a Haven. He has spent most of his adult life doing
un-Haven-like things, yet still hoping to win, his industrialist father’s approval. A moderately successful writer of crime fiction, Emil decides that maybe his father would approve if he tackled a non-fiction story. In his quest to find a story, he stumbles across an organized crime caper that’s just what he was looking for. But it inevitably opens up a can of worms that Haven just might not be able to handle.

2. THE ARONSON CASE (A Virgin Detective Story)

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-aronson-case.html

Contractor and multi-millionaire, Edward Furlong is being blackmailed for twenty million dollars. Through his connection with Emil Haven’s father, he becomes the first client for the fledgling Botticelli & Haven Investigations. But this case is a little more complex than they imagined, due to the strange relationships involved. This story also introduces a new regular character by the name of Wiley Dupree, an ex-American hacker. 

This is the second story in the Virgin Detective Series.

3. REDFRED22 (A Virgin Detective Story) 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/12/redfred-22.html

A lawyer named Frederick Atwater, who has aspirations of being appointed a Supreme Court of Canada justice, hires Botticelli & Haven Investigations to ensure that no one hacks a site he created many years ago when he was a legendary hacker. The case is mostly in the hands of their cyber expert, Wiley Dupree. But when the Atwater’s site is hacked and the hackers are found murdered, it becomes a whole different kind of case, one that could easily turn out to be quite lethal for everyone at B&H Investigations.

4. A MONTH OF SUNDAYS (A Virgin Detective Story) 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-month-of-sundays.html

Haven’s father has asked himself and Gino to investigate a strange series of 

break-ins at houses on his street, The Bridal Path, which is some of the most 

expensive real estate in the city. Haven is too busy to work the case himself so he and Gino bring on a new investigator, a newly retired homicide cop named Phil Rosetti. They solve the case quite handily but as a result, it opens up a can of worms because the items being stolen were actually more illegal than the theft itself. 

7. SCI-FI STORIES

THE VISITOR 

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-visitor.html

PART I  Ezra & Cindy

The human name he chose was Ezra Birmingham. But he was not a human. He was an alien from a planet more than three light years from Earth. His mission here was to assess and lay the groundwork for an invasion. But his mission parameters changed once he actually arrived he saw the potential for the inhabitants of Earth to evolve and become not slaves but partners with the inhabitants of his world. But in order to make that happen, there were a few things to take care of. And with a little help from an earthling friend, he should be able to pull it off.

PART II The Best of All Possible Worlds

Ezra Birmingham had just cleared the Milky Way galaxy on his way back to his home world when he stopped. His home world had been destroyed and only 106 of his kind managed to escape in a bullet tube heading directly toward him. Once they were all on board his craft, he returned to earth and the woman he had left there three years earlier to start a new life with a much smaller Collective. Ezra was determined to help the world evolve into a peaceful paradise, and, with a little help from his Collective, the prospects for doing that looked very bright, with only a few obstacles to overcome.

A SHADOW ON THE SUN

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-shadow-on-sun.html

At some point toward the end of the 21st century, famous anime writer, Jake Sloane, started to get the feeling that he would soon be going through hell. First, he met a beautiful girl, then his whole cozy, entitled little world exploded. Finding himself the key player in a power struggle for world domination, Jake must deal with his true destiny, something he knows he must do, but isn’t looking forward to at all. A Shadow On The Sun is a tale about the future. Not sure it could be called science fiction though. Because the idea for this story came from events that are actually starting to take shape in the world in our own time. At its core, it’s a story about who controls the two most precious commodities in the world today 

which are water and energy.

WHEN I’M SIXTY FOUR

https://jimmurraysstories.blogspot.com/2024/02/when-im-sixty-four.html

Joe Maughn is a retired copywriter who needs spinal surgery for an E-Coli infection. After his surgery, he starts to notice a real change in his behaviour. He starts having vivid dreams and writing them out into three novels and one screenplay. Through an advertising buddy who was writing mysteries, he gets introduced to an agent/publisher who just loves his work. So at sixty-three, Joe is suddenly starting a second career, one which pays a lot more than his former one. The only thing that’s bothering Joe is just exactly where all these stories are coming from.