The Tongue Trade

Michael J. Martineck

Oct 2024 · EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

About this ebook

Discover the Dangerous Power of Words.

In the not-too-distant future, humanity's ability to communicate has fractured, creating a labyrinth of professional jargons so dense that only specialists like William Kirst, Private Interpreter, can unravel them.

Kirst is a linchpin in a society where understanding is a luxury, and secrets are the norm. His routine existence is shattered when he becomes entangled in a murder investigation, a crime spoken in a language of bullets and blood.

As an interpreter sworn to confidentiality Kirst is bound by an oath that puts his life in jeopardy and his morals in shackles. The more he uncovers, the deeper he's edged into a conspiracy where language, as a weapon and a prison, pushes him closer to a dark truth.

The Tongue Trade is a riveting exploration of language, loyalty, and the lethal power of secrets. It questions the boundaries of ethical duty and the price of silence in a fragmented world.

Where words are the ultimate currency, silence can be lethal.

Ratings and reviews

The concept and the deriving social landscape is very interesting and thought-provoking. The story is well written and I would say it belongs to imaginative crime fiction, if such genre could exists. Nevertheless the threads underlying the narrative are very thin and sometimes the author really has to stretch them too much to make them fit the premises. The result is, in my humble opinion, not always pleasant nor successful (hence the my choice of ratings). Appropriate only for keen linguists.

About the author

I started writing stories when I was twelve and I can promise you I'm WAY better now. Nothing but continuous improvement. I'm like a little, one-man Toyota factory, only for novels. Since 6th grade . . .

"the early 90s.  . . . Strange Horizons, Planetmag, Aphelion and a couple of other long-dead e-zines helped me out in 00s, along with The Misspellers and The Wrong Channel, both books for middle readers and the like.

 . . . EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy published Cinco de Mayo, my first novel for adults, and finalist for the Alberta Reader’s choice Award. It was followed by The Milkman (which won an IPPY for best science fiction novel, and an Eric Hoffer finalist) and its sequel, The Link Boy.

. . . Our Little Secret Press recently published Untouchable, a cocktail of romance and crime with a dash of weird.

After 30 years in advertising, I currently teach English at two local colleges.