Yok is the final novel of the pseudonymous Swedish Davys’ “Mollison Town quartet”. The first three, Amberville, Lanceheim, and Tourquai, were reviewed here in January 2012. Each is set in one of Mollison Town’s four districts.

The quartet is unique among adult anthropomorphic fiction in featuring living plush animals, not the standard humanized “real” animals. Davys has established a complex history and biology for them (see the previous review for details).

HarperCollins/Harper, July 2012, hardcover $22.00 (368 pages), Kindle $7.99. [Translated by Paul Norlen]

Author Dawn Kravagna has released Murderous Critters, her first collection of Cattle Capers ™ mystery stories on-line at Smashwords. “Murderious Critters is a trio of outrageously funny mystery short stories, the first collection in a series featuring the zany comic animal characters from the world of Cattle Capers ™. A killer magician, rogue dinosaur skeletons, and roaming gunslingers are no match for bovine Master Detective Adam Steer and his goofy sidekick Crazy Cal.” The stories here include “The Magician’s Trick”, “The Dino Sore Mystery”, and “The Moontana Murders”, as well as the extra short story “Whopper Fish”.

image c. 2013 Dawn Kravagna

Furry artist Mitch Beiro has been sentenced to ten years in prison and lifetime probation, after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor under fifteen. The charges relate to his arrest in October 2012, following a police investigation into the sharing of child sexual abuse images via peer-to-peer Internet networks.

There’s no way we could describe the new graphic novel District 14 any better than the publisher, Humanoids Inc., did in Previews magalog: “Follow Michael the elephant as he arrives to the city known as District 14, a labyrinthine metropolis where humans, animals and aliens all co-exist.  A unique anthropomorphic mystery with an intricate plot and a fantastic cast of characters, this incredible French series is finally making its way across the Atlantic.” It’s written by Pierre Gabus and illustrated in black & white by Romuald Reutimann, and it’s coming out in hardcover this January.

image c. 2012 Humanoids Inc

Furry artist Mizzyam, also known as MisterNivens and Amarimasi, has been arrested after a month-long Internet child-pornography investigation.

Known in the real world as Michael Shalapata, the 24-year-old resident of Hamilton, Ontario was taken into custody on November 1 by members of the Ontario Provincial Police Child Sexual Exploitation Unit and the Hamilton Police Service Internet Child Exploitation Unit.

Shalapata was charged with "making child pornography available and two counts of possession of child pornography". Four computers and "other items" were seized.

Two fursuits, built by Temperance of Komickrazi Studios, have appeared in a music video for Australian heavy-metal band "DZ Deathrays". The video, for the song "Cops Capacity", depicts two anthropomorphic German Shepherds in police uniforms, abusing their authority.

Calgary-based costumer Temperance was contacted in mid-August and commissioned to build the 'two "Angry looking" German Shepherds who were going to get into lots of trouble'. Despite being given only a week to complete the task, Temperance was excited by the idea of her work appearing in a music video, and filled the order for the partial suits (handpaws, heads and tails), which were sent to the Hayes Brothers Studio in New York City for filming.

Old-school furry artist Mitch Beiro has been arrested after police found that files depicting the sexual exploitation of minors had been shared online from his home.

Beiro, 47, worked as a guard for a security company in Tucson, Arizona. In the furry fandom, Beiro's artwork has been published in Huzzah, Wild, and several other publications. A frequent attendee of furry conventions, he was a guest of honor at ConFurence 11 (2000), and married Minerva Mink at a joke wedding during ConFurence 12.

Tucson detectives started an investigation on Beiro in December 2011, as part of a wider investigation into the online sharing of child sexual abuse images via peer-to-peer internet networks.

The police served a search warrant on his home on October 3, and found "various computer related items, which contained thousands of files depicting the sexual exploitation of minors". He is being charged with 15 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.

During the investigation, detectives also found that he was part of an unreported child molestation case in California.

Update (19 Feb): Mitch has been sentenced to prison and probation

Just after nightfall on Monday, July 16, Gemily West (Wolfgem) and her boyfriend Harison Long-Randall (Elden) were walking their four Australian Cattle dogs home from a visit to their local park in the Carmichael neighborhood of Sacremento, California, when they were struck by a drunk driver. Witnesses reported that the light-brown Nissan Maxima was driving with no lights on (including tail lights), when the accident occurred. Police could find no evidence of skidmarks or any other sign that the perpetrator attempted to slow down, and estimated that the driver was going around 80 miles per hour when he struck the victims and fled the scene.

As reported in the Sacramento Bee, 21-year-old Hari saw the car coming just a moment before it struck and threw himself in front of his girlfriend, Gemily. He took the force of the impact, which severed one of his legs just below the knee and left him with extensive internal damage as well as other broken bones. Gemily sustained a compound fracture in her lower right leg. All four of their beloved dogs, Zury, Winry, Evie and Bindie, were slain.

Update (29 July): Hari has now died of his injuries, two weeks after the crash

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. The charge? Illegally withholding documents that the House had lawfully subpoenaed regarding an ATF program gone berserk.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Fast and Furious operation itself – which began under the Obama presidency and thus was ultimately overseen by Eric Holder and which involved supplying Mexican drug cartels with weapons without so much as consulting the Mexican government – was an ill-conceived failure, so poorly planned as to border upon the absurd. This much, the administration has acknowledged. But what they seem to want to cover up is, who knew what and when did they know it?

After thirty years, it turns out, yes, dingoes really did eat that baby. At least that was the finding of Australian coroner Elizabeth Morris today, as quoted by the New York Times: "The cause of her death was a result of being taken by a dingo."

The bizarre disappearance from Ayer’s Rock of infant Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 led to her mother, Lindy, being convicted of murder in 1982, despite Lindy’s claims that dingoes had killed the baby. When Azaria’s jacket was found four years later near dingo dens, however, Lindy was released. Finally, this year, a fourth inquest was taken.

This is becoming unbearable...

A bear has been implicated in the discovery of human remains on a remote logging road in British Columbia. The body has been positively-identified as convicted murderer Rory Nelson Wagner (aged 53, of Kamloops, BC). It is currently unknown what the cause of death was, but the BC Coroner has ruled out suicide.

Hunters first came across the remains after discovering Wagner's abandoned Volkswagen Jetta sedan on the road, and later discovered his buried and partially-consumed body.

Alan Berlin, known in the furry community as Alan T. Panda, has been sentenced to six to twelve years in prison. In May, he had been convicted of trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy.

Through online chats, Berlin had attempted to arrange a meeting with the boy, with the aim of having sex in a shed in the boy's back yard. During sentencing on Tuesday, Berlin stood by his claim that he did not know that the boy was a juvenile, and thought that he was chatting with "another adult furry who was pretending to be a juvenile dolphin".

Judge Todd A. Hoover countered that Berlin was lying, and that it was "evident from the sado-masochistic (chats)" that Berlin knew the boy was underage. Hoover ordered Berlin to serve eight years on probation after completing his prison sentence, which begins on June 8. He must also register with police for life as a sex offender.

During his court appearance, Berlin stated that he had "given up his furry role-play". Defense attorney William T. Tully said he would discuss with Berlin the possibility of an appeal.

Alan Berlin, known in the furry fandom as Alan T. Panda, has been convicted of trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy. [Skirtandzy/WikiFur]

Berlin, a fursuiter, babyfur, and "daddyfur/caretaker with a cub side", first made the news in 2009, when, on May 28, he was arrested on charges of propositioning an underage boy over the Internet. After the boy's parents found sexually explicit messages on his computer, they contacted the Attorney General's Child Predator Unit; two days later, Berlin was arrested.

The “Mollisan Town quartet”, by pseudonymous Swedish author Tim Davys, is (are?) four hard-boiled complex crime thrillers, each set in one of Mollisan Town’s four districts, with a stuffed-animal cast. Hey, if regular animals can be anthropomorphized, why not plushies?

“Amberville” (February 2009); hardcover $19.99 (343 pages), Kindle $8.99.
“Lanceheim: A Novel” (June 2010); hardcover $21.99 (371 pages), Kindle $9.99.
“Tourquai: A Novel” (February 2011); hardcover $19.99 (325 pages), Kindle $9.99.

The first three novels were published by Albert Bonnier Förlag in Stockholm in 2007, 2008, and 2010, and published in English by HarperCollins one or two years later; all three are translated by Paul Norlen. The concluding novel, Yok, is scheduled for July 2012.

Blake T. Sanderford, known as Xanth in furry fandom, was arrested last Wednesday for "crimes against nature and aggravated cruelty to animals" after posting an online video of himself sexually molesting a dog. [FoxTrotFever/furrydrama_2]

Sanderford, a resident of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, was arrested January 18 after State Police received a complaint about the video. He remained in jail on Thursday on a $11,000 bond.

Sanderford's computers were seized for further investigation; his dog was taken into the care of the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter.

Update (25 Jan): Insane Kangaroo reports contacting the shelter, who said the dog had been transferred to a foster home. When asked whether she would be put down, they replied "we don't put down animals which are the victims."

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