Status Update

Howling at the Moon…

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This was the moon very early this morning over south Salem. A werewolf moon perhaps? But my “howling” was strictly in celebration. The contract I signed with Next Chapter Publishing last July is finally in process. This week they sent me the book description they will use on the back cover and in online promotions once the book is released. They asked for my approval, and I gave it both thumbs up. Here it is:

When psychiatrist Carter Lane inherits his best friend’s cases after his suicide, he’s thrown into the fractured world of Arthur Frampton: a patient with dissociative identity disorder whose presence triggers memories of a long-buried massacre known as the Hoffman Horror.

When Lane’s wife is murdered, he discovers that her death mirrors the gruesome details of the decades-old crime. Lane is convinced one of Frampton’s “alters” is responsible, but the detectives on the case have a different theory: Lane himself had motive and opportunity to commit the crime.

Now a man on the run, Lane races against time to clear his name while navigating the maze of false identities and repressed trauma. As the pieces fall into place, will redemption cost him everything?

A relentless psychological thriller, William J. Cook’s PERSONA explores the power of identity–and how the past never truly stays buried.

Needless to say, I am very excited. I expect to hear from their editors soon. Wish me luck! And I wish you all a kind and peaceful weekend.

A Writer’s Journey

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I have good news to report: I have signed a publishing contract with Next Chapter Publishing, an independent press, for my latest manuscript, Persona. Their Tokyo office will be publishing the ebook, paperback, and hardcover editions, and their London office will do the audiobook. In addition, they have agreed to re-release my last book, All the Bodies Do, so I have “unpublished” it from Amazon until they put it back in the editions noted above. Of course, I am absolutely thrilled about all this–thrilled as in OVER THE MOON!

It has been quite a trek, a dream of many years. Between those two books, I queried about 500 agents, but wasn’t able to convince anyone to take a chance with me. Next Chapter was willing to step forward, and I’ll put all the energy I can into making this a successful venture for them and for me. I have just finished sending them the full manuscripts, so I’m awaiting word from their editors about next steps. I’m guessing the whole process will take several months at least, if not longer, but it’s all new territory and I suppose anything can happen. I feel a little bit like those young Pinot Noir grapes in the picture above–I’m growing!

I have to thank all those who have supported me along the way, especially my wife Sharon and my daughter Julie. They were the ones who kept me trying in the face of rejection after rejection. Obviously, this is only the very beginning of a long procedure, but Julie tells me I have to celebrate every success along the way, and that sounds like good advice!

I’ll keep you posted.

Arriving Soon on Platform One…

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At last, the pre-order of the Kindle version of All the Bodies Do is available! Just click on the image above to shop now. Kindle and paperback editions will be published on June 28th. Until then, you can pre-order the Kindle one at the reduced price of $2.99. After its release, the price will be $5.99.

This novel has certainly been a labor of love, from doing research in Las Vegas, to the extensive exploration of the ins and outs of wine-making at Willamette Valley Vineyards. (Okay, my research included substantial wine-tasting, but I had to take one for the team!)

I must give a big shout-out to Jette Rainwater, Winery Ambassador at WVV, who didn’t turn me in to the FBI (thank goodness!) and did provide substantial help with vineyard and wine-making details. Also, kudos to Roslyn McFarland for cover design and creation. And hugs and kisses to my darling daughter Julie, who insisted that I write this story in the first place.

No, All the Bodies Do is not the next great American novel, but I think it is a fine entertainment, and I hope you will, too.

Happy Holidays!

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I don’t pray as much as I should. One brief prayer I manage as soon as I awaken each morning is: “Thank you.” I know the older one gets, the more precarious good health becomes, and I want to be aware of how good I feel this morning. Right now. Amen.

More good health: It’s such a pleasure to write while listening to my wife painting in her studio. Her work in oil and cold wax requires a lot of scraping and layering and scraping again. The sounds are comforting, as are the clicks of my keyboard. They’re sounds of creation, birthing new works in paint and in print.

So with a heart full of gratitude, I want to thank my readers—my truly “extended family”—for your ongoing support and encouragement. May you all have a blessed holiday season and a healthy and happy New Year.

Project update: I have sent out 208 queries to literary agencies in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. So far, I’ve received fifty rejections and two positive responses. An agent in London to whom I sent the first three chapters has requested the whole manuscript, and an agent in New York City to whom I sent the first ten pages has requested the next five chapters. Fingers crossed!

Finally, please accept this short story as a token of my appreciation. I know some of you have already read it. I wrote “Dangerous Christmas” fifteen years ago and included it in my 2017 collection of short stories entitled, Catch of the Day. I dusted it off this morning and was pleased to find that I still liked it. I hope you do, too.

A Progress Report

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I want to update friends and family to the status of my current project, the novel All the Bodies Do. Since the story begins in Las Vegas, my wife wisely suggested we take a trip there for research. It was a wonderful idea because it lent more authenticity to my descriptions of the city and the surrounding desert. The picture above is the so-called “bathtub ring” around Lake Mead, left as the lake receded to its lowest level ever because of the megadrought here in the West. It’s white because of the calcium carbonate in the waters of the Colorado River.

By spring of 2022, water levels had dropped 176 feet, exposing the skeletal remains of bodies on shorelines that had previously been underwater. The most famous is “Hemenway Harbor Doe,” a dead body found in a fifty-gallon drum near the Hemenway boat launch and marina. As if being found in a barrel wasn’t enough to get it labeled as a homicide, there was a bullet hole in its skull! Below is a picture of Boulder Basin, the area where it was found.

This photo was taken from the Lake Mead Overlook outside of Boulder City, a place where tour buses and visitors stop. It was fun to watch people pose for pictures in front of this background. Since no mention is made of “Hemenway Harbor Doe” on the information posted here, my guess is that most didn’t know they were posing in front of a crime scene!

Finally, I took the picture below from our hotel room. That’s the famous Sphere, which just opened last Friday with a concert by U2. The Ferris wheel is called the High Roller, and it had been the highest in the world until 2021, when it was surpassed by one in Dubai.

The protagonist of my book, the investigative journalist Kate Temperance, will discover the identities of the bodies in Lake Mead—or die trying. Her adversary, Sofia Gemelli, owns the (fictional) Florentine Hotel and Casino on Las Vegas Boulevard. Kate’s investigation will take her from the Vegas Strip and the Nevada desert to the lush vineyards of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. My hope is that the twists and turns of the story will keep readers guessing and keep them turning pages long past their bed time!

The manuscript has had a thorough editing by my beta readers, and now that I’ve added my notes from our Las Vegas trip, I’ve begun to query agents to see if I can get it traditionally published. If I can’t connect with an agent within the next 8-10 months, I’ll go ahead and publish it independently. I’ll keep you apprised of this writer’s journey!

The New Book is Almost Here!

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The Kindle edition of Gallery of Gangsters: A Driftwood Mystery will be published on August 24. You can pre-order it by clicking on the image above.

If you click on the image below, you can read the first chapter. It introduces the new character, Michelle Garrison, and begins to weave the tangled web that will engulf all of Driftwood. Be prepared for the final confrontation between Detective Charley Whitehorse and the sinister Vasily Volkov!

Art and Crime

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I live with an artist wife, and Sharon never ceases to amaze me. She enters her studio (formerly, our dining room!) in “paint clothes” (of course, she’d be beautiful even dressed in rags!), starts blending different colors, and confidently approaches her easel armed only with a palette knife. Hours later, she emerges, the cutest smudges of paint on her nose and cheeks, and asks me to take a look at the initial phases of the piece she is birthing. (It seems appropriate that what she is painting on is called a “cradled birch panel.”) Her work staggers me. Here’s her website.

The Oxford Dictionary defines abstract expressionism as a development of abstract art that originated in New York in the 1940s and 1950s and aimed at subjective emotional expression with particular emphasis on the creative spontaneous act. Wikipedia says it put New York City on the map, eclipsing Paris as the new hub of art in the West. I don’t know about all that, I only know my wife’s work knocks my socks off. Here she is:

So why have I’ve called my blog “Art and Crime?” I don’t mean to imply that Sharon is in any way a criminal—far from it! But I write murder mysteries. As I’ve accompanied her to showings at the galleries that feature her work, I’ve learned that art galleries are far and away one of the best places to launder money! Oh, I thought, I can use that! And indeed I have.

Gallery of Gangsters is the final book in the Driftwood series (and one of Sharon’s paintings is on the cover!) If you click on the image below, you can read the first chapter. Let me know what you think.

The book will be released on August 24. Pre-order it now for only $0.99—a $5.00 savings. Here’s the link.

Pre-Order Sale!

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The countdown is underway! On September 30 the Kindle version will be released, and I feel that my generous supporters need something back. I’ve just reduced the regular $3.99 price to $0.99, and Amazon assures me that anyone who pre-ordered at the regular price will be billed at the new sale price instead. (Whew! That spares me the task of having to track down early buyers and give each of them $3.00 back!) If you haven’t already purchased it, please take advantage of the sale here. If you’re a “hard copy” fan who craves the feel and smell of paper, here’s the link to the paperback. BTW—any of you who live locally, I would be more than happy to make a “house call” and come to your home to sign your copy!

On other fronts, my audiobook narrator Joel Zak has submitted the “retail sample” of D&D to ACX for evaluation. If it passes muster, he will proceed full-bore with recording the Driftwood Mystery. Here’s another BTW—for fans of that book, there is an epilogue in the new book of short stories. I couldn’t help myself!

And may I say a few words about being an indie author and trying to market your books? I don’t mean to be a whiner, but it’s freakin’ hard! Truth is, when you publish on Amazon, unless you’re already famous, you’re a needle in a humongous haystack. I’m posting on Instagram and Facebook, taking out ads on Amazon and BookBub, but have yet to create any “buzz.” If you’re a fan of my writing, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the new book. And if you’d care to share that with your friends, I would be truly grateful.

Until next time.

Paperback Published!

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I am happy to announce that the paperback edition of my new book of short stories has been released today and is available for sale on Amazon. Here’s a link. The digital version is still on target for publication on September 30 and you can pre-order it here

Meanwhile, work proceeds on the audiobook production of Dungeness and Dragons, with a tentative release date around December-January. Fingers crossed!

I will begin work on my October Newsletter soon. It will feature an interview with Connie Lacy, an independent author in Georgia who can really spin a tale. You don’t want to miss it. If you haven’t yet signed up for my monthly newsletter, please do so here.

Talk to you soon!

.

Another Shameless Self-Promotion

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Writing books is fun; promoting them is not. I continue to experiment with marketing strategies. This week, on April 20 and 21, Seal of Secrets will be free and each of the three other books in the Driftwood Mysteries series will be only $0.99. I guess it’s a little like fishing: I cast my line out, using the freebie for bait, and hope to get a bite on the discounted books. My goals are modest, namely, to get more reviews and to earn enough to pay for the promotions. (Of course, the immodest goal is for just that right person to pick up one of my books. You know, the guy with the connections at Netflix and/or Amazon Prime, who says, “Hey, I can make a screenplay out of this!”) Anyway, that’s my version of buying a lottery ticket— the chances of hitting it are considerably less than being struck by lightning on the way to pick up my mail, but so what.

That being said, although the freebie will end after those two days, I’ll continue to discount the others through May 4. I’ve got my fingers crossed for Dungeness and Dragons, which has gotten such good professional reviews and that nifty little gold medallion from indieB.R.A.G.

Meanwhile, work on the short stories is continuing. One has actually morphed into a novelette, about four times longer than the others.

Well, dear friends, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

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