Category: New work

Jim Nash and Maddie Spence, partners in business and in life, are going through some tough times. Business has been slow. The pair is on the verge of losing Jim’s private investigator business. The only thing they have going for them is the office building and the residences they operate. They own the building outright.

When Nancy Boyle walks in and tells Jim she needs him for a job, he accepts. Even though she’s light on details, that doesn’t bother Jim. He knows Nancy, and trusts her. When she tells him the job is for the feds, alarm bells begin to ring. In Jim’s past, he worked jobs for the feds as an independent contractor. He ended up getting screwed every time.

Nancy explains that the job is top secret. It will involve moving certain items out of the country for safekeeping, Jim is intrigued. With no further information forthcoming, he demands to be paid up front. What he asks for is no small amount. When Nancy steps out of his office to make a phone call, Jim figures the job offer just flew out the window along with the money he wanted paid in advance.

E-book available from all the usual suspects in the sidebar. Print book available from Amazon, too.

Dead Reckoning is up to its third draft. I have a completely new cover to add whenever I manage to get it completed and uploaded to Smashwords.

Dreams Die Hard is at 20,000 words. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it’s riding season. So leave an admonishing comment. I’m doing this for fun, not fame and fortune.

Dreams Never Die is still on the radar.  I’m fleshing out the beat sheet. The beginning, mid-point and end is done. I’m working on filling the rest of it in, but it’s summer out here in hill-billy heaven. I won’t be making a serious attempt at writing it until sometime in the fall when riding season is over.

I may have to ride down to the Keys to do some research for this one. My fading memory is even worse when I try to take it back to the ’80s. I’ve not been down that way since then, so that should be a treat. By now, traffic on that two-lane causeway is probably a real bear.

On one of my forays through Miami I recall hitting the south end around midnight. I was too tired to go any farther, so I checked into the first motel I saw. It seemed like the thing to do at the time, but I was kept up most of the night by the girls parading up and down the street under my ground-floor window, clickity-clack, clickity-clack, back and forth until the wee hours. And those Cuban girls were LOUD in those shoes. I think they used that walking sound as a form of advertisement. Not for me, though.

Come light of morning, it was obvious what the motel was used for, but at midnight after a day-long ride from dawn, I never noticed.

I wonder if the old, good-time chickee bars are still there – like anything ever stays the same, right? The girls I used to know are probably grandmothers by now. It’s long past time for a whole new adventure in the Keys.

Beach blanket bingo with guns

During Harry’s R&R on mainland Mexico, he picks up something that doesn’t belong to him that forces him to cross the Sea of Cortez. While hiding out on an isolated Baja beach, two gringas show up unexpectedly, leading him on a wild chase to rescue his friend from people who want to recover stolen goods.

I had a misspent couple of years (off and on) reconnecting with some bad boys I used to know way back in another life down Mexico way. This allowed me to refresh my memories of time spent on the shadier side of all the borders that I know and used to enjoy crossing when I was young, dumb and full of–something or other. I’ve been home for a while now, relishing in the memories.

I’ve had over 48,000 downloads for my very short stories since I started publishing them online in December of 2010. Of that total, to date B&N, Kobo and Sony has sent my way  over 5,000 readers. Others have paid to read some of the cheap trash that I write. Don’t misunderstand me. I am very grateful for all of the downloads.

Yes, I know. I don’t quite understand it either. Go figure.

Consequently, with an eager fan base like that, I’ve begun drafting a much longer work loosely based on some of my adventures long ago on the Baja and mainland Mexico. So far, I have a very rough first draft of 16 chapters–with much emphasis on the “rough draft”.

Recently I’ve become tired of getting up at oh dark thirty to start my writing day. I’m now on a break for a week or two, taking time to enjoy the warm fall days that we’re having up here in the mountain hinterland.

When will the current project be ready for prime e-reader time? I have no idea. Perhaps in the new year. Given the amount of work it’s taken to date, it could be late in the new year.

And, I’m a slacker, so it could take even longer than that.