New work | P X Duke

October 9, 2026

Jim Nash is Kill On Sight south of the border. It isn’t Nash’s first day in the KOS spotlight. He would like some company, though. He wants Harry Delaney to join him in the club. Consequently, Jim has made an offer Delaney can’t refuse. Even so, he’s forced to convince Harry to take it and damn the consequences for both men.

It means they will return to the Baja and everything they want to forget.

Nash wants a backup plan.

Delaney says they don’t need one.

That’s all right, though, because even if they had one, plans are made to be abandoned. When you’re KOS, plans make you predictable.

Delaney has only one question for Nash: Will Luz be coming along for the ride? For Harry, it’s a simple question that demands an answer. He knows Luz takes no prisoners. She could end up being their very own killing machine in a high-stakes gamble on arms, money, and adventure.

A Bad Day on the Baja – available now from the usual suspects in the sidebar.

February 13, 2026

Trouble in Paradise

Jim Nash hasn’t said word one to Maddie, but he’s considering shutting down the detective business he started years ago. They’re comfortable in their surroundings without the need for more business, thanks to the cash that’s accumulated over the years. His biggest problem is how he’ll broach the subject to Maddie.

When Harry Delany comes knocking on his office door, Jim’s thoughts of retirement are put on the back burner. Someone is missing, and reluctant as Harry is to discuss it, he finally asks Jim for his help.

After a near-disaster with Harry’s bodyguard, Ziv, Jim Nash is convinced he must gather his crew together for yet another assignment. It would be tough to turn Harry Delaney down after he came to Jim’s rescue in North Africa where he and Maddie found themselves on their honeymoon.

With no ransom demands and consequently no one on the hook for the kidnapping, all hands on deck are forced to work to come up with an action plan to find the perpetrators.

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

December 13, 2025December 13, 2025

The Lady in Yellow

Jim Nash and the fedora Maddie has forbidden him to wear in public is on another tear. This time, he’s after a woman wearing a yellow dress who shows up at his office. Melanie Taylor wants him to prove she hasn’t murdered her husband in cold blood.

Nash is reluctant to accept the case—that is, until Taylor crosses his palm with an envelope containing a cool hundred bucks. He immediately accepts the challenge, and after Taylor departs, he heads over to his favorite bar. There, he encounters his cop friend, Danny Boyle. He flashes Boyle a twenty from his proceeds, and asks the cop to tell him all about the case.

Boyle isn’t reluctant. In typical cop fashion, he tells Nash what he knows, and what he doesn’t know.

Will Jim Nash get sucked into Melanie Taylor’s web of lies? Only time will tell, and it’s not doing much talking.

November 5, 2025

No Escape

The wedding of Jim Nash and Maddie Spence has gone off without a hitch—that is, until Maddie gets a bee in her bonnet about Djibouti in North Africa. While the couple honeymoon in Málaga, Spain, Jim is offered a flight to Djibouti to visit for a couple of days. Maddie jumps at the chance to jump on the airplane with Jim to learn more about Harry Delaney’s base in Djibouti.

While Jim steps out of their hotel to pick up a rental car, he ends up getting kidnapped. Is it a random act by locals hoping to get a few meagre Djibouti Francs from what they see as a rich tourist, or is it something more sinister?

No Escape is a collection of two works, Stealing America and Blame It on Djibouti. You can get both volumes in one when you download No Escape. Available at all the usual suspects in the sidebar.

October 9, 2025

Blame It on Djibouti

Jim Nash and Maddie Spence finally tie the knot in the Boyle’s back yard. After the small ceremony is concluded, they jet off to Florence, Italy, for the beginning of their month-long honeymoon. Unbeknownst to Jim, his bride has plans for one last stop in Málaga, Spain, before they fly home. She has arranged for a huge dinner for their new friends, Harry Delaney and Mike Williams and their families.

During the celebration, Harry informs Maddie that he has a flight into Djibouti the next day. Since learning about Harry’s base in Djibouti, Maddie has wanted to visit the North African city. She convinces Jim it will be an adventure of a lifetime.

Little does Maddie know that the blowing desert sand has telegraphed their arrival in Djibouti. When she realizes Jim has gone missing when he stepped out to pick up their rental car, the first phone call she makes is to Luz back home to ask for her help.

May 4, 2012February 24, 2019

Odds and ends

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.

November 5, 2011May 21, 2012

Dead Reckoning loglines

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.

September 28, 2011May 22, 2012

A slacker’s lament

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.