Trace

     My first book Trace will be coming out soon, my publisher tells me May 19th so look for it then. The book is set in the forties in Springfield and the book is a hardboiled detective story. So why pick a southwest Missouri town? Why not. Most of the hard boiled detective stories I have read happen in the big cities with some starting in the cities and moving out into the rural areas and ending back up in the city. Why not bring the Nior to a midsized city where a lot of people think it is a great place to raise kids and live. Those were the thoughts of people back then, rural town, should be pretty quiet, but as I say in one of my books, every city has two sides, good during the daylight hours and bad at night, the lowlifes come crawling out of the sewers when the sun goes down.

     Trace is my first and takes us on a journey through the dark side of the city with the hero popping off thugs right and left. And why the forties? Those are the times I like to read about, the cars, the clothes, all in my imagination fit the hard boiled detective gene. Now there are computers and cell phones and GPS tracking devices that makes the criminal easier to locate but back then, it was more foot work and gathering information (which is still in use but the cell phone makes it easier to share with other law enforcement types).

     No, back then, a private eye had to pound the pavement and talk to people who might not want to be talked to. He walked a gray line, sometimes stepping over into the darkness to gather what he needed to solve the case and sometimes having to shoot his way out after he had gathered it or at least the fictional one does using a .45, a cannon to the bad guys which will enter small and blow a fist sized hole out when it exits. I’ve been accused of being narcissistic, treading to much on the dark side of life. But my PI Max lives in this world, it is his bread and butter and his means of making a living. This does not mean he is a troubled person, no, on the contrary, he is a man who likes to see justice done, even if it is justice that sometimes steps just a little outside the boundaries of the law.

     My character works with the police, but only to a point, sometimes hiding facts he has gathered to get his own results. Those results being usually the death of the one who has orchestrated the whole affair. Their death does not come pretty either, their ends fitting the means he dishes out which is usually a .45 slug to the head. So be ready, my book is coming and I hope you will enjoy it as much and I did writing it.