My Novels
In texture, my stories are detective noir. Few modern writers understand the genre, thinking its blood and bullets. Reduced to basics, each novel has a protagonist facing a dilemma. Or a question -- what set of circumstances created the issue at hand? That raises a second question: how will the protagonist go about pursuing the answers, and will that pursuit solve anything?
As Raynond Chandler famously warned in the "Simple Art of Murder," that every writer of detective stories invariably suffers the same misfortune -- plot holes. The source is simple: elements are added sloppily that invalidate the story's premise or flow. For me, that's the fun part -- not creating a truck size hole in the plot. As a reader, you deserve that from me. Hopefully, I will deliver.
A Perfect World: $15.65
A Perry Richards Mystery Novel
ISBN: 978-1500945879
ISBN: 1500945870
This novel launches a series about Los Angeles-based attorney, Perry Richards. Perry is considered as a man who has everything: from a respected career as a lawyer for a socially concerned public interest law firm; a beautiful, self-sufficient and wealthy psychologist wife, children that love him, and a handful of true friends.
Life is reaching an apex as he is slated to be appointed as director of the firm. Then, a series of event crumbles Perry's perfect world. Felicia Pridemore vanishes while driving to their mountain cabin to rendezvous with him. It is mysterious and sinister. Clues lead him across the country in his search for his wife. He is shocked to discover that Felicia Pridemore was a construct of fiction -- why is the question.
Worse. Somebody has dispatched gunmen to kill him the closer he gets to unravelling the mystery. His travelling companion is colleague, drop-dead gorgeous Charleston Liria Bradley, the daughter of a billionaire. Both of them have something hidden up their sleeves -- maybe for their own perfect world.
Duplicitous: $14.85
A Marvin Tanner Novel
ISBN: 978-1500945831
ISBN: 1500945838
After retiring from the Canadian Football League, pulling in the mid six-figures, Marvin P. Tanner retired to the warmth of Southern California and sets up a mediation practice.
People come to Marvin to mediate and negotiate disputes outside of court. He’s tough, loves women and is suave, sophisticated and can handle almost any situation.
Until…
An elderly, rich Jewish widow enlists Tanner to negotiate the return of a valuable Grecian pearl and jade necklace. His client wants to identify the thief for her own revenge.
The list of suspects includes the widow’s effete son, his seductive wife, and the widow’s pretty live-in black secretary. Secrets are exposed involving murder, mobsters and corrupt cops bent on protecting dirty secrets, as well as keeping Tanner from recovering the necklace.
No matter who it is, everybody is guilty of something and will do whatever is necessary to quiet skeletons from rattling. In other words, all are duplicitous.
Into The Abyss
Advertising Can Be Deadly $13.85
Coming Soon
ISBN: 978-1503012288
ISBN-10: 150301228X
They say advertising done right is a killer. Understanding advertising may require knowing these four words: magic, illusion, truth and fiction. Knowing them is the beginning of wisdom.
Some view advertising agencies as the lair of charlatans, or the den of conjurors of lies. Possibly. But For Jonathan T. Meacham, advertising is his life. Partner and executive creative director of Caldwell Denman, Meacham (CDM), a prominent black owned Boston creative agency, John should be basking in accomplishments and settling down with Roberta Wei. A blackmailer has other plans for him – torment.
If that were not enough, the agency starts to unravel at the seams because of infighting fueled by jealous Ralph Denman, Founder/Chairman. Denman has incurred the wrath of BPP Holdings for stock fraud. A series of moves cause a loss of clients. A collision course for control of the firm and perhaps, its survival.
One thing is certain – somebody will die…
The
World In His Hands
A Perry Richards Mystery Novel
ISBN: Coming Soon
Perry Richards returns in this courtroom thriller, wrapped in layers of mystery. The question: Are you rewarded for being selfless and giving?
Harry and Belinda MacIntrie are generous givers who seldom complain. But, things have a way of interrupting the trajectory of a good life. Ask Harry.
He and Belinda are the best friends of Perry and Felicia Richards. Harry MacIntrie is accused of something so sordid, it questions his honor, threatens his marriage and reputation. Worse, a conviction may take away his freedom, and the evidence mounts.
Harry MacIntrie’s life converges with Marie Grace Whitmore, a woman whom he’s never met, but was literally holding proverbial the ‘smoking gun’ -- and standing over the body. The dead body of a well-respected Superior Court Judge.
This galvanizes Los Angeles County DA Marley Farrel and his entire department of prosecutors because the judge is one of their own.
But the judge has skeletons in his closet and they are rattling. The DA is ignoring the noise.
Perry Richards defends both Harry and Marie and discovers his case is a legal mindfield filled with deception, intrigue and deadly gangsters, crooked politicians and other people invested in seeing him fail -- even if it means his death.