Sneak preview! Oh, and the circular things on Bleed on the Sky‘s cover will go away. They’re leftovers from before I actually paid for that image, and I’d fix it now but I have other stuff to do this morning. Anyway, as promised:
The dank smell of dead fish fills the twilit marina. Normal, for July. Everything dies, and in July everything rots.
But it’s supposed to be different this time. A passerby noticed a stench, he said, but is that likely or practical? Ramirez, first on the scene, doesn’t buy it.
Maybe the guy was climbing on the boat for some other reason. Looking for stuff to steal? He’d called it in anonymously, then left the area. Above-average Port Aransas behavior, either way—the little Texas Gulf Coast town, Ramirez has to admit in spite of his love for the place, has tons of interesting characters but a shortage of civic virtue.
Ramirez’s partner, surprisingly, is only a minute or so behind him.
“Hey, Sancho!” Keogh calls as he walks up. “What’s the squeal?”
The guy’s beer-breath, Ramirez thinks as he steps onto the boat, is nearly strong enough to cloak worse things. Or it would have been, if they’d been there.
Taking a brief look inside the houseboat’s open hatch, Ramirez frowns and backs up. He wants to go inside and see if this is really who he thinks it is, but contents himself with stringing crime-scene tape across two of the boat’s stanchions and waving weaving dock-walking gawkers to move along. No point in checking for a pulse in there.
Back on the dock. “Keogh. Call me Sancho one more time? I’m shoving you in the water.”
“Nice,” Keogh replies, giving a patently fake pop-eyed backstep. “Seriously—what’s going on?”
Ramirez sighs and considers his partner. Wearing a complete uniform today, which is a plus. Typical half-grin, typical hand motions as he speaks, typical devil-may-care lack of concern. It’s barely worth answering him.
“Murder,” Ramirez says after a moment. “It’s another one.”
“Shit,” Keogh says, momentarily focusing on the boat. Then his eyes brighten and he breathes onto his left hand. Sniffs it. Cocks his head. “You figure Tequila will show?”
“Count on it,” Ramirez says, grinning a little in spite of himself. “You gonna call her that in person?”
A quick laugh, a quicker grin. “Not today.”
So there’s that to think of. I’m having fun with this one. But it’s gonna be a while before it’s available, ‘specially since I’m planning to write its sequel (Flee from the Sky) before publishing either one of ’em. Sort of the same issue I have with The Secret: I could push that one out in a few days, but…I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think I need at least one more thriller available, and one or the other should probably be free. And “free” isn’t that easy to manage, and if I’m using a new-release freebie to promote another book, it makes sense for both of them to be new releases. You know? (From this you may make the guess that I want Shiver on the Sky to be free before I publish either of its sequels, and if you do you may be right.)
Actually, it’s worse than that. I revisited the whole idea of sequels to Shiver in light of Edward Snowden and the NSA. The book is clearly dated, and mentioning the NSA at all invites the same fate for its sequels–but what’s easier: (1) Rewriting parts of Shiver, or (2) writing an entirely new novel with different characters? ‘Cause either way I want at least a trilogy, or maybe a series.
Plus, you know, people have asked for a sequel for a (very!) long time. So I’m doing a partial rewrite, and writing two sequels, and after it’s all ready and I get Shiver to go free everywhere? I’ll publish ’em in rapid succession.
And I plan to do something similar with the thrillers. Then, see, I have this idea for a pseudo-crossover to tie Owen Tremaine to another character in another series, and I have these two standalone novels (Marvin and Destiny, anyone?) I want to write, plus this thing about a family of Sasquatch-types in Southeast Alaska (tying in to True North, if you’ve been keeping up).
Basically…I’d love to get stuff out in front of you guys right away. But I need to focus on the writing part for a while. I’m making progress both on the books themselves and the writing-faster pieces, though. Once I get a few things in hand and standardize my process a bit, I expect to be able to publish far more regularly. But I’m just not there…yet. And I need to be. So that’s what I’m working on.
Hope you folks stick around. I’ll be posting more on this site as I go along. And beta readers will get stuff a bit sooner, if you’re interested and willing to give feedback.
Have fun out there. And know that I’m having fun here too. {8′>
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