Finalist

There are 17 finalists for ForeWord Magazine's "Book of the Year" award in the Mystery category ... and my book Dead Body In A Small Room is one of them. This is the first of a proposed series that was repped last year but the agent who loved it still couldn't sell it. So he then dropped the series like a hot potato, and I quit the 2nd book in progress near its end. Doubt if I'd ever have reason to go back to it. And actually, thinking about it later, I feel this probably is a blessing in disguise because even in book two I found myself getting bored with the concept, and the thought of writing one every year or two sounds like a job to me -- and I'm retired in the sense that I only do what I like doing. Period. The only reason I'm teaching is that I still like it.


List of finalists.

About the book:
Synopsis.
Free ebook (pdf).
Paperback available.

The back cover book blurb:

One dead prostitute.
One angry sheriff.
One curious screenwriter.

Screenwriter Dallas Norgood visits his sister in Sogobia, Nevada, after a close bout with cancer. The small desert town ain't Hollywood but it's different, with its legal prostitution and a janitor named Cheyenne who attracts his fancy.

Then a working girl ends up dead in her brothel room, and Dallas' writerly instincts kick into high gear. He wants to find out who did it, even though the sheriff wants to sweep away the crime as a suicide so as not to scare away the tourists before Basque Days.

Dallas persists -- and finds himself on a journey of twists and turns suitable for a Hollywood thriller.

Being a finalist is both neat and meaningless. This is a competition for independent presses (including small presses, university presses, POD presses, vanity presses, ebooks, etc.), so no mainstream books are considered. Winning something like this only has financial dividends beyond the award itself if you market the hell out of it, which takes time and energy I don't have. I'd rather write a libretto ha ha. Nor do I need any of the other frills associated with competitions, like validity, publicity, and the rest. Been there, done that. All the same, it's a very big competition with lots of entries, and some judge or other responded to the book, so that's what's nice about it. It is always nice to have evidence of a reader enjoying your work.