“The Ghost of Poe” – Short Story
Published November 3, 2024
Black Cat Weekly, Issue 166
Edgar Allan Poe, one of the earliest writers of short stories and creator of the mystery genre, led an engaging, challenging, and often sad life. After his tragic demise in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1849, rumors abounded concerning the writer’s cause of death. Drugs? Disease? Murder? All relevant medical records, including Poe’s death certificate, disappeared. But in 1906, Caleb Johnson, a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia, where Poe studied briefly eighty years earlier, learns the truth about the author’s death.
“Francesca” – Short Story Debut
Published September 2019
Sisters in Crime, Desert Sleuths Chapter, SoWest: Ladykillers Anthology
Angela Kemp has it all. New car, designer clothes, a fabulous estate, and enough money to allow her to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Life is good, until her father calls from Seattle and asks Angela to find her younger sister, Francesca, who suffers from early onset dementia but has somehow made her way to Phoenix. His request dredges up long-repressed memories from Angela’s childhood, but the disease changes everything. She finds her sister, now homeless and living on the streets, but Francesca doesn’t recognize Angela, and refuses to allow her to provide food, money, clothing…whatever Francesca needs. Angela’s anger at how people treat Francesca grows, and she dishes out a permanent form of justice to offenders, until Francesca takes matters into her own hands.
Betrayals – Novel
Publishes 20??
J.D. Harding, a thirty-four-year-old private investigator in Albuquerque, NM, is hired to handle two unrelated cases, one concerning a fashion model’s straying husband and the other revolving around a local solar energy company and one employee’s efforts to sell corporate secrets to an unknown competitor. The cases appear unrelated, but are they?
Who Counts – Novel
Publishes 20??
A traditional mystery novel, WHO COUNTS examines themes of love and loss, trust and friendship, and forgiveness and faith. Father Luke Pressley, a tormented priest struggling to deal with his own grief, attempts to track down a killer before his small Maryland town is ripped apart.
Taking part in a multiple-murder investigation, Father Luke suggests a link between the victims and the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on one of today’s most complex and divisive social issues. Discovering the truth and identifying the murderer resurrects personal demons and reveals a long-hidden secret someone close to him is desperate to keep buried.