What's To Come . . . well, maybe.

I had someone recently ask me if I was going to write another book. Of course. I have already started on it, but it's just around fifty typed pages in my computer right now. When I'm going to have the time to actually get back wholeheartedly into the project I don't know. A lot depends on how well ASIAN HAZE is received, and how many people want to read more stories about Randall Arthur and his friends. Plus, right now I unfortunately have to make a living doing something other than writing. Not that I don't like my present job and love the people I work with. The experience I've had since August 28, 2014, when I got hired to take phone calls from Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance policy holders, including six weeks of training with a group of people who I will forever have in my heart, and of course finally getting out into the trenches in October of last year, is something that has been truly life-changing for me, at a time in my life when I truly needed it. I'm in a good place in my life for the first time in a while. It could be better, but I know I'll get to where I need to be, if I just remember to keep relentlessly pushing forward . . . always forward.

Right now, I have four more Randall Arthur books planned. Not saying that there won't be more, just that right now I just have four more I definitely know I want to write. The next one will be called FAMILY DYNAMICS, and some of you have already read excrepts I've posted on my Facebook page. In a nutshell, it has to do with a rich, dysfunctional newspaper family, another family involved in organized crime, and a secret from both of their past that rears it's ugly head in the present, threatening to destroy many lives, literally and figuratively.

The book after that will involve minor league baseball, and will focus around a current star player for my fictitious Falcon City Falcons baseball team (wasn't too difficult there to think up a good nickname), and also will have a long flashback to 1929, when a player I briefly mention in ASIAN HAZE, by the name of Red Givens (whose Falcons ballpark is name after him) dies tragically in an automobile crash. The question is, was is accidental, or not? And what does that event have to do with the present? I have two possible titles for the book: one being THIRD STRIKE and the other being WIZ KID. I actually lean towards the second one, but then I can imagine all the immature pee jokes I'll get.

Book four will involve Randall's cop friend Joe Kayla and his being framed for something that if proven would end his career. For those of you who haven't gotten to the end of ASIAN HAZE yet, I will keep from revealing the deep dark secret that both Randall and Joe have been carrying with them for years, but in this book I will probably go into more detail about what happened and why. I'm not sure how this secret is going to end up playing out over the next few books, but it could get interesting indeed. Working title for this book is TARNISHED BADGE.

The last book I have presently planned will take place at night between sundown and sunrise, and will involve Randall and his friends looking on the dark streets of Falcon City, NY for a lost teenage girl who has fallen in with a bunch of no-good gang members. The inspiration for this idea was the movie "American Graffiti" which takes place over a similar time span, and the TV show "24." I'm tempeted to call the book 12, but won't do that. Working title at the moment is NIGHT CRUISE.

You have noticed that all these book titles are two words. It's my gimmick idea. Sue Grafton has a letter of the alphabet in her titles, and Janet Evanovich has numbers in her titles. Of course my favorite title gimmick of all time was Robert Ludlum's three word titles for his international thrillers (THE BOURNE IDENTITY, THE MATARESE CIRLE, THE GEMINI CONTENDERS, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION, THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC, and so on). By the way, if someone ever compares my work to Robert Ludlum's in a positive way, I will be so happy. No, he wasn't the greatest prose stylist of all time, but his sense of plotting, pacing and imagination was impeccable. The complexity of those novels were probably only rivaled by James Clavell's massive novels of the Orient (SHOGUN, NOBLE HOUSE). He is one of those very few writers whose books I have re-read at least three times, and probably will read them again. I'm positing this picture of him back in 1982 holding his novel THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC, probably along with THE GEMINI CONTENDERS my two all-time favorite Ludlum novels. This picture gave me the idea for the picture of me holding my book. I just thought it would be cool.

Hopefully, all these unborn books will end up with life in the next few years. Thank you all for the support you've given me so far. I like to think that so far I have a small band that will gradually grow into a rabid army. Would be fun to be the general of an army. :)