I'm not exactly writing two books at the same time, but I am allowing one to bleed into the other. I shouldn't use the word "bleed" but it is a murder book series, right? Nick Posh will find himself in the mesa...in the desert, chasing down the clowns and horses who (and that) lead him to other cases and casks. If you know anything about art you'll enjoy the "find" out in Vegas. It's an original Seurat painting; one no one even knew existed. The 31-year-old artist died in the late 1870s before either Nick or his friend Ralph Ferguson were born. Why the interest?
Murder has a way of joining up with money. It usually follows that if you follow the money you'll find the killers. Well, in some cases art and the value of it can be just as sensually stimulating as cold hard cash -- and there is a certain "art" to printing your own cold hard cash. There's nothing funny about it; and yet, they they are, the two lawmen chasing down the forger and his printing press.
Those who dust off their feet in the desert can somehow find themselves sitting at the elite tables or visiting swank galleries where no one would know they had a day job..or in our muse's case, a night and weekend job. A cover-up on so many levels. One day you're dining and clinking fluted glasses with the upper crust, while the next you're entertaining them and their families right in plain sight, under their noses, and they know nothing of it. Such a circus!
With "Mesa" coming before "Cask", it's not a giant leap to assume that one will carry over into the other, and then the next, which is "Stollen". "Cask" will find our private eye seeking a clear and precise niche for himself; not only is he using his learned skills from his military days but also from the years he's spent working with and for others in order to break out completely on his own. He's not exactly hanging out a shingle, as he has no office to hang one outside of. The world is his board and the games he plays are usually for keeps.
More art, more murder, more deception, and more sleuthing take place in "Cask" as our hero finds himself employed by his first private case; the finding and retrieving of a wayward bachelor son who has sprung the family coop too soon for the likings of his parents who hope to see their only son educated further in the craft he has long chosen. His absence from the family estate brings sorrow to his mother, and to his hopeful fiance. He must be returned at any cost.
"Cask" will bring about the art form of the written word as well as the painted strokes of a genius talent; words color and stain any canvas as richly and as permanently as oils and pigmented hues. The two books will be written one right after the other. Right now I'm filling my notebooks with threads of commonality trying to pick what stories go into which book; who does what first, and how are they connected?
Stay tuned. It won't be long now. I'm getting the itch again, which means I'll likely make it happen sooner than I thought I would. I fool myself sometimes.
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