INSPIRED!

Announcing the September 2020 release of "Dubstep: A Dawna Shepherd Short Story" as a standalone ebook.

Inspired by John Mortimer’s “Rumpole of the Bailey”, in this month’s ebook release, I send Dawna after a colorful clan of auto-accident-insurance scammers.

Fighting crime as a family affair is a new challenge for Dawna.

Can she outwit charming Clayton D. Cooper, the aging ringleader of a Northern Virginia gang made up exclusively of his close relatives?

Spoiler alert: A Waffle House breakfast is part of the story—virtual and non-fattening!

“Dubstep: A Dawna Shepherd Short Story” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and is now available as a standalone ebook short story.

To buy your copy, follow this universal link to your favorite online bookseller.

NEW SHORT MYSTERIES WAITING FOR YOU!

I’m excited to be in a Syndicate of award-winning mystery writers contributing brand-new stories to MCM – Mystery, Crime, and Mayhem – the new themed mystery magazine started by writer Leah Cutter.

For this first year, you can find the first THREE issues already available. And I have stories in two of them!

I wrote both before the end of February 2020. I set them in the contemporary Pacific Northwest and none of my characters have a clue of what lies ahead for the country.

In “Lonesome Whistle”, FBI Special Agent Dawna Shepherd makes the trip I wanted to take but couldn’t after COVID-19 forced me to cancel.

Dawna travels via Amtrak from Seattle to Eugene to check out the University of Oregon women’s basketball team. She’s sure the Lady Ducks are headed to the Big Dance and will triumph at the NCAA finals in March. Dawna doesn’t know the season will be canceled because of the pandemic.

Still, she’s distracted from all thoughts of basketball when she spots the FBI’s Number One Most Wanted on the same train. Which is how she and her adventure end up in THE CHASE BEGINS, Issue #3. You’ll love Dawna’s action in this one. You can buy your copy from your favorite online retailer by following this universal link.

In “Gone Gold”, Washington State Trooper Kent Harper tackles a minor Spokane heist as a learning experience. The fictional theft is loosely based on the robbery of a friend of mine. From the real-life victim, I learned that though the law may call a theft petty, the victim may still feel she’s lost everything that matters most to her. The story appears in THIEVES, Issue #2. You’ll enjoy learning what Kent actually learns from this case. You can buy your copy from your favorite online retailer by following this universal link.

You may also want to check out PRIVATE EYES, Issue #1: Leah sweet-talked forensics expert Geoff Symon into writing an essay for the inaugural issue.

Leah already has stories on hand for SINS OF THE FATHER, Issue #4, which will come out mid-November.

Leah’d love to send you a free ebook anthology of short stories from eight of us. All you have to do is come to her website and join her Syndicate of readers. You’ll never miss an issue of Mystery, Crime, and Mayhem. So criminal it’s good!

CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME!

Latest release: "Silicon Valley Tango: A Dawna Shepherd Short Story"

In my latest ebook short story release, FBI Special Agent Dawna Shepherd is hot to learn why—and how—an unknown hacker is cyber-stalking an obscure software engineer in the Bay Area.

Hacking’s not Dawna’s specialty.

But her sister Bettijean is the engineer whose life and livelihood are on the line.

And nobody messes with Dawna’s family.

She’ll use every trick in her FBI book to find who’s harming Bettijean.

Even so, can a low-tech Texan face-down the princes who rule in Silicon Valley?

Follow this universal link to your favorite ebook retailer. Buy “Silicon Valley Tango: A Dawna Shepherd Short Story” and see Dawna at work. What she finds tickles her funny bone and you’ll be amused, too!