Requiem for the Puppet Master - Kindle Version

Requiem for the Puppet Master is now online at Amazon.  The marketing program is gradually gaining steam and it is time to settle into my regular writing routine see what sort of trouble Grady gets into the second of this series.  No doubt that Grady and Peg will return. It is also likely that we will see more of Sven.

Can video machines really be used to program a 13 year-old boy to kill?  Can a rogue agent for the National Security Agency avenge his expulsion from the agency by programming the kid to eliminate his rivals still in the agency?  And is the programming strong enough to make the boy kill the agent's last living rival, who just happens to be the boy's father, the father he hates.

Grady Harrison, after the tragic loss of his wife and only daughter, has simplified his life, quit his psychology practice and moved onto his old wooden Chris Craft cruiser.  When the boy’s redheaded mom shows up on his boat, it’s not the far-fetched sounding tale of programming and murders that hooks Grady it’s the boy’s mom, Peg, the redhead.

He takes the bait and away we go.  What starts as a simple request for help with a disturbed teenager morphs into a full-fledged battle against a ruthless and powerful NSA rogue agent. It’s a battle to rescue and reclaim the boy, Brian.

It’s a battle to save Brian’s father.  It’s an opportunity for Grady and Peg to find strengths they never knew they had.

How to Self Publish on Kindle

Right now I am in the process of getting my first Grady Harrison PI novel, Requiem for the Puppet Master, ready to upload to Kindle, and thought that I might share the high points this process and some helpful links.  I have thought about my book as a Kindle book for a long time but just recently bellied up, and got underway with the project.  If you are thinking about self publishing I suggest you just do it.  There can be quite a bit of detail but it really isn't that hard to get the job done.

• Of course, the first thing you need to do, if you haven't already, is to finish your book and get some input from friends, teachers, writing support groups, anyone who is interested enough to read your manuscript and to give you some feedback.

Show Don't Tell

At a writer's conference in Tucson a couple of years ago I showed some of my work to agents and publishers.  In general they liked my work, but kept telling me Show Don't Just Tell.  Since I heard that from more than one source I accepted the criticism but didn't really understand it.  At least I didn't understand well enough to just sit down and do it.  Today I found, finally, a really good book called The Emotion Thesaurus, A Writer's Guide to Character Expression.  The authors are Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.

New Book, New Character, New Blog

Requiem for the Puppet Master is almost finished.  One more round of copyediting.  Some day very soon, I hope, you will be able to download Requiem for the Puppet Master as an eBook from Amazon.  You'll meet Grady Harrison who is a shrink turned PI.  Grady lives on his Chris Craft cruiser moored just off the Mississippi River near Rock Island.  When the redhead shows up Grady instantly dislikes her kid and instantly falls for the redhead.  But Peg Reilly wants help.   The kid who has just been released from an adolescent treatment center is still out of control and the redhead suspects that the treatment wasn't really what Brian, the kid needed.  It isn't long before Grady is head to toe with adversaries who seem to hold all the cards.

You don't have to be Dick Tracy or even Grady Harrison to take note and see that my new blog here is under construction.  Bear with me.  Stick around.  Leave a comment.  I'll keep you up to date on what it takes to self publish.