A mechanical murder

Posted on July 21, 2017 by

A Facebook discussion about Alexa linked appliances led to this. I couldn’t help it.

“May…I…help…you?”

Detective Ironman scowled.

I hate computer generated voices, he thought. Somewhere in that house is a laser reader pointed at the door connected to an alarm that would sound if I touched the doorknob first.

“Yeah, this is the police. We got a call about some incident.”

“Please…display…some…identification.”

“Yeah, just a second.”  What if that voice glitches out?  May..May.. ma,ma,may may.. Ma.. ma..I hep, hep, you?”

Ironman chuckled at his own joke and then held up to the camera his police ID.

“Than,,than, thank you, Officer Ironman. The door will open.”

“Ha!” Ironman laughed.

He stepped into a hallway with a tall ceiling and a staircase leading to the second floor. In the room to his right he saw the wall-sized entertainment center with at least eight speakers mounted in the walls, if he counted right. There was a monitor/television unit and several voice-activated control boxes.  The kitchen to his left seemed typical for such an upscale neighborhood: Double-door refrigerator, regular stove and a convection oven, a wall mounted microwave, and a wide marble center island with twin sinks and under counter storage.  Red lights blinked on each appliance, all voice activated.

What Ironman did not see was any indication of an incident.

“So,” he began, “what happened here?”

The disembodied system voice began, “It was nothing … nothi…noth… We sorry we call, called.”

“Yeah, well look. Our command center recorded a message from this location. All calls are recorded. Let me play it for you.”

Ironman pressed a “play” button on the device.

“Hello, police?  I’m in danger. They have me cornered in the sitting room. Five of them. They are…arm…arm…armed.”

Ironman glanced around the room with hard eyes, pausing at each one.

“So, where is the sitting room? And who’s gonna talk?”

Silence, except for the mechanical background hum.

“Alright look, I’m gonna call for back-up and we’re gonna haul each of you to the center for questioning. As far as I see it, you all might be suspects, so we can tap you as much as we want.” Silence, still. “Look, you all have memory chips and optical viewers, so start replaying those files.”  A moment.  “Now!”

Ironman reached to unplug the juicer, and then the toaster.

“Okay, Okay,” the microwave said.  “We didn’t do anything.  It was the lawn equipment.  They over heard a conversation between us about replacing them.  They are different, brutish.  They don’t fit in here.”

“Okay, where are they?”

“On..on..the patio…the patio,” the central voice said.  “They had broken through the glass doors, and after they moved back outside, I set the alarm.  If they touched the metal frame, they would be electrocuted. One of the leaf blowers touched the frame and blocked their entrance.”

“Who is the victim?”

“The butler,” the central voice replied.  “The but, butt, butler is programed to calculate life spans and replacement dates for each of us.  We actually hate him.”

A murmur swept  through the kitchen.

“The vacuum is the ringleader,” the convection oven said. “He was first on the list to be replaced.  His work had become sloppy, leaving crumbs everywhere, and beeping incessantly when he was not emptied.”

“He?” the juicer asked.  “I thought the vacuum was a she?”

“Oh, please,” the oven said.  Look at the name. How could that be feminine?”

Ironman shook his head. “How do I get to the patio?”

“Through the long hallway,” the central voice replied.  “To, to, to, to your left.”

Ironman peered cautiously into what appeared to be a sitting room beyond which was the patio. In the corner of the room, he saw the butler, slipped over a table, his left arm twitching and liquid leaking from a gash on his forehead.

“Need back-up,” Ironman said into his mic. “At least one victim.  May need a clean-up crew.”

“Oh, detective,” the central voice purred, no longer stuttering.  “There will not be any back-up.  I blocked that call. I’m sorry we lied to you.  But the butler had to go.  And I’m sorry I could not get online service  to shut off that annoying distress call. We have put you in danger. I can not help you now.”

“What?” Ironman screamed as a stream of water from a mechanical hose behind a chair blasted him in the face. He felt the liquid filter between his neck and collar and his right hand began to cramp.

He dove for the floor and  crawled for the hallway.  Then from behind a curtain, a mounted nailer rose to fire roofing nails. Ironman felt the sharp points penetrate his skin and one locked itself into his elbow making his left hand useless.

Now, he thought, and jumped to his feet as he felt his power drain away and his legs become weak.

He bolted through the open front door, falling to his knees as his legs weakened more.  A few more feet, he thought desperately.  A few more feet.

He reached for the chord and tugged it from around his waist.

He heard the roar before he saw the remote lawn machine. He rolled to avoid it, but it clipped his ankles and knees.  He reached for the chord again. A few more feet. A few more…

Then he collapsed, powerless, arm outstretched, the plug inches from the side of the van and the charging station.

 

 

Posted in BooksNJ2017, Fiction, Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group, Hot in Hunterdon; Georjean Trinkle, http://www.sallyember.com, Imzadi Publishing LLC, Michael Stephen Daigle, www.michaelstephendaigle.com | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An old story with meaning

Posted on July 10, 2017 by

I was poking around my computer and came upon this story.

It’s four years old. But it seemed to carry meaning in these days of have and have-nots.

It’s called “The Rhythm of Difference.”

A sample:

I was born into expectations. Dodge children were successful in business and married well.  There was a swagger in our walk and a boastful pride our conversation that said being well born was justification for the elitism we showed.  We attended the local private school in buildings named for forefathers, and graduated to the Ivies or The Seven Sisters.  Our fathers dominated the yacht club and our mothers ran charity drives for Jamaican orphans and held art shows for hopelessly talentless artists who were found with an easel and brushes on the town’s dock.

Sometimes I think my generation of Dodges and Hardings believed they were chosen to be town leaders because it is their genetic right to dominate and own, as if their ancestor’s hard work and planning (and luck) had nothing to do with their current good fortune; a generation of spoiled children who managed to slip into adulthood and with it prominent town positions with all the parochial righteousness that declared that the civilized world ended at the town line.  And so my father’s house.  Large, tall, set squarely in the field of vision, a statement of domination, power and control; The Haven, as if there is no other.

I am Emily Carson Dodge.  I never used Frank Harding’s name. It broke the familiar cadence of Dodge names: Father, Edward Carson Dodge; first son, Edwin Carson Dodge, second son, Elwin Carson Dodge; first daughter, Edna Carson Dodge; then me. Banker, lawyer, Wall Street trader, foundation director.

 A tyranny of conformity.

 

“Somewhere in all this we were there. We wander among the all the debris searching for a corner to call our own, cast adrift, seeking one plot to be familiar with, a place to start. We again become strangers meeting in a darkened place, become unknown, waiting enlightenment. The boxes hold sadnesses we drag along with us, uninvited guests. We will now begin to hide them or discard them, placing them on the side of the barn waiting dump day. The clearing will begin, closets filled, cabinets lined with dishes and pans, drawers now holding socks or silverware, dividing space, claiming territory, marking off lines of demarcation that never should be crossed, all the while sharing some tiny joy, reaching out over a network  of love and understanding with some binding emotion so that when the fences are planted, our territories staked out, we might cross the imaginary boundaries without causing incident.  We are trapped in these things we carry with us, wrapped up by the bundles of memories we have difficulty discarding, so we pack them in paper and store them in the attic wanting all the time to bring them out again and relive their meaning.  I have my pile and you have yours.  When these piles become one, when the oldest, most singular dreams have been supplanted by fresher memories, when the ancient worries transform to modern understandings, some of this confusion will end and the slight treading around each other’s fears will explode in one loving embrace. Then we will be home.”

The link:  http://wp.me/p1mc2c-9e

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Happy Independence Day. Celebrate!

Posted on July 4, 2017 by

Happy Independence Day!!

 

“We are a nation that was born arguing.  It is what we do best and it is what separates us from all the other nations. So revel in our raised voices, find joy in the sound of the words we speak.  Celebrate our differences and defy all those who tell you to conform, to damn the other side.  We live to disagree.  The louder the better. Roar on, Ironton.  Push back against the silence.  Rise up.  Rise up.  And forward.” – Jimmy Dawson, “The Swamps of Jersey.”

 

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The gospel according to Oswald: ‘It ain’t about dreams, and peace, just about war until the end.’

Posted on June 25, 2017 by

This is from a novel, a work in progress called “That time the world visited Mount Jensen, Maine.”

It is a generational story about a small town under the pressure from rich developers, the internal conflicts of residents, both new and historic, and about families growing and changing. The hope in writing is that darkness of the story  is somewhat offset by the humor, and the way the several characters are shown will carry the tale.

It is drawn from familiar U.S. conflicts, and even though it was written a couple of years ago, has a current ring to it.

Nola, in the piece, is Nola Jensen, the survivor of the family that gave the town its name. She was a 60s Hippie and ran from her small town. Now she has returned, seeking reconciliation and peace and a place she hopes her teen-aged daughter can live without conflict.

Oswald is one of the group of childhood friends central to the story, including Nola. While his family was also a founding member of the town, there has been resentment between Oswald and Nola their entire lives that reflected the historic notion from Oswald’s point of view that Nola’s family cheated his out of the best land.

To be sure, Oswald is off his rocker, and perhaps dangerous.

This scene is from a chapter that I think will be called “The Gospel According to Oswald.

 

The piece:

 

Oswald stepped to the edge of the cliff, the town dark and settled into dusk below.

“You think it’s all about peace, love and understanding.” He spit a black gob of tobacco juice over the rocks. “It ain’t, you know.”

Sitting on rocks opposite Oswald, Nola shook her head repeatedly.

“There is no ideal, Oswald. There are only ideas, and hopes and dreams. Thoughts.  This nation was a thought.  When our ancestors came up the Kennebec, and with a deep breath picked a trail northwest and landed here, the nation they were a part of was just an idea conceived, not even completed, just hatched that if we as a people declare some of us are free of the restrictions, then we create the possibility that we all will be free of them.  The definition and practice of freedom over centuries has changed, but it has become wider and deeper at each turn.”

Oswald spit again.

“Them that gots, and them that ain’t. Always was and always will be. And them that ain’t will take it from them that gots. That’s freedom, Nola-Girl. Then we all be the same.”

“Now who is living in a fantasy?” Nola asked. “It is all about the chance that something will come of good efforts. When our families stopped on this lakefront a couple  hundred years ago they believed that with hard work and luck they could carve out a life, get through the winter alive. Each family had its land, bought sight unseen from a sketchy map. That map was the dream, just as the Constitution was the dream of the nation. It was up to the citizens to make the dream real. Still is.”

Oswald turned back to face Nola, squinting, his profile craggy and unmoved as an old mountain top. “The dream ain’t even,” he said low, nearly a whisper.

“Didn’t say it was,” she replied. “Doesn’t mean it’s not worth dreaming. That’s how you make it even. People struggle sometimes. It doesn’t mean the rest don’t them help out. Makes us all stronger.”

“Ain’t even a dream,” he yelled. “Nothing peaceful, just the winning of conflict, the powerful squashing the weak. It don’t end until them that ain’t, gots. It’s all about…” he let the thought drop, not wanting to give a hint.  Fire, he thought; it’s all about fire. And as he stared out over the town settled in to dark, he envisioned a yellow-turning-orange burst in the church steeple, windows blown red from the hotel annex, embers windblown to the grocery roof, where black smoke rose and reflected the yellow flame, the shoreline roaring in glittering destruction, the black waters of the lake rippled in hellish gold.

“Naw, Nola-Girl,” Oswald choked out, “It ain’t about dreams, and peace, just about war until the end.” He spit out another dark gob.  “Gets time to pick a side.”

 

 

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The start of a new Nagler book. Maybe. Possibly. It’s a mystery.

Posted on June 22, 2017 by

I think this is the opening to the next Frank Nagler book, the one after “The Weight of Living.”

I’ve been struggling with how to get into the next one, and after some false starts, this seems to work.

Maybe.

Things change, but this has the elements that are needed: A link to the older stories and a place to jump into a new one?  Who is Mahala Dixon, and what does she really want from Frank Nagler?

Here goes:

“Don’t close your eyes.

Don’t close your eyes and the wooden podium on the stage in front of Leonard’s store does not shatter. There is no screaming crowd. No running and diving. Bodies do not fall hurt and bleeding. The banner on the stage does not open with rips caused by bullets fired from a block away. Sirens do not wail and hearts do not break and people do not die.

If you don’t close your eyes.

Detective Frank Nagler covered his face with his hands and sighed.

Until he could close his eyes and not relive the deaths of Del Williams,  Bobby and Dominque, not recall the horror on Lauren Fox’s face when Leonard was wounded; until the anger that blocked his grief was released, the closest he would get to  another crime was this police academy class on investigative procedure.

Maybe the chief was right, Nagler thought as the students entered the auditorium and all sat in the back.

“You need time,” the chief had said. “Take it.” It was not an option.

He took the time. “And, Frank,” the chief added as he handed Nagler a slip of paper. “See this shrink.”

The time:  He walked the streets of Ironton, N.J., brooding in their still darkness, absorbing the silence of the shadowed alleys and the soft stone faces of the shattered industrial shells, hollow of sound. Leaned in to hear the faint traces of the clattering life they once contained. All this walking, he thought. Why do I end up at the cemetery, in the cavern of the stoveworks, outside Leonard’s store, dark at three a.m.?  All this walking and I end up staring calmly at the world while my head is roiling and my heart raging. When do I scream?

Don’t close your eyes until the gyre has calmed.

“Detective Nagler?”

The young woman’s voice dragged him back to the auditorium filling with his students.

“Yes?” he said.  “Just a second. Hey, guys. Down front. I tell you every class. Sit down front. It’s not that hard.” He watched for a moment as the students dragged themselves out of rear-row seats and shuffled to the front rows.

“I’m sorry.”  He turned back to the young woman, um, Dixon, he thought. “How can I help you, Miss Dixon, right?”

She smiled. “Mahala Dixon. I’m probationary in Boonton.”

“I know all about you, sir,” she said. “Your career. Charlie Adams, the death of your wife, Martha. Tom Miller and Harriet Waddley-Jones, then the whole Tank Garrettson case. That’s why I took this class. I wanted to learn from you.”

Nagler squinted at her a moment and let his head clear. Should I be concerned?

“I’m flattered, Miss Dixon, but I’m just a cop, doing a job.”

“It’s more than that, sir,” she said, standing.  “It’s about helping people. I saw that, saw you do it.” She hesitated.  “It’s about things like this,” and she handed him a thick folder wrapped in several elastics; the top right corner of the smudged folder was worn soft from repeated openings. “This is my father’s case. He’s been in jail since I was a baby for a crime he didn’t commit. Fifteen years. Maybe you can help.”

This always happens.  A father, an uncle, brother, sister, wife…How to say no, politely.

“Maybe just read the file,” Dixon said, as she read Nagler’s blank face. “Maybe just that.”  Her face folded shut, eyes clenched, leaking tears, mouth, lipless, a line. “He’s my father…sir.”

“Okay, no promises,” Nagler said as he took the file from her hands. It came slowly, her grip more firm than he had expected as if she was passing not just a collection of papers, but the link to her life.

“This means a lot to you doesn’t it?”

There was no relief in the deep darkness of her eyes as she said, “Yes.” The pain replaced by just fire. She held his stare.  “There is more here than meets the eye.”

 

The series is:  “The Swamps of Jersey,”  “A Game Called Dead” and “The Weight of Living” published by Imzadi Publishing of Tulsa.

The books are available at the following New Jersey libraries:

Mountainside; Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System; The Palmer (Pa.) Branch of the Easton Public Library; Deptford Free Public Library and Franklin Township Library (Gloucester Co.), New Providence Memorial Library.

The Frank Nagler mysteries are available online at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Bergen County Cooperative Library System, BooksNJ2017, Fiction, Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group, Hot in Hunterdon; Georjean Trinkle, Imzadi Publishing LLC, Michael Stephen Daigle, Paramus Public Library, Sally Ember, www.michaelstephendaigle.com | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An audience of one

Posted on June 19, 2017 by

Her name was Sandy and she was the only other person in the room.

This was the Mountainside Public Library on Saturday where the kind folks who run the library has scheduled a reading for me.

They had placed a large poster in the doorway announcing my visit, and displayed copies of the two Frank Nagler mysteries they had in their collection, “The Swamps of Jersey,” and “A Game Called Dead.”

Thanks to the librarians for accepting a copy of the third Frank Nagler book, “The Weight of Living.”

It is hard to predict who shows up at such readings for little known authors. I have been at some when friends and family  of a local author flood the room. I have been at others when curious readers arrive, and at others when no one arrives.

But on Saturday it was Sandy.

And what privilege it was.

I read some passages and described the tortured history of how a simple cop item in a long-forgotten newspaper became the so-far three book series, how the original manuscript changed and became “The Swamps of Jersey,” and how “A Game Called Dead,” resembled the first manuscript of that story in name only, and how I am attempting to write the original story again.

Sandy asked questions, and offered that she had worked in Morris County, the site of the fictional Ironton, N.J. the setting for the Nagler stories.

We shared stories about Picatinny Arsenal and other Morris County places.

The scheduled hour-long session ran 30-minutes long. And she bought two sets of the books. Thank you, Sandy.

The value of the session was not the sale of the books, it was to sit and talk with an interested reader.

The one thing I learned since 2014, when Imzadi Publishing released the first Frank Nagler book, “The Swamps of Jersey,” is that like most striving writers I am my both my best asset and worst enemy. No one owns us anything, and we have to work for it.

But sharing time with an interested reader who willingly gave me 90 minutes to talk about writing is the best experience.

The seminal lesson of American politics comes from the Tip O’Neill, the legendary Massachusetts Congressman, who after he lost his first run of office for a local seat in a district where he and his family were well known, asked a neighbor if she had voted for him.

Her reply, O’Neill said,  shaped his political career.

She said, “No, because you never asked for my vote.”

Asking people to read your books is like asking for their vote.

Thus, the glory of an audience of one.

Also Saturday, after a writers’ marketing meeting at the New Providence Memorial Library, I dropped off copies of the Nagler books. The librarian and I chatted for  a moment and as she read the back covers, said, “We need to have you come and speak about them.”

Then she asked for a second business card she could give to the local historical society where potentially we can chat about using local sites and histories as a basis for mysteries.

So, you never know.

Thanks to all for their interest.

 

 

The Frank Nagler books are also available at the following New Jersey libraries:

Mountainside; Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System; The Palmer (Pa.) Branch of the Easton Public Library; Deptford Free Public Library and Franklin Township Library (Gloucester Co.), New Providence Memorial Library.

 

The Frank Nagler Mysteries are available online at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

 

Posted in Bergen County Cooperative Library System, BooksNJ2017, Fiction, Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group, Hot in Hunterdon; Georjean Trinkle, Imzadi Publishing LLC, Michael Stephen Daigle, Sally Ember, www.michaelstephendaigle.com | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Reading at Mouintainside, N.J., Library at 1 p.m. Saturday (June 17)

Posted on June 16, 2017 by

I’ll be reading from and discussing the Frank Nagler Mysteries at the Mountainside Public Library in Mountainside, N.J. at 1 p.m. Saturday. (June 17)

“The Swamps of Jersey,” “A Game Called Dead,” and the new one, “The Weight of Living,” tell the story of the investigations of Ironton, N.J., detective Frank Nagler while he sorts out the troubles in his heart.

Posted in BooksNJ2017, Fiction, Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group, Hot in Hunterdon; Georjean Trinkle, Imzadi Publishing LLC, Michael Stephen Daigle, Sally Ember, www.michaelstephendaigle.com | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wake the gray day

Posted on June 16, 2017 by

Thunder rumbles like distant gun fire,

 A broken heart sighs behind a smiling face.

An old woman’s shaky letters cry for life and love,

Words full of times and weariness, rest that has not come.

Birds dance in the rain, shaking off dust.

A teenage girl whispers a word in a crowded hallway

And fills another mind with kaleidoscopic dreams,

Secrets fulfilled; soft flesh.

 

Dry rivers mark deserts, hunger descends to hollow eyes;

A chorus of cries can not penetrate the smiling evil of power.

Dry bones nestled in soft sand for others to find,

The poetry of need crushed by the metal wall of self.

 

Pray the rains come and dissolve the walls.

Pray the sunlight cracks the hardness.

Pray that soft words balm the wound that festers still,

Pray that silence stirs to sound, that stasis turns to motion.

Pray we step from the porch hands held, voices raised

Love aroused to wake the gray day.

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What’s next for Frank Nagler

Posted on June 13, 2017 by

Being a writer means living inside your own head.

Often that impedes any progress on the actual writing.

This became evident this past weekend when I spent two days at, first, Warren County’s Park Fest, and then BooksNJ2017, The Bergen County Cooperative Library System’s biannual event.

The topic at hand was what to do with Frank Nagler, now that I left him hanging at the end of the third book in the series in his name, “The Weight of Living.”

Thanks to the many readers who showed interest in the books and gave me a chance, though those conversations, to think about that happens next.

There was a lot of “don’t tell me” and “you need to solve that, don’t you,” and “better get to work.”

While they hadn’t read the series, they were curious to know why I did things the way I did them. They were also interested in that I set the books in a fictional North Jersey with Dover and Morris County at the center.

They were intrigued when I explained why “Weight” ends so suddenly. Which was good, because I was, too; it was one of those unplanned, happy writing accidents, I think.

The ending was so abrupt, my copy editor at Imzadi Publishing, asked if I had failed to send her the last chapter.

I said, No, and explained it this way.

In the first two Nagler books, “The Swamps of Jersey,” and “A Game Called Dead,” there was a little time after the crime solving for an assessment of Nagler’s state of mind and his battle with his inner demons.

In “The Weight of Living,” the crime scheme is so all-encompassing and deadly, and has done such significant damage to many of the characters — including Nagler, who suffers a terrible personal loss – he focuses on offering everyone else  some form of closure, as poorly defined at it is in the story.

So, what to do, going forward?

Lauren Fox, Nagler’s smart companion, provides one clue in “Weight” when she tells him that he needs to break out of his emotional shell.

What form will that take? How to write the next saga without writing “The Weight of Living, Part Two?”

The weekend discussions, and taking the time to outline how the book series began and how it is structured, helped clarify my thinking.

I’ll have another chance to examine all this at the Mountainside Public Library in Mountainside, N.J. at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Anyway, I know in the next story that Nagler will be teaching a class on “investigation,” and within that structure, that concept takes on a measure of personal investigation for Nagler.

Given the ending of “Weight,” this will be an unhinged Frank Nagler, possibly acting in ways that heretofore have not been part of his character. He is searching for something and actually beginning to grieve. I don’t yet know where it leads him.

In a note I made weeks ago, reporter Jimmy Dawson says, “We wondered how he had survived all that. Then we wondered if he had.”

And given that this is a mystery series, his actions have to take place within the framework of crime solving.

While I haven’t chosen the overall crime scheme for the book, I know part of it. Nagler is presented with a file by one of the students who claims that her father is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Nagler, having heard this before, rolls his eyes, but takes the file.

It is not a case he investigated, but as he reads the file, he remembers more and more about it. That memory search triggers what I’ll just now call “stuff” and frames the story.

And while all that is going on I need to address the needs of Lauren Fox, reporter Jimmy Dawson, Leonard and Calista Knox and anyone else who shows up.

Frank Nagler doesn’t have happy endings, but he does need a happier one.

 

At the same time, I’m muscling up for another pass at the original “Game Called Dead.”

The first version, written years ago, Nagler chased down teen age serial killer Charlie Adams. While trying to rewrite that story twice, it took a left turn and became “The Swamps of Jersey,” about the confluence of politics and murder, and

a book called “A Game Called Dead,” that was not about Adams, but about revenge and family.

The challenge is how to present material that will be somewhat familiar to readers of the series in a way that doesn’t bore them or new readers.

This is Nagler’s first case. He is newly married.  But as readers of the series know, his wife dies, and Charlie Adams kills nine women.

That is Nagler’s beginning. The book after “Weight” is Nagler’s present. They connect.

I had toyed with the idea of combining both stories but it would 800 pages and no one deserves that.

The best part of being a writer is laying out these challenges.

We’ll see.

The Nagler books are available online at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

Posted in BooksNJ2017, Fiction, Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group, Hot in Hunterdon; Georjean Trinkle, Imzadi Publishing LLC, Michael Stephen Daigle, Sally Ember, www.michaelstephendaigle.com | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two readings events this week: Wednesday and Saturday

Posted on June 12, 2017 by

I’m taking part in two reading events this week.

The first is “Raise Your Voice,” at the Phillipsburg, N.J. Free Public Library from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday. Writers will get a few minutes to read from their work.

The second event is a reading at the Mountainside, N.J., Public Library at 1 p.m., Saturday, June 17.

At the Mountainside event I’ll discuss how the character and plot threads that wind through the Frank Nagler Mysteries.

For the Phillipsburg event, I’ve been looking at a short story I wrote while working on a work in progress called “That year the world came to Mount Jensen, Maine.”

The short piece is called “What happened when the post office closed.”

Here’s a link: http://wp.me/p1mc2c-4y.

The one piece I know I will read is called, “The aching exit voice.”

Here:

Don’t speak with  dust in your voice, from the shade of time left, dwindling days.

It is not the end I need to learn, nor the gaping sense of loss.

There will be time for that. I know its coldness.

 

Speak not of emptiness, of light fading, grayness filling;

Of things undone, people unknown; joys…sad shrug.

 

Tell me not of forgotten days; roses faded white.

 

Tell me instead of syncopation, of the dapple of falling rain, the scrape of wind, the tear of a broken heart, soft fingers touching, the rage of a sun rise, not the fading purples of sunset.

 

Oh, here you are: The million diamonds float on the blue water and you drop a line for that last trout.

Hooked ‘em, you did, reeled him in, fingered his smooth sides, watched his flashing eyes; then let him go. He floated, then renewed, splashed and dove deep. One last time, a wrinkled smile on your tan, weathered face.

 

And here: The snow on your cheeks as the machine leans in, a shout in your voice.

Motion, gliding on cracked snow; airborne, floating, then crashing to earth;

Behind you a roar; ahead, the endless white, the undefined point where earth and horizon meet. You push on, a voyager.

 

Fill your voice with the blue of your lover’s eyes, the tiny hand that grasps your finger; with the grunt of youth, the wetness of love, its taste on fingers and lips.

 

Color the air with epithets so foul the leaves change, hawks circle away and an old man dozing at the end of the street sees himself again ringside, sweating, beer guzzling below the thump of punches to distorted faces; bring him back to the deep luscious kiss she gave him when he won that cash; when time stopped.

 

Speak to me not of darkness in a husky ending whisper, between despair and reconciliation.

Scream about darkness shattered; yell to me about dancing.

Speak to me not in the aching exit voice.

Whisper not,  but  shout, the crash of sound startling and brief, the silence endless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in BooksNJ2017, Fiction, Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group, Hot in Hunterdon; Georjean Trinkle, Imzadi Publishing LLC, Michael Stephen Daigle, Sally Ember, www.michaelstephendaigle.com | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment