The Final Bullet is Out

     

     I've finally wrapped up the final edits for The Final Bullet, have submitted the file to Amazon for the paperback version and now it's on the market at a competitively-priced $9.99. The Kindle version will follow when I have my reformatter do his thing. What a long, strange trip this book has been. I've been living with it for about a year now.  

     Anyone who knows anything about my recent history would know this is the first book I've completed since my late fiancee, Barbara, began her final decline. It's my shortest novel by far (at about 74,000 words and change) and I was still barely able to finish it on account of her death gutting me so thoroughly. I used to publish a novel or two every year but this is my first launch in nearly four and a half years.

     It's kind of like getting thrown off a thoroughbred at Belmont and taking years to climb back into the saddle of a safe little pony on Coney Island. That's partly why I'm proud of this book. Barbara, always my number one fan and someone who'd read every novel I ever published, would have wanted me to do this, to keep writing. Her favorite authors included Malcolm Gladwell, Christopher Hitchens, Pat Conroy, Dennis Lehane, Barbara Ehrenreich, Olivia Goldsmith and others. In other words, people who could really write. So including me in her library among her favorite authors was always nothing but an honor. I took especial pains to make this Kelley McCsrthy standalone thriller a good read, to get into Kelley's psychology and motivations behind the controversial decisions she'll make in this story.

      I hope you enjoy this story as much as Barbara would have, as biased in my favor as she might have been. Every novel tells a story, obviously, but what most people don't realize is that every novel also has a silent story behind it. This is the story behind the story. The love of my life was taken from me by slow degrees and then abruptly when she died in that damned nursing home. It devastated me and I just couldn't focus on writing fiction. There were several times during the writing of this book when I cried over her and even months went by when I hadn't added a word to it.

      But Barbara's presence seemed to egg me on and tell me not to let this story fall to the wayside like all four of its aborted predecessors. The real life murder of JB Elwell and how Kelley approached the investigation in her final days with the New York Times was a story that had to be written. Plus, considering the emotional backdrop that hums like a silent current in the background gave me an almost moral imperative to not only finish and publish it but also to make it especially good, to polish it perhaps to the point where it might have even been her favorite novel out of all the ones I'd written. It's my fervent hope that you may love it, too.

     Now, back to our regularly-scheduled madness...