Ink and Iron Is Out

 

     In case you've been wondering where I've been for the past week, look at the lead image above (click on it for a high-resolution image). Not long after I wrapped up The Final Bullet, I began working on Ink and Iron, the next installment in the Scott Carson saga. The Kindle edition went live yesterday and the paperback edition hit the market this morning. 

     The revisions and formatting were, as usual, a nightmare, with my copy editor not sending me the edits until just before Christmas. Then, even after those were made, I had to wrestle with margins and indents with the native file and all the technical bullshit you never see in the movies. So that's why I've been MIA this past week. But, finally, all my work paid off yesterday.

     The synopsis:

     "In the wake of the Great Molasses Flood of January 1919, Boston faces another crisis. No sooner than the city’s North End cleans up the disaster’s devastation: The city’s police are taking steps toward a historic strike that threatens to unleash anarchy that ineffectual Mayor Andrew Peters is powerless to stop. Bad pay, long hours and inhumane working conditions are the source of their discontent.

     Stepping into the storm clouds is Moira Delmonico, a young Socialist cub reporter with the Boston Globe. Moira’s not interested in making friends among Boston’s power elite, especially future president and Governor Calvin Coolidge. He’s vowed to crush the strike by any means, including deploying 5000 members of the State Guard. Moira has skin in the game: Her beau, Patrolman Tommy Donahue, is one of the 1137 police who will strike. Moira risks her new job with every article she writes.
     Joined by her mother, legendary New York Times crime journalist, Kelley Delmonico, and her brother, NYC officer Angelo Delmonico, Jr., Moira confronts the corrupt Brahmins on Beacon Hill. Throwing in her lot with Boston bootleggers the Gustin Gang, she battles the governor, Commissioner and a shadowy strike-breaker named Callahan.
     Fueling the chaos is a series of murders of active and retired policemen. Found on their bodies is a note warning against affiliation with the American Federation of Labor. The strike becomes a major turning point in American history, with deaths, injuries and hundreds of thousands in damage. And young Moira’s career in journalism may end barely after it’s started."

     It's a substantial read, weighing in at just under 142,000 words, and it surprised me to learn that I wrote the first draft in just under five months. And it offers a different slant on the 1919 police strike than the one given by Dennis Lehane in The Given Day. It's been said that at the core of all fiction is the question, "Who am I?" This is indeed the question Moira Delmonico continually asks herself as she desperately tries to separate herself from her mother and her overwhelming legacy. It gives me a chance to introduce a new lead character as well as expand the Scott Carson saga into the early 20th century. I hope you give it a chance and leave a review.