We are delighted to welcome novelist C.M. Albrecht to Omnimystery News.
C.M. is the author of many crime novels, the most recent to be published being The Albemarle Affair (Cambridge Books, April 2012 trade paperback).
Today, though, C.M. is going to tell us about his next mystery, The Sand Bluff Murders.
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My tenth mystery novel, The Sand Bluff Murders, was a long time coming. I began to sketch it out in my mind and made a few notes on the computer, but before I got very far I came to a dead end.
Nice setup, I thought, but now what? That "now what" sank into murky depths of my subconscious and wallowed there for nearly a year. Several times I almost deleted what little I had saved in the computer. Can't waste those kilobytes or whatever they are. I thought I'd do better to start all over.
But after all those months, a funny thing happened. Some of the characters began to talk to me. They were coming alive in my mind and despite my lack of enthusiasm, their voices grew more and more persistent. They were saying, "Hey, what's the holdup? We can't run around here killing people forever." I realized then I wasn't going to get any peace until I let them get back to work.
There's the transvestite "little person", Jessica, who with her giant boyfriend, Terrence, runs a small trailer court and trains dogs. Terrence would do anything for Jessica. Anything? Anything!
There's Larry Peters, über jealous (and with good reason) insurance broker. Every male in town would love to get his paws on Larry's hot little wife, Twyla. And maybe most of them have. Boy, would we like to read her diary.
Pop Jenkins prints the weekly paper, The Sand Bluff Banner. The paper may not be special, but Pop's daughter, and the town's only reporter, Roxie sure is. In fact she may just be Miss Right. But she does have that kid. Maybe he'd be all right if he could just stop talking Yodaspeak.
Sand Bluff is a drowsy little California town where the last homicide occurred over twenty years ago.
When Chief Raymond Castillo hires a new cop, Jonas McCleary feels very lucky indeed. He just landed an easy job in a quiet little town. Maybe he can settle down and with any luck he may just find Miss Right. After all he's almost thirty.
But on McCleary's third day in Sand Bluff, Officer Harold Ackers stumbles over a corpse in the alley behind the Blu Lite Lounge. To give you an idea of the caliber of Sand Bluff's police department, Officer Ackers didn't realize the man was dead. He thought the man was dead drunk. He manhandled him into his patrol car and took him to headquarters where somebody noticed blood stains on Acker's uniform and bullet holes in the back of the man's head. When Jonas is sent to the scene to investigate he learns the town doesn't even have yellow tape to secure the scene. What scene? It's already been hopelessly compromised.
Less than a week later, while Jonas is still pretty clueless and still without any yellow tape, the infamous Twyla Peters is found lying in a pool of blood. No panties. Rape? Maybe, but if rape was involved, — according to town gossip — she would have been the rapist. Anybody in town may have wanted to see her dead. She was pregnant. Luckily Larry Peters didn't know that, or did he? What he does know is that he's sterile. Whatever; he still makes a prime suspect. But what does that have, if anything, to do with the body in the alley?
And then a body turns up in the Sacramento River.
That's when coincidences, confusion, and false leads give Jonas a murky idea of which path to take, but is that a path he really wants to follow? It's a path that leads all over town and out to horse ranch Oak Park, back to the Blu Lite Lounge and finally, where everything goes in the end, to Weaver's Funeral Home.
Sand Bluff may be a sleepy village, but even sleepy little villages can have their crime waves.
The Sand Bluff Murders coming soon from WriteWordsInc.com (Cambridge Books) Make an author's day. Order an advance copy now! My publisher will love you too. For more about me, my books and famous detectives and criminals (with photos), check my blog at CMAlbrecht.wordpress.com.
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C.M. Albrecht is a mild-mannered fellow who loves mysteries and detectives (public and private alike). He tells us, "I sit at my desk and drink coffee and daydream. I've never shot anybody and nobody's ever shot me. I've been happily married to the beautiful Irma since 1967. She helps me keep my feet on the ground."
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About The Albemarle Affair:
When Corky Middleton thinks she may have found her birth mother, she hires Foster & Hall to investigate. Wow, does she open a can of worms! Instead of finding Corky's mother, the shamuses trip over a corpse, and that's just the humble beginning of an escalating case that climbs to the top of society in this twisted tale. Can Foster & Hall Investigations go back eighteen years to unravel this tangled web of deception and bring a murderer to justice?
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