As a reader, I want a novel to grab my attention on the first pages and keep me hooked. As an author, I try to return the favor. So, let me tell you how I start The Unforgiving Town, which will be released April 7. By the way, that’s the proof copies for the paperback version that arrived today.
I have mentioned before that The Unforgiving Town is a sequel to The Sacred Dog, a thriller about a feud gone wrong. But for the next book I wanted to write a mystery. Certainly, I’ve had experience writing them through my Isabel Long Mystery Series. But in those, Isabel solves only cold cases — she leaves the live ones to the cops. This would be a change for me.
First, let me back up a little with a micro-synopsis. Al Kitchen returns home after serving 17 years for manslaughter. But there are no warm welcomes expected since he was responsible for the death of a man most everybody liked. Then one night, Al is found dead beside a bicycle on a back country road.
When I started The Unforgiving Town, the opening chapter has Al getting a ride home from prison with his cousin, Bernie Tucker, who was a big help when he was locked away. Then he would get killed and his death would have to be solved.
Nope. I wanted something different.
So instead, Al’s body is discovered in the first chapter. The second takes place a week earlier when Al comes home. We follow what happens during the days leading up to his death — how he is confronted by townspeople who openly hate him. Then after Al’s death, Police Chief Scott Stevens, who had been keeping an eye on the situation, takes it upon himself to solve the case.
I was so happy to hear from my trusted reviewers they couldn’t figure out who was responsible to the end.
Okay, so here’s the start of The Unforgiving Town.
Pete Franklin was on his early morning paper route when he saw something large on the road up ahead. It could be a deer carcass or a pile of trash some slob had dumped. But there was no mistaking what it was when he got closer. His car’s headlights shined on a man’s body and a bicycle near the guardrail. He muttered, “shit,” as he put the car in park and got out to see what he could do.
“Hey, buddy, you all right?” Pete called out to the man.
But Pete could see the man wasn’t. Blood covered much of his face and the pavement beneath his head. His body and legs were twisted in an unnatural way, his arms spread wide as if he had given up. A bandage wrapped around his hand had come loose.
He didn’t recognize the man.
Pete bent to touch the side of his neck to detect a pulse, something he had seen done in movies and TV shows, but he felt nothing. The man’s chest was still beneath his open jacket. Pete glanced around and didn’t see a helmet. Just a baseball cap. A bike lay several feet away.
He needed to get help. But if he drove to the payphone outside the general store, he would have to leave the man’s body on the road. He couldn’t drag it to the side. People in big cities may now have phones in their pockets, but not in small hilltowns like Holden. No way one would work here anyway. He could try knocking on the door of the closest house. He knew the people. It was probably too early for anyone to be up, but this was important.
Pete stopped weighing what to do next when the town’s police cruiser drove slowly from the same direction he used. He stepped past his car and waved his arms to get the cop’s attention. Scott Stevens, police chief for the town of Holden, stopped the cruiser behind Pete’s car and rolled down his window. Pete came closer.
“I just found a dead guy’s body in the road up ahead,” he told the chief. “Maybe, he hit somethin’. Maybe, a deer. I haven’t a clue who he is.”
Scott nodded. He knew who the man likely was. He had been searching for Al Kitchen since he got out of bed to take the call from dispatch around four that it had received a frantic message from the woman living in Al’s house. His cousin Bernie Tucker was worried Al hadn’t come home from riding a bike. She gave a description of what he wore and the make of the bike, which belonged to her. Scott called the woman back. She said Al left sometime after nine. He had ridden at night before. This time, he didn’t make it back home before she went to bed, so she wondered if he had decided to take a longer ride. She had given him a headlamp, so he could ride in the dark. He wouldn’t wear a helmet.
Bernie told Scott she found him gone when she got up in the middle of the night and the lights were still on in the house. Al wasn’t in his room. That’s when she drove around looking for him, thinking the bike might have gotten a flat or, she had paused, he had been in an accident, but she couldn’t find him. She didn’t know which route he took. Perhaps, he biked to another town.
There was no place he could have stopped and stayed the night. Scott understood why. Nobody would welcome Al Kitchen into their home.
Okay, here’s the link for The Unforgiving Town on Amazon. The Kindle version costs 99 cents and the paperback, $14.99. Thanks if you buy my book … and double thanks if you leave a review after you’ve read it.