Finally, the upcoming novel! I made my last edits while on an Alaska cruise, “enjoying” COVID symptoms as I finished with the last scenes. Caught a lot of interesting glaciers, all in retreat or dissolution, helped in part by the ship’s massively polluting engines. I wasn’t going to walk from Texas to see it, so…it . . .
Category: Shmuley Myers Mysteries
Excerpt: A Question of Allegiance
Today, I’m showcasing “A Question of Allegiance.” A Day at the Zoo laid out all the characters and backstory. The trick with follow-on novels in the series was to make each novel standalone. Cue lists of key moments to be explained, biographies, and, due to the language, ensuring that each term is spelled and used . . .
TPoB Is Off to the Editor!
And the graphic artist. After one last set of comments (thanks, Victor!) and comments from the whole White Gold Wielders group, it’s finally off my desk. Until, of course, it returns with edits. Coming next: an excerpt. . . .
On Unintended Consequences and Proofs Thereof
I debated, both internally and with friends, about whether to write this. As someone who doomscrolls on this subject in this “alternate reality” America, each article on the progress of creating the reality of the Shmuley Myers universe is depressing. But, also, uplifting, given the strength of politics as regards to bodily agency. We’re creeping, . . .
Michael Chambon and Orthodox Judaism
Austin Poet John Gibbons posted this NYTimes article about Orthodox Jews and an extension of an eruv, which lets Jews carry (anything other than clothes) on Shabbat between private (their house) and public (everywhere else) spaces. Reminds me of my friends when I was growing up with keys made into tie clips or embedded in . . .
On Fiction & Current Events
I’m doing one last pass on the 3rd book in the Shmuley Myers series, The Property of Blood, before handing it off to an editor and page-setter to prepare for publication. That equates to a few months before publication. These mysteries take place in an alternate reality, a few decades after the Citizenship From Conception . . .
Launch!
Shmuley Myers, an Austin homicide detective, is back! A Question of Allegiance joins A Day at the Zoo and is ready for ebook preorder as well as for ordering in paperback. . . .
And the consequences begin
I’m not going to make this site yet another unheard voice with a political bent. Detective Sergeant Shmuley Myers has too many real-world situations in my books to deal with for me to get distr—ooh, squirrel! My ex-brother-in-law is a constitutional law scholar, who’s been involved in several of the pivotal cases put before the . . .
On fiction, reality, and fantasy
The Shmuley Myers books are in an alternate reality, where a constitutional amendment in America means that citizenship is awarded at the time of conception. Those folks of the XX chromosomal variety can see how this turns every non-term or non-live pregnancy into a murder investigation. And that follow-on legislation broke the separation of church . . .
Publishing In a Milieu Resembling My Fiction
A Day at the Zoo focuses on the subject of the unintended consequences of violating the barrier between church and state. It was intended to show the absurdity of trying to assign citizen to non-living tissue. (If this sounds like “pro-life” or “anti-abortion” flag waving, it’s not: it’s a point of view from someone who . . .