YAP, present draft, 22,600 words.
Looking to the top of this blog entry, it occurs to me that I am not one to shy away from grandiose titling! Can I justify it? Well . . .
Last year, as some of you may recall, I attended my first ever crime festival: Shetland Noir in, er, Shetland. It was a fantastic event, sponsored by the incomparable Anne Cleeves but organized by Shetland-based crime writer, Marsali Taylor. Her latest, Death at a Shetland Festival, is coming out on May 9.
Marsali and I, together with authors AJ Liddell and Lydia Travers, will be hosting An Afternoon of Crime at the Aberdeen Central Library, Aberdeen, Scotland (not Mississippi) on May 7. As for world firsts, I will be reading in public from my latest novel, Two Times Murder, for the very first time. Needless to say, I’m a little nervous about it. But also excited!
Two Times Murder is a sequel to my first mystery novel, A Quiet Teacher. We are still working on the details but the cover copy will read something like this:
Greg Abimbola is many things. He’s Black, British and fluent in Russian. He’s a snappy dresser, a reasonable teacher, and an unenthusiastic sports fan. But most of all, he’s exceptional at keeping secrets. Like, who he really is, and the things he’s done.
Determined to keep his head down after helping solve a murder in the school basement, Greg fears a trap when Sergeant Rachel Lev of the Pittsburgh police corners him in his apartment. Because his refusal to take credit isn’t modesty, it’s a survival tactic.
But Rachel is here on another matter entirely. She needs his help. She’s lead detective on the homicide of an unidentified man fished from the Allegheny River. With clues scant, and surrounded by colleagues who’d love to see her side-lined, Greg is her final roll of the dice.
Greg has no choice. He knows more than he’s saying about Rachel’s mysterious corpse. To add to his troubles, a school trustee plunges to his demise after a heated board meeting. Both deaths come with potentially lethal consequences. If he doesn’t find answers, and soon, Greg Abimbola will be the third man in Autopsy.
Looking forward to it!