| End of Year Updates: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus, Happy Holidays, & Happy New Year! It has been an exciting year with a bunch of new releases. Just in case you missed something, I published Rebel Mage, Max Damage, The Presumption, and Bad Blood, not to mention at least one other short story I can think of off the top of my head. That’s four full novels. My goal was to do more than that but it was a stretch goal. Not a bad year, on that front. I can’t always promise to publish that many new novels every year, but I’m sure gonna try. Looking forward to 2022. I’ve been hard at work on a new legal thriller. This is NOT the next Mitch Turner novel. I’m waiting until Mitch starts stubbornly demanding his next book be written. He’s starting to speak up more and more. I expect it won’t be long before I start working on it, but I want to wait until he’s beating down the door, so hopefully, the next installment will be just as well received. This new book is titled The Killers Club, that might change but I don’t expect it to. I’ll start posting about it on dandeckerbooks.com the closer we get to its release. It centers around prosecuting attorney Audrey Spencer. She hasn’t been with the prosecutor’s office long but she is a seasoned attorney. Lauren Pope, the daughter of Gregory Pope who is also Audrey’s boss, is found murdered. Audrey is charged with handling the case. The following is a sneak peek. Fair warning this is still raw and the final version might not look anything like what is below. Sneak Peek: It was always a mix of emotions for Audrey to perform her duties as a prosecutor, though she didn’t want it to be. This was something she expected on an intellectual level when she took the job, but was not something she understood until she started digging into the nitty-gritty of the cases, sifting through all the horrid details which she’d prefer to not face but knew she must to properly execute her responsibilities. This was not like TV. It wasn’t like all those countless court cases on late-night television she watched as a child growing up and then while attending college. This was real. Real people’s lives were forever affected, both by the crime and the aftermath. Real people had been murdered. Lauren Pope is dead. In the back of Audrey’s mind, there was some part of her that was elated to actually be at a crime scene for the first time, but that thought was fleeting and fled far and fast when she glanced over at the difficulty her boss, Gregory Pope, had while wading forward with each and every step. She was ashamed it ever entered her mind as she followed Pope over to another line of police officers who waited twenty-five feet back from a bush. Lauren Pope’s body lay beneath the lilac bush. She was covered with a white plastic sheet, which Audrey suspected was done more because of Gregory Pope’s presence than anything else. Audrey was glad for it because it gave the man a way to deal with the situation without having to directly face all that was done to his daughter. Based on what little she saw poking out from underneath the plastic sheet, Audrey deduced Lauren was jogging through the park when she was attacked. A bloody knife was in the grass ten feet away. It was point down with the handle up in the air. It was possible the perp dropped it but more likely he stabbed it into the ground before fleeing. Why? Audrey’s eye’s narrowed as she looked from the body to the knife’s position. Accidental or intentional? She forced herself to remain open to both possibilities even though she naturally gravitated toward one. Did the perp want the knife to be found? Was he concerned it might be missed? She refrained from glancing at Gregory Pope. Or was it a message for the venerable prosecutor? That was probably going too far but she made mental note of it still the same. She took in a deep breath as she tried to soak it all in. It was now just after 2:30 PM. It was sixty, maybe sixty-five degrees. Jacket weather for some, but not coat. It had been half an hour since Walzer found Audrey in the parking garage. She pegged the time of death between 12:30 and 1:45. But it’s the middle of the day, Audrey thought, looking around. It’s busy here. It was more like 1:00-1:45. She doubted Lauren could have been here for longer than forty-five minutes without being discovered. There was blood on the asphalt pathway, a smear to where Lauren lay. The bush itself looked unharmed. Did the perp drag her body over there? If so, why? The bush was five feet high and thick, but it didn’t hide the body, not even close. Lauren was on her back with her hands at her side. She probably would have been on her belly if she’d moved herself. |
