Life Struggles (Life Stories Book 1) (21 page)

The police and the FBI's profilers can find no pattern. No one knows who is responsible, why this is being done, or where the young men are. As the police conduct a search Ethan enlists the help of his own confidential sources to navigate the danger-filled underworld of New Orleans crime. He looks for explanations in sex, drugs, murder and elsewhere. Each step into this cesspool brings Ethan one step closer to his own death. An avaricious Motor Vehicle clerk, a convicted murderer and a gay graphic artist are only a few of those who lend a hand. Ultimately, though, Ethan is on his own. And he's running out of time. Before Alex can be found Ethan is left for dead. Finding Alex just unpeels the first layer of the onion.

Simple kidnappings rapidly evolve into a medical mystery. These young men all have something the kidnappers want, but for what purpose? Where are the young men, who are the perpetrators and who is behind this? Every time a layer is peeled back another, more complex, one is revealed. And, the final questions are not answered until the last page – if then.

Life Continues
(Volume 2, coming of age/comedy) available in October 2015

Alex acts out while Ethan tries to cope. The stepson/stepfather duo cycles among fighting, sulking, looking for love (and sex if available), and having spectacular meltdowns.

Being a teenager awash in hormones and deep in grief is no fun for anybody, least of all Ethan. Alex is arrested for soliciting prostitution. A cast of unlikely characters – a gay artist, the artist's straight boyfriend, a music groupie and Monica, the vibrator queen of the South – all pitch in to help. Is there anything wrong with this picture?

A bawdy trauma nurse and a sexually-frustrated policewoman keep the rest of the characters on their toes – and their backs and their knees and in other positions. A brilliant nurse trainee is learning diagnostic technical terms. For one patient, those turn out to be wacko and horny. A house full of raucous hedonists throws a party nobody can remember. Except for the policewoman who ignores Ethan's advances in favor of pursuing attractive, suave and debonair Mike. At least until Mike calls Luke his boyfriend.

Ethan and Alex wind their way through strange situations and characters. Alex's politically correct grandparents see no conflict in their support of Women's and Gender Studies at a university while deploring the fact that Ethan lives next door to a ho-mo-sex-wall. Their NAACP membership is in fully consistent with lamenting the integrated nature of Ethan's neighborhood.

A visit from a couple of Swedish-speaking Finns raises serious questions. Are most Americans prunish? No, not that prunish, that one's a breakfast pastry. The other prunish. Would America ever have invaded Iraq if its men's manslems hadn't been mutilated as infants? Read and find out.

Alex gets arrested again, this time for attempted murder. His innocence can be proven, of course. Just as soon as a woman comes out of a coma, a young girl regains the ability to speak, and a violent drug-maker stops clinging to his right to remain silent.

Other characters make brief appearances. Officer Ding Dong and Officer Pantyhose are but two. The studio filming a movie of Ethan's book wants a high-budget all-star cast. It also wants to use an actor who has been dead for thirty years in a lead part.

Then Deidre, Alex and Ethan's lawyer, wants to give legal advice to Alex's Zanderpinky behind closed bedroom doors. Attorney-client privilege, you know.

Throughout the narrative the single most important character is already dead. Alex's now-deceased mother (and Ethan's now-deceased wife) drives the characters' actions, motivations and accomplishments. Dana DeLauder's sudden passing left her widower and her orphaned son each trying to save himself while working to sink the other. She left a legacy of lifted hearts and golden opportunities for the large number of musical groups she helped launch. She left a gift of unconditional love for many others. How does the extended cast cope with her death?

As Dana said, Life Continues.

Life Creates
(Volume 3, drama) available February 2016

Alex feels cast aside. He had finally accepted his mother's death and begun developing a healthy relationship with his stepfather. Then Ethan remarries and starts a new family. They're back to Square One.

While Ethan tries to help Alex adjust to the new circumstances, Alex plots to sabotage Ethan's new marriage. How do you deal with a teenager trying to create new victims to join him in his misery? How do you love the stepson working to destroy you, the police officer wife who loves you, and the baby still on the way?

Life becomes a pinball machine. Alex and Ethan are silver balls bouncing off one another as well as a host of traps and obstacles, both real and perceived. Friends, neighbors, rivals, strangers, enemies and lovers are flipping paddles faster than the balls can react. The only thing certain in the game is that a ball will go down a hole. Just where it pops up is anybody's guess.

Life destroys and life creates. The balls move faster and less predictably. As Ethan and Alex work to establish some kind of balance, they're in a race with the machine. Each wants to win the game before the machine calls Tilt.

Taunting
(Volume 1, mystery thriller) available Spring 2016

Somebody is killing the elderly members of New Orleans' venerable Martyrs' Episcopal Church. Are bigots targeting the church for holding gay weddings? Are activists targeting the church because its priest wants to preach instead of politicize, and minister instead of marching? Or, perhaps it's because the church's congregation has shrunk while the value of its land has skyrocketed.

Or maybe something else is going on here. Follow Danny Flint and the HPC as they pursue clues to the killer and bring him in – only to have him die while the bodies keep piling up. Something else is definitely going on here, but what?

Harassing
(Volume 2, mystery thriller) available 2016

Danny Flint and the HPC are faced with an inexplicable series of smash-and-grab jewelry store robberies. They all share the same M.O. but the perps are all different.

The robberies spread across the state, and then something changes. Somebody dies. Suddenly the jewelry store robberies cease and now it's pawn shops. Same M.O. as the jewelry stores, just different perps every time. Then one of the perps dies. With an identity should come motive, but none can be found. He's a successful businessman with nothing to gain from robbery, but everything to lose – including his life.

When another businessman comes forward with a tale of intrigue, blackmail and shame, it provides an explanation but puts the squad no closer to finding the people behind the crime spree. When an audacious crime is pulled off flawlessly, the well-to-do criminal is killed during the getaway by his own accomplices. Can the squad find the masterminds before anybody else has to die?

The Finding Series

This series follows the lives, loves, relationships, adventures and growth of two men in New Orleans. A straight management consultant is sexually attracted to a gay artist, but to no other men. The books explore their relationship, how they got there, what each needs from it, and why.

FindingFriendship
(Volume 1, m/m romance), available soon in the Kindle Store at Amazon.com

Note: This is a complete reimagining of the Life Changes story. If you have previously downloaded Life Changes, e-mail me at
[email protected]
and I will send you a free PDF version of the new book.

Straight Mike is newly divorced. He moves from St. Louis to the city of Mardi Gras for a fresh start. As a business consultant, he can work from anywhere. In New Orleans, he rents a room from gay Luke and decides that his landlord's sexual orientation is irrelevant.

Things quickly go from irrelevant to complicated. Mike misunderstands the dress code for a party and winds up in a compromising position. While at a club, he meets a gorgeous woman and learns to ask more questions next time. He finds the city unlike anything he has ever before experienced: Breakfast in a nudist club, naked karaoke, and so much more. And he and Luke become much closer every day.

Mike is completely straight and wants physical contact with gay Luke. Not a single other man appeals sexually to Mike. Life sure changes.

Finding Each Other
(Volume 2, m/m romance) available in early 2016

Mike and Luke explore what they want from their relationship, and why. Luke has reason to avoid commitment, while Mike has reason to want it. The casual attitude toward sex of many in the gay community – including some of Luke's friends – troubles Mike. He wants someone close with whom he can share affection, pure and simple. Cuddling becomes kissing becomes slightly more. Sex is actually optional for Mike, not so much for Luke. Luke would be thrilled to have a boyfriend, if he just weren't so scared – and scared with good reason.

This story overlaps with Life Struggles and the characters and actions move between the two stories. We get glimpses of the Decadence festival in New Orleans and see a few of the events from the perspective of on-lookers, and occasionally of participants. The sexual energy of Decadence interferes with the more important need for love and affection.

Recollections of early childhood emerge as Mike struggles with something he cannot understand – a romantic relationship with a man. Those memories, with Luke's help, offer Mike a possible explanation. Is it the answer? Mike does not know, nor does anyone else. Some things are simply not meant to be understood easily, if ever. In the immortal words of Alex, “Explain it? I can't explain television.”

Finding Closure
(Volume 3, m/m romance) available in early 2016

Mike can't love Luke because Luke's a guy and Mike is straight. Luke can't love Mike because Mike is straight and that just doesn't work. But they're attracted to each other.

They take their relationship on the road to the South Pacific where Mike is advising a small island nation on infrastructure and job development, while Luke finds inspiration for his art. They struggle with the meaning of love, sex, relationships, life and many other things that each finds strange in his own way.

Mike's need for affection meets Luke's need for sex. Both struggle with norms and expectations, grappling with the issues separately and together. Finding love is never easy. Do they?

A Collection of Short Stories

He Verbed Her Euphemism and Other Strange Tales
, Available 2016.

A collection of short stories “written” by a computer program using drop-down menus, random number generators and unlimited access to multiple thesauruses, all with zero quality control.

Stories include His Irredeemable Gerund, He Verbed Her Euphemism, The Metrics Reloaded and many others.

Contact me at:
[email protected]