As I come upon the one-year anniversary of my motorcycle accident, I’m happy to say my health is much better 12 months later. This has been a long year with many challenges, with a few hurdles remaining, but I’ve come a long way since that November 11th night when I crashed into the side of that van and lay on the pavement in horrible pain. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, the goal being to be playing tennis again next spring and get back on a motorcycle, albeit not in the heavy traffic of the city. I have much to be thankful for with the upcoming holiday season, especially all the help my family provided me through these challenging times. I have been blessed in ways I never realized.

Living in Colorado provides many joys. The mountains, wildlife and beautiful scenery are everywhere. One thing I particularly relish about the Centennial State is the crazy weather. We go from Summer to Winter and back again, over the course of a couple of days. Nearly 80 degrees and then snow overnight, and a day later it can be warm again. The leaves have hit the ground, and have been raked up, the trees bare and bracing for full on Winter. Snow comes, melts and comes again, Spring and Summer never far away. It is never boring, but I’ve always enjoyed the weather mood swings. Accept for driving in it… YUCK!!

With the weather changing, I’ve been inside locked away, working on the second read through on the next Jarvis Mann novel, The Front Range Butcher. This is the longest book I’ve written, at over 120k words in length, and the 7th in the series. I’m hoping to get it to beta readers in the next week for feedback. After that, if the reaction is good, then off to an editor. I’ve got an idea of how the cover will look, and I will be working with my cover designer to get that finished. Still shooting for early next year for a release. There is a lot going on in the next chapter of the Jarvis Mann series, as he is facing challenges testing all his physical and mental skills. Snippets of the book are posted each week on my Jarvis Mann Facebook page, so be sure to check them out.

One sleepless night last week, I wrote the first chapter to the next novel. Butcher and this book, tentatively titled, Mann in the Crossfire, are tied together. Like many of my stories, events and characters carryover from book to book, but these two will have two major plot-lines that link. There will be some political intrigue in the story, ripped from today’s headlines. Jarvis will go to new locales and face dangers he’s never faced before. It’s ambitious, so I hope it works.

That is all for now, as I need to get back to editing. Remember anyone signing up for this newsletter can get a free copy of the first Jarvis Mann novel, Tracking A Shadow. If you have friends who like the old-style Noir detective novels, with modern stories, be sure to tell them to sign up. All my books are available on Amazon. If you don’t have them all be sure to complete the set. They make great gifts for all the voracious readers in your family. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.