BOOK SALES----THE GREAT MYSTERY OF WHO BOUGHT THE BOOK

            It would be ever so nice if Amazon included their existing feature that shows you where your sales originate for e-books, as well as for conventional print volumes.  It’s always good news when the counter ticks over a new sale on your KDP Reports page, and you mentally tote up the additional sale.  For me it’s a minor miracle every time someone buys a book I wrote, which reinforces the all too rare message that writing these books is worthwhile.   But, and it’s a big but, unless the reader writes a review that I manage to find and read, and I recognize their name, I have no way of finding out who buys my books and why they buy them.  

THE DEADLY DOG SHOW

Did you ever think that you’d like to kill the judge who didn’t give you (your dog, your horse, your child) the victory?  Did you ever get a gift from a secret admirer who might not really admire you?  Have you ever been in a competition that was rigged so you couldn’t win?  The seventh book in the popular Roger and Suzanne mystery series finds Roger and Bruce hired to go undercover impersonating the owner and handler of a Champion German Shorthaired Pointer named Juliet to investigate certain irregularities that might be occurring at dog shows in California.  To complicate this case the bodies of dead judges start popping up and Suzanne picks up a mysterious stalker sending her most unwelcome gifts.  Throw in drug cartels and corrupt cops and it sounds like a typical job for our detective couple.  “The Deadly Dog Show” may be read as a stand-alone novel, but fans of the series should enjoy reconnecting with characters they have met in the previous books.  This whodunit novel should appeal to mystery fans, dog lovers, and anyone who wants to learn more about the world of dog show competition. 

MURDER AT A DOG SHOW

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My current WIP novel “The Deadly Dog Show” is just about ready for publication.  The penultimate version is being proofread, edited, and tweaked before being sent next week to a short list of would-be reviewers to critique on Amazon and/or Goodreads.   Please add a comment here after this post or e-mail me directly if you’d like to request a review copy (PDF format) before publication of the book on Amazon KDP.   Reviews improve the author's writing and sell his or her books, so are an essential component of the overall publishing process.   I’ll do one more round of edits and tweaks while that’s occurring and the book should be on Amazon and available for readers to enjoy.  

The new novel features Roger doing an undercover investigation of alleged improprieties at several California dog shows, ably assisted by Robert’s nanny Bruce and by Suzanne.  Bruce is a nanny of many talents, including his abilities as a dog trainer and handler in the show ring.  Vincent Romero, the former CIA agent from Chile who we first met in “The Surreal Killer”, rounds out Roger’s investigative team in this entry in the popular series.  In between finding bodies at dog shows and discovering the identity of Suzanne’s mysterious stalker, Roger and Bruce have time to pick up a purebred Champion hunting dog named Juliet to lend credibility to their undercover identities as an owner/sponsor and a professional handler at several shows and for Bruce to train in tracking and scent work just in time to find a key clue as to who killed the murder victims.

THE BODY IN THE PARKING STRUCTURE

The 11,600-word novelette, "The Body in the Parking Structure", was my first book written in a shorter format than the traditional novel.  This very fast-paced mystery story features characters from the author's popular South American mystery series working on a murder case at home in Los Angeles.  The book can be purchased from Amazon for $1.99, and is free to borrow by Prime members.  Just click on the appropriate link below or the book cover image on the right.  Can you figure out whodunit before Roger does?  

  

 Amazon Book page

Amazon UK Book Page

Here’s an excerpt (950 words—8% of the story) from the beginning of the book to get you hooked:        

                                                Chapter 1. Suzanne finds the body

            For the first time since we had met, Suzanne discovered a dead body without me being there.  She was collecting her car at twilight from the UCLA parking structure after a quick trip to the laboratory to change the samples on a DNA sequencer.  The structure seemed to be deserted except for her and a large lump lying lifeless between her car and the garage wall.  She called 911 to report the body then called me. 

A New Review of The Body in the Parking Structure

This review is from Amazon: The Body in the Parking Structure (Kindle Edition) 4 Stars

"This is a short, fast paced read that has all the elements of a detective series with a notable shortage of detail.
This may sound like a negative but it is not.
This turned out to be a fun read. All the necessary information is contained herein but all those details that are used to drag out a story and flesh it out was absent.
Making it a really easy and nice read.
None of the essential information is missing.
The characters are fluffed out enough for the reader to connect to them though not so fluffed that they become THAT family member, you know the one!
The family member where you know every single breath taken.
This is a nice read and worth it's 4 * review rating."

I believe this is the first review of this book originating in the Southern Hemisphere (South Africa).  The 4-star rating overall is based upon a total of 9 reviews thus far.

It was fun experimenting with this short form mystery that takes place in Los Angeles rather than the much more descriptive style I used in my novels set in various South American locales.  It's quite amazing to me as an author how different the task becomes when you need to have a plot and a conclusion within some arbitrary constraint of total book length.

Mystery Writers of America and E-Publishers

The blog site of the Mystery Writers of America organization at has a fascinating tip of the hat to the 21^st century practice of E-publishing and their guidelines for approval of an E-publisher for membership in the MWA Organization http://www.mysterywriters.org/?q=mwablog .  Amazon qualifies, under the revised guideline “During the preceding year, the publisher must have paid a minimum of $1,000, in advances and/or royalties, to at least five authors with no financial or ownership interest in the company. Payment must be in monies, not in barter for advertising or copies of books.” 

E-books, themselves, won’t qualify their authors for membership, at least not yet.