A Zafiro Update
It’s been a while (about a year) since I put out an update that takes a quick overview on what’s happening and will happen in Zafiro land, so let’s hit it quick and hard.
Book #1 in the Ania series, Blood on Blood, was published April 30th by Down & Out Books (D&O). It is the first of four books that I wrote with Jim Wilsky, set in Chicago.
When half-brothers Mick and Jerzy Sawyer are summoned to their father’s prison deathbed, it isn’t for a tearful goodbye. The spiteful old man tells the two estranged brothers about an old diamond heist with outstanding loot, and sets them on a path of cooperation and competition to recover the jewels.
Jerzy is the quintessential career criminal, fresh out of a short bit and looking to get back into the action right away. Mick is the failed cop and tainted hero struggling to get by with a clean life that doesn’t seem to ever pay off. Both men see this score as their ticket out of Chicago.
Throw in the mysterious, blond Ania, and Blood on Blood is hardboiled Hardy Boys meets Cain and Abel. Jerzy and Mick battle each other for all of it — the diamonds, the girl, and survival — and nothing else matters…not even blood.
The series is gritty, like most D&O titles, and told in alternating first person chapters by two different narrators (I wrote one, Jim the other). Each book has new protagonists and is set in a new location, but the common thread that weaves its way through all four books is Ania, the siren grifter. D&O is re-issuing the first three with new covers, and publishing the fourth (a prequel called Harbinger) at the end of the year.
Along those lines, book #2 in the series, Queen of Diamonds, will be out June 25th! This one is set in Vegas.
When Ania Kozak hits Vegas, she’s only looking for a place to relax and lay low with her stolen cash and diamonds. But Sin City has other plans for “Annie.”
Cord Needham is a poker circuit champion with an eye for the ladies and a dark secret in his past. Casey Brunnell is a former baseball player fighting the cards and running up debts to a local mobster. When Annie decides to play a dangerous game with both of them, the stakes go through the roof. Everyone scrambles to beat the odds and get out of town with the money…and their lives.
In August, The Getaway List, the third and final Bricks & Cam Job novel will be released from D&O.
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Bricks and Cam are back, this time fleeing from the East Coast after closing accounts with the mob. Planning a new life on the West Coast, the pair of hit men stop off in Ashton, a small, rural town in eastern Washington, only to immediately find themselves embroiled in trouble in typical fashion.In preparation for the release of The Getaway List, D&O has discounted the first novel, The Backlist, to just .99 cents. This deal is for a limited time, but it is a cheap way to get a taste of the series.
Episode 15 of my podcast Wrong Place, Write Crime is out and available, featuring an interview with Kat Richardson, author of the Greywalker series and the new hard boiled sci-fi novel, Blood Orbit.
Episode 16 is on the way, featuring an interview with Asa Marie Bradley.
September will see the Volume 2 release of Lawrence Kelter’s Black Car Business. My short story, “Details in Black” is featured in this anthology.
The month of September is also my target month for the release of the fifth River City book, In the End. This one is set in December 1999. Remember the apocalypse that Y2K was supposed to bring about? Well, that’s only part of what Katie MacLeod & Co. are dealing with in this new novel.
For those of you who might be interested in my Sam the Hockey Player series, I’m hoping to release several new installments around the start of hockey season, and certainly before the holidays. The first book, The Hardest Hit, is one of four that feature Sam Parker at the Pee Wee level of play (11 and 12 years old). This has been a series in name only for a while now, and it is time to make good on that promise. The first book will get a new cover to go with the new ones, too.
Haven’t had an update for a little while, but last word was the the military fiction anthology, The Odds Are Against Us was “Fall 2018.” My short story, “Titus, My Brother,” is in this one. It’s historical fiction, set in first century Britain during the uprising of Boudicca.
In October, Closing the Circle (Ania #3) will be out from D&O. This one takes place in wine country in California, and brings the story to a close (sort of).
John Pearse is a loss recovery agent for an insurance agency. When a set of crown jewels that his company paid out on resurface in the middle of a Russian/Polish mafia war in Chicago, Pearse is sent in to find and recover the diamonds. Standing in his ways are gangsters, grifters, and cops, but the biggest obstacle will be the sexy Ania, who has managed to stay one step of everyone else…until now.
Andros Krol is muscle for the Polish mafia in Chicago, tasked by his boss to bring back more than just the diamonds. Strong and cunning, Krol is after the money Ania took, but his biggest priority is to deliver brutal justice and a final day of reckoning for Ania.
Pearse and Krol are locked into a race against time and each other as they pursue the wily Ania.
The circle is closing on all of them.
December of this year will see the newest book in the Ania series, Harbinger, get released. This one is an origin story of sorts, a prequel to the first three. Set in Florida, before the events of Blood on Blood, readers will see how Ania becomes…well, Ania. As always, the story will be largely told through the eyes of the two protagonists, one penned by Jim Wilsky and the other by me.
Harbinger is Ania’s origin story, set on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida, and centered around two lifelong friends and fishing charter boat partners, Boyd Tomlin and Hicks Ledoux. In desperate need of money, they consider smuggling drugs to make ends meet. By chance or fate, they meet two beautiful sisters who will change everything—a young Ania and her kid sister Karolyn. Boyd and Hicks quickly find themselves embroiled in the world of illegal drug trade, romance, danger and violence lurking around every corner.
That takes care of the rest of 2018. What about 2019?
Well, I’ll hit that harder when we get a little closer, but I can tell you three things that are definitely happening….
I am editing and contributing to a serial novella anthology called A Grifter’s Song. This was an idea I had initially considered doing myself, but after being invited to a novella anthology series by another author (the project unfortunately stalled), I realized that was a better way to go. The series (think of it like you would a TV series) revolves around two grifters, Sam and Rachel, who are devoted to each other. Each episode features one of their cons, as they try to separate a mark from their money. Meanwhile, they are on the run from some bad people, a fact that sometimes messes with their cons. Every episode will see a resolution to the story, which an overarching storyline that will run two seasons (twelve episodes).
Yes, I know it’s not TV, but like I said, it is just easier to think of it that way. D&O will be publishing these novellas once a month, starting in January 2019. You can subscribe to the series and get each one automatically, pick them up individually, or get them collected into a couple of paperbacks…whatever suits your fancy.
The first novella is The Concrete Smile, which I wrote. Other authors in season one are JD Rhoades, Lawrence Kelter, Gary Phillips, Colin Conway, and Joe Ricker. Season two will have Jim Wilsky, Eric Beetner, me again, and a few surprises yet to be revealed. The covers are being designed by Zach McCain, the same artist who did the Ania series.
In March 2019, D&O will release Charlie-316, my latest novel with Colin Conway. This book explores the aftermath of a police shooting, and deals with the issue of perception from all parties — the cops involved, the city politicians, the detectives investigating, the various segments of the public.
June 2019 is when D&O will release my standalone novel, In the Cut. I won’t say much about this one yet, other than it is set against the backdrop of an outlaw motorcycle gang.
What else? Well, I see at least one, and perhaps two, River City novels in 2019. Perhaps another Kopriva novel, too. And there are a number of other projects I haven’t discussed before that might bump up the line. We’ll see, and I’ll let you know.
As you can see, plenty to keep me busy.
Source: All The Madness In My Soul
