“John had great big waterproof boots on…” So begins a children’s poem written by A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh. These are also the first words of my new mystery, Loners, to be published by The Wild Rose Press on October 13, 2025.

The novel continues: “…and a rubber apron that stretched from neck to knees. The apron was spattered with blood and other bodily fluids released during the autopsy. I had no protective clothing and stood well back against the wall.” The narrator is Christine McQuarry, a police detective and one of the loners in the title. Christine resists authority, alienates her colleagues, and exasperates John, the Medical Examiner. Her obsession with the dead woman on the autopsy table drives the plot of this, my second Pacific Northwest mystery set in a Puget Sound-adjacent town not unlike my home town of Bellingham. The first, Six Degrees of Death, was released last November.

Loners began life as an entry in a short story competition. Writers were invited to select from an assortment of poetry first and last lines and fill the gap between them with 2,000 words in any genre. I chose the first and last lines from Milne’s poem “Happiness,” and my happy place: the literary world of murder and mayhem.

I enjoyed creating Christine. She’s stubborn and, as my mother would say, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. But she’s also smart and brave. If I sound like Christine is a real person, that’s because, at a certain point in the writing, she took on a life of her own: she was telling me what was going to happen next. That’s the joy of novel-writing. When it’s going well, I can let the characters take over the steering.

Now comes the less enjoyable part of the process: the PR and marketing. Getting a book into the hands of interested readers is ever more difficult when there are so many other media competing for attention. The social media promotion alone can become a full-time job, and frankly I’d rather be writing.

You can help: become a Loners Advance Reader. Let me know if you would like me to send you a free electronic version of the novel. After October 13, submit an honest review to Amazon, Goodreads, or your favorite book-focused site. Share your review with me, so that I can amplify it through my own channels. A good number of early reviews will give Loners a chance to be noticed.

Word of mouth is still the most effective publicity. If you have enjoyed my books, please tell your friends and family. I’m much more interested in readers than royalties.