A fresh-twist mystery/suspense novel in 3 editions (sc, hc, e). This 214-pp novel is set dead center in the most contact-intense 28+ singles’ colony in the U S at Kismet, Fire Island, a haven for the divorced. It is seriocomic and character-driven the way Dickens might have done it in 2013.
Published by Lulu, a POD company newly affiliated with newly combined Penguin Random House. Now available in bookstores, libraries, mail-order, etc.
I have previously published 2 NF books, plus some 40x in literary magazines: Partisan Review, Nation, Sewanee Review, New Leader, etc. One story anthologized; awarded residence at Yaddo. Have Amazon Author and Facebook pages.
The lead character of 5 is a woman new to the divorce mill and single motherhood, 34, looking for a new impact partner. She wonders about two things: “Am I a Calamity Jane at love?” and “Why do men kill women?” The men also have love-issue problems. Sharon fast finds herself a roommate to an unsolvable-murder victim she barely knew. And full face into a wobbly triangle with 2 men subject to post-divorce anger. Misperceptions abound in the early stages of singles’ share-housing. But in the end, many 28+ singles looking to hit the Significant Other jackpot may find they are still burdened with the same old problems that got them there in the first place.
MYSTERIOUS WORLD is not a book for everyone’s taste. It seems to begin as a whodunit. It then morphs into a howdunnit in the James M Cain tradition. Related unpremeditated murders occur, committed by different people, all ½ inch from never occurring at all. How that ½ inch is crossed is part of the story. A book with teeth, it bites. A read to mull over, to discuss. For readers with love issues, a self-administered Rorschach test. But it has wit and laughs too.