In case you are new here, I have written and self-published books in a series (I’ve since unpublished them–I deal with that in a subsequent post). The narrator is a guy named Harry Shalan, pronounced shay-lun. That’s a bit of a running joke. No one seems to be able to pronounce it. Harry came to be as part of a creative writing class I took in college back in the early 1980s, but he was a completely different character in the beginning than he ended up being. In his first iteration, he was a cross between Mike Hammer and Inspector Clouseau. All muscle and no brain. But I found that made him quite limited in terms of character development.

In the meantime, I discovered the man who would become my author hero–Robert B. Parker, creator of Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall, among others. At the time, though, I only knew about Spenser. I loved the feel of Parker’s stories. I loved the rhythm, the wittiness, the weightiness of his character, who is equal parts thug and scholar. But Parker’s world view is considerably darker than mine, so, while you hear echoes of Spenser when you hear Harry, you hear me and my attitudes much more loudly. And that’s pretty obvious to people who know me and read my books. They tell me they hear me narrating. I’m Harry and Harry is me. Well, he’s me except younger, stronger, more handsome, and with hair.

I’ll talk more about Harry and Dee’s history in subsequent posts, but suffice it to say I never intended to stop telling their stories. I had just written five books and felt like I was ready to tell a different story altogether. And I told most of it. Who knows–maybe I’ll finish it someday. But I really missed living in their world. This book will bring me all the way back to the beginning and allow me to go in multiple directions in the same universe. And I intend to try them all out over the years.

So, Shalan fans, take heart. Harry and his stunning bride are back. Soon, I’d love to share some excerpts of the latest work-in-progress on here and get your feedback. I’ll also be writing about my process, as well as things not author-related, though I believe that will be on a different venue from this blog.

PS: Those covers are from my original versions of the books when I self-published them. They are in chronological order, but the first book there, Hold Your Peace, was actually written last. The one I’m working on now will fit in time between the end of HYP and the beginning of Harsh Prey.