Latest Novel: 

working title: Warranty Work 

(Joe Sault, Detective: book 3)

Update:

November 16, 2022

Sad to say, it doesn’t look like I’m going to make the Christmas deadline I was hoping for.

I’m currently about 75K words into what I think will likely end up being 100K. The final 25K usually do come fastest for me because all the setup is done and it’s just a matter of playing it out to the logical conclusion so I'll likely finish the rough draft by Christmas but, this time, it looks like there will still be a lot that needs polishing.

As with the first in this series (Wakeless), Warranty Work will end where I had initially thought it would begin, because of all the background, details, and subplots. So, what I thought would be a trilogy, has turned out to be a quadrilogy. 

I promise to do my very best to tie all the threads up in the next and final novel in the series. (It's not that I'm bored with the characters, just anxious to write something different for a while.)

You can read the first 6 rough-draft chapters on my website: wmdbooks.com

Here are some of the foundational elements you can expect to be unpacked…

• Hennessy’s sudden retirement leaves Sault exactly where he never wanted to be: In charge and alone in the Autonomous Droid Unit.

• Worse yet, Deputy Chief Christian Devoss is now his boss and his first actions are to order Heidi reprogrammed and to add a new tactical robot to the ADU.

• Sault’s old trainee, Darsh Singh has been assigned to ADU and is not pleased about it.

• Though Sidney Cavallon is dead and buried, his posthumous revenge is now playing out, causing disruption in Sault’s personal life.

• Meanwhile, Sault has been using his spare time to stretch the augmented abilities that Vivia gifted him, allowing him enter A-Space, the massively layered data stream world, previously only accessible to AI’s.

• Vivia finds that with her newfound freedom comes indecision and uncertainty, and she roams heaven and earth seeking a meaningful life path.

• Meanwhile, Sault is forced to replace Vivia with a new AI, named Tansy.

• The MAIM has emancipated all cognizant AI’s and the effects are starting to be noticed. Now, it is worried about a strong and malevolent AI it believes exists within the Weatherglass game—the one place it can not go.

• Sault gets his first experience within Weatherglass and it does not go well.

• Through her new job with Nathan Bethea, Maya is experiencing a wider, more upscale world with freedoms she missed out on when she was younger. As well, her attraction to Nathan is growing.

• The anomalous Missing Persons case alluded to in The Queen of All Colors, has now reached critical proportions and has become a political landmine. Chief Roth needs answers before it explodes. 

• Devoss aggressively seeks to dethrone Roth and assume his position as Chief of Police.

• Because all the other detectives are still busy with the Red Christmas massacre, fledgling Detective Florence Sung is assigned to work the case with Sault. Her insecurities and his rogue nature do not make a good mix.

• Sung and Sault suspect a serial murderer is responsible for the MP’s but with few leads and no bodies, the case proves stubborn.

• Eventually they encounter Elliot Hobb, a strange man with a traumatic past who lives immersed in Augmented Reality. 

Both detectives are certain that Hobb is their man, but can they prove it? 

Maybe not in this reality.

That's all for now, but I've decided to post updates and other things more often to let you in on my life and my process, such as it is, and to help keep hope alive.