Hey! I’m querying my fifth book, IT ALWAYS STARTS WITH A BODY, a 72,500-word psychological thriller with paranormal horror elements.
Detective John Juno just wants two simple things—to be left alone to do his job, AND to get rid of the ghost of the killer responsible for his son’s death that follows him everywhere. The ghost incessantly taunts him, and (sometimes) helps with his investigations, telling him things he couldn’t know otherwise. John teeters on the edge, trying to quiet the voice with a steady parade of booze, pills, and casual self-destruction. He’s in self-assigned purgatory.
When a severed, beautifully manicured hand shows up in the city landfill, Juno is assigned to investigate who it belongs to.
To Juno’s dismay, he’s partnered with an idealistic young by-the-book detective, Rachel Erikson. Finding the identity of the hand and then a ransom note starts a countdown to save the handless victim. The case uncovers deep-rooted secrets of the city’s rich and powerful, in an investigation that crashes into Juno’s personal life, endangering his friends and estranged daughter, leaving him with a choice—start listening to the ghost, face his demons, forgive himself and let others in on his secret, or lose what remains of his sanity and let the handless victim die.
The story combines the fast twists of a TRUE DETECTIVE mystery (specifically season 1) with the otherworldly elements of Ramona Emerson’s SHUTTER and the irreverent humor of Chuck Wendig’s BOOK OF ACCIDENTS. Tons of red herrings, very plotty. Very weird.
Fan of Stephen King’s hardboiled stuff? Fan of Disco Elysium? Fan of China Mieville’s “The City and the City? Fan of True Detective? You’ll dig this.
