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A man staggers into a detective agency covered in blood with no memory of the night before and...

The Tech Guy and I go spoiler free on a brand-new cozy mystery, A Death In The Dark, the latest entry in my Novel Detectives series (a spin off connected to the Secret Bookcase Mysteries), then pull back the curtain on how the story came together in a very specific place: a six-hour road trip with a my runner son as my brainstorming partner.

We also get practical about the publishing side, including why the ebook release lands before the paperback this time and what a big US print run means for local bookstores. If you’re a reader who loves series order, new releases, and behind-the-scenes context, we keep it clear and friendly without giving away the twists.

For writers, we talk about how to plot a mystery novel from a single “glimmer” of an idea, how asking what-if and why questions generates suspects and motives fast, and why research matters even when most of it never makes it onto the page. We even touch on dialogue and grammar, because sometimes writing “wrong” is exactly how you make characters sound real.

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