Second Edition of "Trouble Like a Freight Train Coming" Out Now!

Yes, I’m using a lot of exclamation point for this release, one of my favorite stories ever, freshly edited and available for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and a plethora of other sites.

First published in the anthology Lowcountry Crime, “Trouble Like a Freight Train Coming” is now a stand-alone novella. It was nominated for a Derringer (in one of my most delighted author moments) and functions as a prequel to my Tai Randolph & Trey Seaver series.

Here’s its description:

Tai Randolph is accustomed to murder and mayhem...of the fictional variety. As a tour guide in Savannah, Georgia, she’s learned the tips are better when she seasons her stories with a little blood here, a little depravity there. She’s less experienced in real life criminality, however, preferring to spend her days sleeping late and her nights hitting the bars. But when she gets the news that her trouble-making cousin has keeled over while running a marathon, Tai finds herself in a hot mess of treachery and dirty dealings. Worst of all, the clues lead her straight into the moonshine-soaked territory of the most infamous smuggler in Chatham County—her Uncle Boone.

 “Trouble Like A Freight Train Coming” is set in Savannah several years prior to the inheritance of her Atlanta gun shop and her first encounter with security agent Trey Seaver, who ultimately becomes her partner in both romance and crime solving. For readers familiar with the rest of Tai’s adventures, this story is a chance to watch her develop her sleuthing chops. For those meeting Tai for the first time . . . welcome to her slightly reckless, somewhat hungover, not-quite-respectable world.

Look for it on Nook, Kobo, Apple, !ndigo, Scribd, and other platforms (Books2Read provides a handy summary HERE) and on Amazon Kindle. And just between us, keep your fingers crossed for an audio version real soon.

A Walk Through Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery

I love strolling in old cemeteries. I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – I am, after all, a mystery writer, and I write a character who used to be a tour guide in Savannah graveyards – but my appreciation is occasionally met with a shudder from others.

Those are places of the dead, they say.

Well, yes . . . and no. Places of the dead certainly, but for the living without a doubt. Graveyards are the collective scrapbook of a community – a family, a church, a town – and Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery is an especially gorgeous and intricate one.

First a plantation, Bonaventure began welcoming the dead into its marshy arms in the early 1800s. Situated at the bend of the Wilmington River, Bonaventure blends the manmade and the natural in a shifting intermingle, as tidal as the waters that run along its Eastern borders. The landscape is mostly silent – bird calls, rustling leaves, a high soft breeze winding through the Spanish moss and live oak branches – but occasionally the whine of an outboard motor will piece the quiet. Or a tour bus will rumble through. Or even – because this is still a working cemetery – a line of cars with their headlights on, laying a loved one to rest, adding another soul and another story to the Bonaventure fold.

Bonaventure is most famous perhaps for the iconic Bird Girl statue, which after it graced the cover of John Beredt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil became too valuable to rest unattended and which was spirited away to a downtown museum. But there are other famous grave sites, and art, still available for the viewing.

There’s the resting place of Gracie Watson, marked with tenderly carved sculpture of the little girl who died at age seven. Her grave is protected by a wrought iron fence, saving the stone from the further erosion of human hands. Rain and the salt air have had their way, and so I imagine the features are not as sharply defined as they once were. I think it’s beautiful this way, worked upon by the slow hand of time, which is as tender and delicate as an artist’s touch.

There’s also the gravesite of Conrad Aiken, a one of the finest American poets and a lover of Savannah. His grave is a bench—the legend goes, he wanted to provide a place for visitors to stop, rest and have a martini with him – engraved with two telling phrases: “GIVE MY LOVE TO THE WORLD” and “COSMOS MARINER DESTINATION UNKNOWN.”

Bonaventure is – and perhaps this is why I love all cemeteries so – a place of stories. Some are long and raveling. Some read “The End” all too soon. Some are mysteries, marked only by a stone that says “Mother” or “Baby Boy.” But all invite us to participate in the telling. All ask us, the living, to continue the tale.

PS: If you’d like to visit Bonaventure with Tai as your tour guide, grab a copy of Trouble Like a Freight Train Coming, the Derringer-nominated prequel to the series. You can find more info HERE.