The President's Henchman, the first book in my Jim McGill series, just reached 1,200 Amazon reader reviews. For indie authors/publishers, favorable reader reviews are critical to success. 

So to all of you who have helped the cause, please accept my heartfelt thanks. If you've read and enjoyed the book, but haven't yet posted a review, please do. A review can be as brief and as to the point as you like. If you prefer to be expansive, so much the better. 

As always, please be sure to tell family and friends that TPH in ebook edition is available to them for FREE. Thanks for your interest and your help.

Building a mailing list

Right now, I'm working hard on two projects: finishing a new John Tall Wolf novel and building my mailing list. Writing a new book is always fun, even if it's challenging. Doing the business end of publishing isn't really fun but it keeps the revenue coming in, which lets my wife and me sleep easy at night. That and indulge in non-essentials like buying tickets for plays in Chicago.

Why build a mailing list?

Because when you have a new book to release it helps to have a ready audience of people who'd like to buy it. And how do you build a mailing list? Well, one way is to give away a free book to show you can write a good story. Then people will buy other books you've written, especially if the book you give away is the first in a lengthy series as my novel "The President's Henchman" is.

Giving away a book isn't as easy as it might sound. It helps to have good reader and mass market reviews. I've got those things, but you still have to let people know the book exists. To do that, you have to advertise. My main ad outlet is on Facebook. Since last June, I've added 2,000 names to my mailing list.

That's not bad, but the writer who introduced me to Facebook advertising has 75,000+ names on his list. Being the competitive guy that I am, I want to get to 100,000. I figure there are at least that many people who will enjoy my books. Wouldn't be surprised if there are a million. So I'm going to have to work harder to achieve my business goal.

The next question is, what's the best way to keep the readers who sign up for your mailing list? Some people suggest that you have to email the people on your list frequently. I'm very uneasy about that.

My point of view is to let people know when I have something substantive to say. I don't want people to see an email from me and think it's something inconsequential they don't want to bother with.

So what I'd like to know, from anyone who'd care to comment, is how often, or infrequently, would you like to hear from me via email? Only when I have a new book nearing completion? When I might post a free short story to read on my website? When I announce my retirement? Just kidding about that last one.

Seriously, though, I'd appreciate some guidelines from my readers. Any help you offer will be seriously considered.

Of course, email is one thing, but if I feel a need to spout on some subject, I'll just post it here and on Facebook with no advance warning.

The Latest on Jim McGill

It's time to provide some feedback to all the readers who have been kind enough to either buy or download "The President's Henchman," Jim McGill novel #1.

First of all, your numbers are growing, for which my co-publisher Catherine and I are very grateful. Unlike the cliché attached to many writers — that we're neurotic wretches afflicted by creative constipation — I have a grand time when I sit down at my keyboard. I live my stories as I write them. It's a vicarious experience, of course, but it's also intimately personal as it occurs within my mind.

The only thing that comes close to the joy of writing for me — other than spending time in the company of my wife and daughter — is hearing from readers that I've provided them with a good time. Reading a good review on a McGill book always brightens my day.

McGill has actually been around for quite a while now. I wrote the manuscript for "The President's Henchman" in 2003. That was back in the days when I was traditionally published, and well before Amazon came up with Kindle Direct Publishing. The publisher who brought two of my books to market, Bantam Books, rejected TPH. So did many other big name publishers. They didn't see a market for the book.

So I put Jim McGill on the shelf but never put him out of my mind. A number of years went by and a small regional publisher showed interest.

Sorry to say, things didn't work out. I got the rights back, and Jim McGill had to wait patiently once again. His time came when Amazon let authors publish their work independently through Kindle Direct Publishing.

Catherine and I jumped at the opportunity. Using a BookBub promotion, TPH shot up to #6 in the overall Kindle Paid Store. That was early last year, 2016. Then BookBub decided to emphasize traditionally published books and Catherine and I started to advertise on Facebook a couple of months ago. We were following the lead of an English writer named Mark Dawson.

Thank goodness for Mark. Before we advertised on Facebook, we had 550 people on our mailing list. Now, in a matter of weeks, we're closing in on 2,000. We had 1,600 followers on BookBub. Now, we're close to 2,000 there also.

For comparison, Mark has 75,000+ people on his mailing list. So we have a lot of room to grow, and we intend to do just that. We feel, with good reason, we think, that there are many more readers out there who would enjoy McGill's exploits just as much as you have.

So please spread the good word, not just for me but for any author whose work you enjoy. As readers/consumers, you have tremendous power. Amazon and every other smart retailer want as much feedback from you as they can get. So, please, when something — like a good book — really pleases you, write a brief but glowing review.

That's the surest way to get more of what you like.

I'm working on a new John Tall Wolf novel right now. If all goes well, there will be a first post-White House McGill book out next year, as well as some new heroes (and villains) for you to meet.

Thanks again for being a friend of McGill.

Finding common ground

In 2003, I wrote a screenplay called Let's Play Two. The storyline has the team payroll of the Chicago Cubs being stolen by a computer hacker. The team owner is in a financial bind so he can't come up with more money. The hacker who took the payroll says he'll pay each player the highest salary that Cubs' hero Ernie Banks made — a pittance by contemporary standards. Nonetheless, the team pulls together and wins the World Series in the seventh game against the New York Yankees — in a blizzard, Chicago weather being what it is.

Only 13 years later, the Cubs did win the World Series, a product of brilliant management, terrific player acquisition and coming together as a team.

That made me wonder if it would be possible to bring the American voting public together for our common good. There's so much that divides us, could any idea unite us? I think there are a few things. I'll write about one today and another next week.

In my Jim McGill novel, The Last Ballot Cast, McGill is subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Oversight. The committee's chairman doesn't like McGill's attitude and McGill is threatened with being found in contempt of Congress.

McGill's too tough to be scared by that threat, and he asks why any American might be found in contempt of Congress but Congress can't be found in contempt of the American people.

A reporter later asks McGill what the grounds might be for Congress to be found in contempt of the American people.

He responds, “Failure to do their jobs.” Then he elaborates, "Over the course of a calendar year, has the unemployment rate gone down? Has the number of jobs paying a living wage gone up? Has the number of people with substantial health insurance gone up? Has the number of people using emergency rooms for their medical needs gone down? Has the number of U.S. made manufactured goods gone up? Has the number of imported manufactured goods gone down? Has the number of students graduating from high school gone up? Has the number of dropouts gone down? Has the number of admissions to colleges, universities, technical and trade schools gone up? Has the amount of student debt gone down? Has the number of cops on patrol gone up? Has the number of crimes against persons and property gone down? Has the number of people working their way out of poverty gone up? Has the number of whining fat cats gone down?

"If Congress failed in two or more areas of critical concern they would, de facto, be cited for contempt of the American people. Every member of Congress would have his or her pay reduced by twenty-five percent, they would receive no pension contribution for that year or health care coverage for the following year and members of the leadership would be confined at minimum security prisons during Congressional recesses.

How, he was asked, would such a situation come to pass?

“Congress would have to pass a law,” he said.

After the reporters all laughed, McGill added, “The voters could make Congress do that, if they wanted.”

So what do you think? Is this an idea voters spanning the political spectrum could get behind? I think so.

Old Friends and New Acquaintances

Jim McGill is back today in “The Daddy’s Girl Decoy,” number nine in the White House cycle of the McGill saga. This is the e-book edition; the print version will be a month or two in coming. “Decoy” is the penultimate book in this cycle. The next title, yet to be named, will close out the second term of Patricia Grant’s presidency and Jim McGill’s position as the president’s henchman.

I’m happy to say I still enjoy exploring McGill’s character. I think he’s grown since the day he was introduced in “The President’s Henchman,” and I feel he has miles to go before he calls it quits. He’s about to embark on a career as an international businessman — without giving up his own sleuthing, of course. Patti is about to become a venture capitalist with a social conscience. The McGill kids are becoming independent adults and, who knows, one or more of them might make McGill a grandfather.

That’s the thing that keeps me interested in McGill, Patti and all the others. They age just like the rest of us. Their situations change and they have to adapt. They outgrow old circumstances and move on to new ones. Old friends depart and new ones appear. I certainly anticipate all these things as the next cycle of McGill stories are written.

One reader review of McGill on Amazon said I make the characters in the story “too perfect.” To that I plead somewhat guilty. McGill has his regrets like the rest of us, but he’s probably more fortunate than we are, too. He gets along with his ex-wife. His kids are fairly well adjusted and self-directed. His second chance at love with Patti Grant is pretty much a winning lottery ticket.

I could have made McGill a darker character, but there are plenty of novels with those guys, and there’s grim news daily in just about any newspaper that comes to hand. From my point of view, McGill and his friends, with new ones to come, help to balance the daily dose of hard reality we get delivered to our front doors (or computers) every morning.

So, one more title in the White House cycle and then on to new contexts with new characters joining the familiar favorites. One thing McGill can always use is new readers. Please continue to introduce him to anyone who enjoys a good read. You know, stories with characters who are just a bit more perfect than you are.

Keeping Familiar Characters Fresh

One of the great things about writing novels is hearing from readers that they love the characters you create. No, that's the wrong verb. You don't create characters as much as find or discover them.

When I decided to write a private investigator novel, I had to ask myself where I wanted to set it. Many authors will stake a claim to a city or a state as their protagonist's turf. I wanted to do something different. So I thought I'd use a house as my guy's central setting. To make things interesting, I chose the White House.

That's natural for me. I have an interest in politics that started early and remains strong. But I didn't want to echo my own character directly in Jim McGill. So I went a different way. McGill is an unflagging supporter of his wife, President Patricia Grant, because he loves her above all else. Except for his kids.

He's a family man, first and foremost. I liked that because it's not typical for a tough-guy PI. Using that as a starting point, I looked for other things about McGill that would differentiate him from other characters in his genre. One of those traits was a reverence for life and a reluctance to take lives.

Sure, he'd be happy to bust someone's nose, if that's called for, but he doesn't pull his gun and shoot people willy-nilly. And when he gets in a physical confrontation, he doesn't shrug it off. Sometimes he needs the attention of massage therapists and a long soak in a hot bath to ease the pain.

Heck, he's so human he even has to submit to a colonoscopy and has pre-cancerous polyps removed.

All of that is part of discovering just who this guy is. But now we know all that. Along with his wife, McGill is now coming to the end of his time in the White House. Which is good because he's grown tired of it. The relentless pressures are wearing on everyone involved, not just him.

And as much as readers have enjoyed McGill in that context, they (you) might soon think things are getting stale. So McGill, to stay fresh, has to move on. Just as all of us do as we move through life.

He has to assume new roles: the CEO of an international detective agency, not just the head of a one-man shop; the father of children fast becoming adults, and maybe soon the role of being a grandfather; maybe someone who has to deal with an unexpected physical limitation.

I can't say for sure. I'll have to find out as I go along. Make new discoveries. That's what will keep McGill fresh for me and, I hope, enjoyable for you.

Writing Time and Typos

My wife tells me I don’t spend enough time blogging. She’s probably right; she is about most things. Some marketing gurus tell writers that regular blog posts are critical tools for a writer to build his/her audience. Other people say blogs are a waste of time. Precious few are read by anyone beyond a writer’s immediate family and close friends.

This one draws only slightly more people than that.

But then I’ve put a bare minimum, if that, into building an audience for Committing Fiction. Truth is, I’d rather write a story than a blog post. The work is more interesting and the payoff is more immediate.

I’m fairly optimistic, though, that this post might be read by two more people than usually show up at this dusty outpost of the Internet. Two readers of my novels recently commented on my Jim McGill novels. The comments dovetail neatly from my point of view.

The first is a question that comes from Andy S.: “What is a normal, if there is one,  time frame to write a complete novel, like the Jim McGill book you will be starting, 3 months, 6 months?”

The answer is I never know how long a book will take to write. I can say that once I begin writing the first draft, I work seven days per week until I’m finished. I wish I could take more of a prima donna attitude and let nothing interrupt the work flow, but that isn’t realistic. I’m at the stage of life where my family obligations extend to both child and parent, and of course to my wife.

Family is the only thing that matters to me more than my writing. My mother and father both worked a lot harder than I do to make things right for my five siblings and me. My wife, as you’ll see below, also works very hard. I have to do what I can to hold up my end of the bargain. So, while I write every day to complete the first draft of a novel, the number of hours I have to write in a given day can vary greatly.

Then there’s the story itself. It might be complex or simple. The nature of a story determines its length. The longer the story, the greater the time it takes to tell. More words equals more pages equals more time needed at the keyboard.

I work hard at maintaining good health, so I don’t lose much time to sick days. Hardly any, really. But I’m not Superman. Toward the end of writing “The Last Ballot Cast,” I’d been at the keyboard so long, writing so persistently, that the fingers of my left hand started to spasm. That limited me in terms of the time I could spend working. This was very frustrating. I could see the end was close. I had all the words in my head. But if I pushed too hard my hand might have gotten really screwed up. I did what I needed to do; I pulled back.

Cost myself maybe an extra two weeks to complete the first draft.

There’s more to say about what happens next, but first I’ll mention the second reader comment.

Jeffrie F. posted the following comment on the Facebook page Friends of Jim McGill: “Love all 4 McGill Books. However, these last two books need a better KINDLE EDITOR. For such a great author, it is terrible to have the books not at its finest level. Way too many errors in the last two books.”

After I complete the first draft of a novel, it gets proofread, usually by five people, including me. We all find errors, often the same ones but not infrequently errors that one of us spots while the others miss them. Proofreading at a professional level is an exacting and uncommon skill. That’s why good proofreaders can charge handsome fees.

If I had hired a proofreading pro, it would have cost me $4,000-$5,000 to have a book the length of “The Last Ballot Cast” done. Sorry to say there’s no such thing as a Kindle Editor; you either do the work in-house or you hire an outside expert. The profit margin on most of my novels is two to three dollars. You can do the arithmetic to figure out how many copies I’d have to sell just to break even.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that TLBC suffered because two of my usual proofreaders were unavailable at the time. One was at summer school taking an extra course so she might graduate from college on time. The other was having back surgery. Life intrudes on everyone’s plans.

Besides what it might cost to hire an outside proofreader, there’s the matter of time it always takes to pick out at least most of the rough spots in a first draft. After I get back the corrections from my other readers and clean up those mistakes, I reread the manuscript again, polishing and making sure any continuity errors are corrected. More time.

Then the polished manuscript goes to my wife, Catherine, for formatting and page layout. Then Catherine and I have to come up with a cover design. Next, Catherine has to make the design computer ready. More time again. In short, a book’s ready when it’s ready.

Please understand, I hate finding typos in my work. So does Catherine. They make us cringe. Fortunately, e-books are infinitely revisable. If you spot mistakes we’ve missed and would care to point them out to us, please do. We will make the corrections and upload the cleaner copy.

In the meanwhile, we are looking for a sixth proofreader within the community where we live. We’ll also be checking the Net to see if there’s any good, reasonably priced software on the market that does more than check spelling. If you know of any, please let us know.

Perfection is never possible, but it’s always worth striving for.

One more thing, if you like the Jim McGill novels, please visit the Friends of Jim McGill page. I’d love to see a community of readers form there. I don’t always have the time to communicate one to one, but it would be great if McGill’s fans could start a dialogue among themselves.

Politics and Paper

A point of artistic responsibility for me is to create stories with a moral center.

The sticking point here is that people have different concepts of what's moral, and then we dress our respective senses of morality in different political clothing. To a great degree, the political discourse in our country has lost the ability to disagree without being disagreeable. Instead, we've come to relish zapping the other side.

That's what made an email I received the other day all the more remarkable. A reader named David let me know how much he enjoyed reading The Last Ballot Cast — despite the fact that his politics were considerably different than those espoused in my novel. That all but took my breath away.

If you'd care to search the reader reviews of my work on Amazon — and elsewhere, I presume — you'll find one-star reviews and accompanying diatribes that mock my work precisely because of my political views. Some people feel that the only good political thrillers are the ones that reinforce their views.

In the interest of letting you know how I feel about things, about the ideas that underlie any inspiration that might come my way, about who this guy Joseph Flynn is, here's a little bit about me.

All four of my grandparents immigrated to the United States in the early years of the 20th century. None of them came with a bankroll to get him or her off to a flying start. All four of them worked at the kinds of jobs young newcomers could find: a doorman, a streetcar conductor, a nanny, a hotel housekeeper.

They set up their households, raised and educated their children, sent their sons off to World War Two and were lucky enough to get all of them back. Their children married and set out to make their way in a country that offered more opportunities than my grandparents had been given.

My family was middle class because my dad worked sixty hours a week, and with union benefits got paid for seventy hours. His job in a steel-making plant was tiring and dangerous. He took public transportation to and from work. But even after a very long day he was so eager to see his wife and kids he would run the last half-mile home from the bus stop.

I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college. My dad wanted me to be a dentist. I thought I would become a lawyer. But on my way to my first day of college, on public transportation, I got the idea for my first short story. It came out of the blue. My first gift from the greater storyteller. After that, there was no question what I was going to do. In order to actually make money as a writer, I became a copywriter at the Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency. I was able to apply for that job because I had a college degree.

My wife and I were blessed with the arrival of our daughter, a child whose gifts make mine look pale. She became the first person in our family to go to an Ivy League college. She's fluent in French and Russian and was selected for an internship with the U.S. State Department. She also, God love her, is a fantastic writer.

The progress our family has made through a span of three generations has been matched or far exceeded by innumerable other American families. The opportunities for people of humble origins to succeed is what has made the United States great.

So, from my point of view, the most important responsibility our government has is to build, sustain and protect the broadest, deepest, most secure and most accessible middle class possible. Make it entirely possible for anyone who is not yet in the middle class or who wants to get back into the middle class to rise. Make it doable for anyone in the middle class with vision, passion and drive to rise even farther.

With that point of view, the first question that should be asked of any bill that comes before Congress is: Will this be good for the middle class?

Right now, all the Republicans and far too many Democrats place their first concern with the rich. If you have any question about that, look at the figures for increases in income over the past 30+ years and see who's done well, who's stagnated and who's falling behind.

I think the rise of the Tea Party was the first sign that the duopoly of the Democrats and the Republicans is about to yield to new parties. Occupy Wall Street was the first sign of a countervailing movement on the left, but it was too incoherent — by design apparently — to survive. But another iteration on the left will emerge. That will leave room for a centrist party or coalition to fill the middle. Then it will be up to the right or the left to see whose ideas will prove more compelling in attracting the moderate middle.

Anyway, that's how I look at politics, in part, and those will be the views reflected in my writing.

Again, I'd like to thank David for thinking well of my writing even though our political views differ.


***

Now, on to the matter of paper. A relatively small number of readers are waiting patiently, I hope, for the trade paperback edition of The Last Ballot Cast to hit the online booksellers. We plan to have this edition available by mid-September.

Let me say that I love printed books. Always have. Lately, though, I've come to love ebooks, too. When it comes to making a living as a writer, ebooks are my first love. They pay the freight. If it weren't for ebooks, there never would have been more than one Jim McGill novel.

As things stand today, the company my wife and I started, Stray Dog Press, Inc., publishes trade paperbacks as a courtesy, but we don't do it for all of our titles. It's not too hard to imagine a day arriving when only a small percentage of all titles on the market are printed.

So, dear readers, take a chance with ebooks, if you haven't already. They're really quite likable. They're becoming ever more affordable. They'll give you the opportunity to find new authors that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Please take the leap. When it comes to reading, there's no need to be monogamous. You can play the field and your literary soul will be unsullied.

One final small note: Stray Dog Press, Inc. is looking into the possibility of doing audio books. What do you think of audio books? If this turns out to be a good business idea, we'll let you know.

A Quarter-Million Words Later

I started to write The Last Ballot Cast in mid-February and finished writing it in mid-July. It came in at 942 manuscript pages. I cut that down to 912 pages. Took me five months. Didn't take a day off. I'm still tired, but I'm happy. Except for the damn typos that sharp-eyed readers find after three proofreaders missed them.

To be fair, there are usually five proofreaders for my books, but surgery and summer school knocked two out of the box. C'est la vie.

For me, writing is a solo effort. I don't collaborate. Can't imagine sharing the creation and execution of story. That said, I have a whole lot of help. My wife, Catherine, is the first reader and editor of everything I write. It's my great good fortune that she likes my stuff. It would be awfully tough for her to put in all the hours she does to bring my work to the reading public if she didn't like the material.

Let that be a lesson to all young prospective writers: Make sure you marry someone who likes what you do. If your would-be spouse isn't a fan, you probably want to keep looking.

Other than marrying well, it also helps to cultivate interesting friendships. In the first Jim McGill book, The President's Henchman, I introduce a new martial art called Dark Alley. It's pretty much an anything goes form of fighting given structure and discipline. Not long after I came up with the idea, I met Jim Sullivan who teaches the near equivalent of Dark Alley. His discipline falls under the heading of Natural Spirit International. He's helped me to develop McGill's ongoing adventures in close-quarters combat. If you're looking for a highly functional form of self-defense, Google Jim's mentor, Datu Kelly Worden.

Susan McIntyre was my medical reference person for TLBC. She knows just about every awful thing that can afflict the human body. She probably has half the doctors in AMA in her database. If she doesn't know something off-hand, she can always make a call.

People like this are good to know when you're doing research. Their knowledge lends an air of plausibility to your writing. On the other hand, I'm not writing text books. So when the mood takes me I exercise the favorite device of all writers — literary license — and shamelessly ignore reality.

But back to McGill. TLBC, Parts 1&2, conclude the first term of the McGill series. Employing another literary technique, circularity, the villain from The President's Henchman, Dr. Damon Todd, returns to threaten McGill again. This raises the question: What do you do with an SOB who didn't learn his lesson the first time? McGill is a character with a moral center. Shedding blood unnecessarily is not his thing. But neither is letting some jerk kill him or someone he loves. Forcing a character to make a tough choice is the best way to show who he is.

In order not to fall into a formulaic rut with McGill or any other recurring character I write, I have to make sure they grow, age, evolve. McGill, facing the near loss of his son, changes his ways and decides to teach all his children the vicious art of Dark Alley. Patti not only changes political parties, she makes a daring choice of a new vice president. Sweetie, after decades of celibacy, gets married. Welborn and Kira become new parents. Leo and Deke leave government service to join McGill in the private sector. As all that happens, a new face takes over the Secret Service's White House detail.

Readers don't want to see any of their favorite characters disappear, much less die, but it would be an awful mistake for a writer simply to leave them marching in place. So be forewarned, there will be more changes in future McGill books.

Regarding politics: These are political thrillers. Inevitably, they will reflect my political views. Some reader-reviewers have taken me to task for expressing liberal views. They seem to think the genre is the exclusive property of the far right. Guess again. My political views are eclectic. I'm liberal on social issues; I'm conservative on balancing the budget and paying down the national debt — but I believe the best way to do those things is to tax the rich and end welfare for the wealthy.

It's like Willie Sutton said about robbing banks: "That's where the money is."

Meeting reader expectations: Intentionally leaving a number of things hanging at the end of The K Street Killer, I felt a certain sense of obligation to resolve those situations without delay in TLBC. So I worked harder than I ever have before — and harder than I ever intend to work again. It's very flattering to have readers want your next book as soon as they finish the previous one, but after a while it gets trying. "Are we there yet, are we there?"

Patience, dear reader. All things in good time.

Regarding writing and making money: I write to honor my muse and serve the story. If I do my best, I trust that my work will find a paying audience. So it really irks me when some nitwit thinks I make a writing choice simply to serve financial purposes. That's not to say that I don't want to make money from my novels. Of course, I do. The more money I make, the more novels I must be selling. The more novels I sell, the more people must be having a good time reading them. It's a virtuous circle.

But so many writers work so hard for so long with so little reward, that it honestly pisses me off when some jerk thinks I'm trying to screw him out of a lousy $3.99. I mention that only because it happened to me recently. What a dick that guy was.

To end (almost) on a brighter note, nothing makes me happier in my professional life than to know I've made a reader happy. If you noticed the dedication to Part 1: TLBC, you saw that I acknowledged those of you who've read my books and written to me to share your feelings. Thank you.

Oh, yeah. The Friends of Jim McGill Facebook page can use more friends. Get some conversations going there with your fellow readers, will you?  Here's the link for The Friends of Jim McGill. http://www.facebook.com/TheFriendsofJimMcGill

The perils of cliff-hanging

Al Capp, the famous cartoonist who created Li'l Abner, said that more people bought newspapers if they were worried by a comic strip than if they were merely amused by one. Capp pointed out that if you read Dick Tracy, you didn't laugh when you got to the last panel. You gasped or moaned when a gun was fired at the famed detective. There was no peace for the reader until he or she found out what happened.

The above bit of folk wisdom comes from the book The Art of the Funnies by Robert C. Harvey.

It applies perfectly, however, to the novelist who employs cliff-hanger endings, as I do in my Jim McGill series: The President's Henchman, The Hangman's Companion and now The K Street Killer. In all three books in the series, I end the story with a character placed in sudden jeopardy.

In the new McGill novel, which I abbreviate TKSK, there is a crucial difference. I raise the stakes big time. In The President's Henchman and The Hangman's Companion, the characters who find themselves in danger are important but supporting figures. In TKSK, there are two characters placed at risk: one a principal character, the other someone guaranteed to tug at heartstrings.

The early reactions to the book have been: Loved the story, hated being left in suspense. "I'll have to wait months to find out what happened."

At this point, I need to say that nothing in my professional life makes me happier than making my readers happy. That reaction tells me I have not labored in vain. It also says I'll be able to support myself long enough to write again.

Nonetheless, I have to follow where my muse leads me. If I don't, my source of inspiration might take a powder. Then all I'd be is a guy with a good vocabulary and nowhere to put it.

So I ask you, dear reader, please indulge me my creative choices. They're what give me satisfaction and bring you the stories you, more often than not, find so winning. And bear in mind I'm not only honoring my muse, I'm also following the dictum of one of the greats of modern popular culture.

"Always leave 'em wanting more." Walt Disney

(Please let me know what you think about cliffhangers, characters in jeopardy, and writers listening to their muse.)