I love my ghost friends: JJ, Jesus, Banquo, and all the rest–they are so real to me. With three novels down and a fourth in the works, I must. My “A Ghost’s Memoir” world (Shuffled Off, Drawing the Dead, and To Be a Fool) with it’s SECI chamber (basically a typewriter for ghosts) just begs for more stories and more ghosts. Tales of those who have “shuffled off the mortal coil,” live among us, and are trying to find their way.
Enter Walter and Emily. These two have been on my mind for a long time, back when I was writing To Be a Fool. For those of you with a copy, they make a cameo in Transmission #44. Walter was a dentist and an out of work actor before that and has become something of a detective since his murder. His best dead friend and cohort is Emily. She died when she was four-years old, and still looks it, but comes with the worldliness of someone dead eighty years. The two of them are trying to solve Walter’s murder.
Their story, “Detecting Haley: A Walter Anchor Ghost Detective Story,” is out today! It’s part of a collection of my short stores called: Life After: Stories of Life, Death, and the Places in Between. This story is Walter and Emily’s first case where they investigate the murder of a dental assistint that used to work for Walter and stumble into a world of intrigue that had infected Walter’s dental practice. This is what I hope to be Walter and Emily’s first story. They are a blast to write and I am loving playing with the murder mystery genre.
What a taste? Start reading an excerpt from Detecting Haley.
Life After is full of stories that thematically go along with those “A Ghost’s Memoir” novels and run the gamut from sci-fi to fantasy to contemporary fiction. From Walter and Emily solving murders as ghosts; to the story of a couple who knows exactly how their going to die; to a dying man that created a holographic simulacrum of himself to comfort his wife after his passage; and more. These are ten stories of life on the brink and life after death–with a brief backstory on each, for those that like that kind of thing. If you liked Shuffled Off, you’ll love these stories.
