Excerpt #3: 'The Last Case'

 So anyhow, on this particular night in question—I think it was in June or July or some other hot month—I was parked on my regular stool in my normal state of religious flux, wearing a pair of blue jeans that could easily stand by themselves, a Steely Dan tour shirt and a light blue work shirt that had been ironed—once, I think, a long time ago—with a “rocks” glass full of Jack in front of me and the Blue Toons playing behind me when I was approached by a tall, brown woman in a short red dress and matching heels so high you’d hurt yourself if you fell off of them. Tall body, short dress—my favorite combination in a woman.

“Buy me a drink?” she asked as she walked over and stood beside my stool.

I looked her over from top to bottom and front to back. I spent some extra time in the back. That’s my favorite part. I didn’t see any evidence that she was carrying a weapon, a summons or a subpoena, and if she was trying to hide anything on that body—in that dress—she was doing it all wrong, so I pointed her to the stool adjacent to mine.

“What would you like, Miss…?”

“Farrow. Catalina Farrow,” she said. “Most people call me Cat.” (I swear to god her voice was so sultry she actually purred.) “I’ll have a vodka tonic with an extra lime. I like to suck on something when I drink.”

Excerpt #2: 'The Last Case'

       It all started about six weeks ago in the Lonely Sparrow, that little blues bar down on Chapel Street where I usually went after a hard day on the job, or a hard day looking for a job, or a hard day wasting time because I didn’t have a job. I considered the place to be the church of my salvation, being on Chapel Street and all. Whatever the case, I’d find myself at the Sparrow, sitting at the end of the curved, polished, dark walnut bar and asking the lord for deliverance. (My exact words were, “Lourdes, I need another drink. Could you please deliver me the bottle?”)      

      Lourdes was the bartender, a tasty piece of eye candy with a Philippine ancestry and a shape for Hooters. Half of the people who drank at the Sparrow only went there to gawk at her. Men and women alike gawked at Lourdes, who was a big fan of sex when she wasn’t mixing drinks and wasn’t one to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender or national origin. I might have been one of the gawkers, too. You can decide that for yourself after you’ve read a few more pages. I may even have had sex with Lourdes a few times, but I’m not one to kiss and tell…except when I am.

Excerpt #1: 'The Last Case'

       I used to be a private investigator before I became dead. Now, as you might suspect, I have handled my last case.

      The guy in the trench coat looking down at me is my best friend, Lieutenant Hanrahan. I called him Han, or sometimes Han Squared. He’s not surprised to find me dead. He always told me I’d go young, but we both figured I’d die from the three packs a day of Marlboro Reds I smoked, the Jack Daniel’s I drank for breakfast or the garbage I ate in my car while tracking down deadbeat dads or staking out cheating husbands for hours at a time.

      The baseball legend Mickey Mantle used to say, “If I had known I’d live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” Me? If I had known I’d die this early, I’d have had some real fun. Know what I mean? (wink, wink.)

      Well, it doesn’t matter now, because it wasn’t hard living that put me away. It was definitely those three slugs from a .38 special. Two in the chest and one through the forehead, just for good measure. Yeah, I’m dead, alright, and now it’s up to Lieutenant Hanrahan to find out who pulled the trigger. I’d tell him myself if I could, but you know how it is, being dead and all. I can, however, tell my story to you.

Next up: 'The Last Case'

High Peaks Publishing has started work on the third book by Marshall Scott Shields, entitled "The Last Case." It's a stand-alone novel separate from the Covington Mystery Series.

In "The Last Case," Stanford Bell is a private detective known to the world as "Taco." He is also very dead. His friend, police Lieutenant Hanrahan, finds his body in Taco's office on the floor behind his desk, and sets out to discover how he became dead, who killed him and why.

Through his own narrative, Taco introduces readers to a tall, beautiful former athlete with amber eyes who hires him to find a missing object. With help from a newspaper reporter, Taco and his client follow a seemingly random string of numbers and letters they believe will lead them to the stolen property.

It's a classic whodunit (and why-they-dunit) written in the style of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett that will leave readers guessing until the end.

We expect to have a cover design before too long, and while publication is still a ways off, I'll be posting some excerpts in the coming days to tide you over until the book is ready for sale. Watch for them here, and look for "The Last Case" coming up in 2021.