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The kids are alright – and interested in cold cases

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That’s a murder board. You’ve probably seen them in movies and TV shows. You might have made one yourself.

But have you ever seen a murder board, based on two real-life unsolved murders, put together by 13-and-14-year-olds? I didn’t think so.

Earlier this week I spoke to teacher Megan Byard’s middle-school class at Inspire Academy in Muncie, Indiana, my hometown. Ms. Byard had approached me and Douglas Walker, my longtime writing partner at Muncie newspapers and in four true crime books, including “The Westside Park Murders: Muncie’s Most Notorious Cold Case,” published by History Press in 2021, about talking to the class about Westside.

In September 1985, teenagers Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell were shot to death in Muncie’s Westside Park. No one was ever charged with the crime, although police have had a person of interest for a few years now. In our book, we name that person, who is in prison following a conviction for a separate murder years after the Westside slayings. We explain the line of reasoning that prompted police to suspect him. We reached out to him in prison to ask about the case against him. He did not respond to written questions and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. In addition to naming him, our book explores many other theories and suspects connected to the case.

Since it came out, our book has received a lot of attention. Popular podcasts have been based on our book and the crime. On Amazon, the book has 163 ratings for 4 out of 5 stars. It prompted a Peabody-winning producer of non-fiction television to contact us about turning it – and some of our other writing – into a multi-part true crime series, but no networks or channels took the producer up on the pitch.

Of all the attention that our book has received, I think one of the coolest and most interesting was from Ms. Byard’s class. The students, who are interested in journalism and writing and true crime, studied the book and the crime in advance of having me do an online talk for their class. They asked good questions.

I think I was most impressed with the murder board, though. Made me feel like I was working in a police precinct, hoping for a breakthrough.

And I guess all of us are still waiting for a breakthrough.

Thanks to Ms. Byard and her class at Inspire Academy. Your interest and care made my week.

Here’s a link to the book on Amazon, although you can find it anywhere, including many libraries, including the Chicago Public Library.

The thrill of seeing THAT OCTOBER for sale at Bouchercon

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I’ve never been accused of being cool about writing successes, whether it was awards for journalism or publication of pop culture pieces at CrimeReads or elsewhere or short stories at several sites or in anthologies.

One thing I’ve not been able to experience is seeing my work in a bookstore. Indie authors who self-publish, as I did with THAT OCTOBER, can see their works for sale at a million online sites like Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but seeing an indie book in a bookstore is a very rare thing. I’ve been turned down twice when I’ve taken formal steps to see THAT OCTOBER on shelves.

That’s why it was such a thrill to see my 1984-set high school crime novel in the bookstore at Bouchercon in New Orleans earlier this month.

There’s a picture of the book above, nestled in with other books on the long tables of books available for sale.

By Sunday morning, the final day of Bouchercon, two copies remained of the several they stocked.

A huge shoutout to the Bouchercon 2025 NOLA books team and the wonderful people at Garden District Book Shop, 2727 Prytania Street, New Orleans, LA, 70130. I told them several times how grateful I was that they went to the trouble of getting copies of THAT OCTOBER.

Here’s a link to Garden District:

https://bookshop.org/shop/gardendistrictbookshop

The most famous shirt at Bouchercon

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At some point I’ll write a little bit about Bouchercon, held last week (as of this writing) in New Orleans. Many of you know this is the annual worldwide convention/conference of crime writers and readers. This was my second Bouchercon and they’re a lot of fun because they’re a chance for writers like me and many much more accomplished to meet with other writers and readers.

I’ll write more about Bouchercon in the coming days, or I intend to, but a quick anecdote:

On Saturday, I was one of the authors at the debut authors’ breakfast at Bouchercon. The annual event was sponsored by Lee (“Reacher”) Child and his brother Andrew, who now writers most of the Reacher books. Another sponsor is Michael Connelly, creator of Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard and other great crime fiction characters.

Connelly also kindly hosted the breakfast.

At some point I’ll tell you how I had a quick breakfast with Connelly, but today I’ll talk about the shirt you see me wearing in the photo above.

In the photo, I’m wearing a colorful shirt with pink flamingoes and other images and it’s pretty memorable. This was the photo of me that I submitted weeks or months ago for them to use in the program book for the breakfast.

This was also the shirt I managed to wear that day to the breakfast.

I realized this only after I’m sitting at the table and about to be introduced by Connelly to speak for one minute about myself and my book, THAT OCTOBER.

So, in the interest of transparency, I opened my one minute of remarks by noting the coincidence.

“If you notice, in the our program book, I’m wearing a particular shirt and I’m wearing it today as well.

“You could assume from that that I apparently have a favorite shirt.”

I went on to talk about my book briefly but the line about my favorite shirt got a good laugh.

And I had people come up to me afterward and later in the day remarking, “Your favorite shirt!”

And it apparently is.

It’s an e-book kind of day!

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It’s Labor Day and the beginning of fall – don’t argue – and the beginning of Spooky Season – that cannot be argued with – and it’s e-book day here on the ranch.

Just a quick note that THAT OCTOBER, my 1984-set high school crime novel, is available for quick and easy download beginning today on Kindle.

Here’s the link:

Also today, FIGHTING WORDS: BRUISERS, BRAWLERS AND & BAD INTENTIONS is out on Kindle.

The anthology, put together by writer and editor Scott Blackburn, features stories about fighting, fracases, brawlers, pugs and the sweet science, especially when it’s not so sweet.

My story, “A Fighting Life,” begins in 1948 and follows three young siblings – Marie, Peter and Saul – as they discover there’s money to be made, a nickel at a time, taking on other neighborhood kids in bare-knuckle challenges in vacant lots and abandoned buildings.

But besides my story, there are nine other great stories from some of the hottest authors today, including:

Saint Bullethead by Nick Kolakowski, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

Where the River Breaks by L.S. Goozdich, narrated by Victor Clarke

Pure Wrath by A.M. Adair, narrated by Linda Jones

Fight Club by David Moloney, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine by J.B. Stevens, narrated by Michael Orenstein

Call Me Mina by Laura Brashear, narrated by Stacy Gonzalez

A Fighting Life by Keith Roysdon, narrated by Courtney Fabrizio

The Grit by Meredith R. Lyons, narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman

Bourbon BrawI by Ashley Erwin, narrated by Matt Godfrey

The Cleaner by Jason Allison, narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

And what’s that “narrated by” element there? That’s because in addition to the e-book, which is available now, there’s an audiobook edition coming right away.

I got to work a little bit with Courtney Fabrizio, who narrated my story, and she is fabulous.

The e-book was upon its debut the Number One new release in martial arts books and it’s a firecracker.

Here’s a link:

2025 so far, so good … ?

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Don’t be fooled by that headline. 2025 is very much a shit show. I’m talking my writing year so far and that ONLY.

I published my 1984-set high school crime novel THAT OCTOBER in June and the reception so far has been pretty good. I have no complaints about how kind and generous people have been. If you’ve read it, please leave a review on Amazon. But buy it from one of the dozens of sites that sell it, especially bookshop dot org or Ink Drinkers Anonymous, the woman-owned, Black-owned bookstore in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana.

Other than THAT OCTOBER, I’ve been pleased to see a number of short stories published or purchased for upcoming publication, including in a future anthology that I can’t wait to tell you about.

In September, I go to my second Bouchercon, the world convention of mystery and crime writers and readers, and I’ll be on my second Bouchercon panel, with a hugely talented group of authors. This one is at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3, the first day of Bouchercon. This Bcon is in New Orleans, which I’m pretty sure should be mild and breezy by September, right? Right?

But very nearly overshadowing all this is that I submitted, earlier today, a short story to the crime fiction genre’s preeminent market. Now I don’t have any great hope that the story will be published. There are a hell of a lot of great writers out there submitting stories.

But the submission was a goal of mine for 2025. Not to get a story published in that magazine, I will note. Nope. Just to submit a story to them again.

I subbed once before, a few years ago, and their rejection was so perfectly justified but so devastating that I didn’t submit to them again for several years. Hell, I didn’t submit anywhere for a year.

So aside from publishing THAT OCTOBER, and attending and speaking at another Bcon and winning a place in this cool anthology that’s coming up in just a few weeks, getting up the nerve to submit to the Big Show again was a 2025 goal realized.

It’s all gravy from here,

As Homer Simpson would say, “Mmmm … gravy.”

The many lives – and deaths – of Butcher Crabtree

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A lot of writers, maybe most of us, have characters that we love to play with. They might be heroes or villains, but we love to return to them again and again.

Mine is Butcher Crabtree, a character I created back in the early 2000s in DEATH AND TAXES, the first novel I wrote. It was the first of a series of books I wrote about Middletown, Indiana, my version of my hometown, Muncie, Indiana. That first book was about Jack Richmond, a newspaper reporter who investigates the death of the head of the local chamber of commerce and finds that the chamber chief was involved in shenanigans with some unsavory characters.

One of them was Butcher Crabtree, at the time a muscled and menacing, fire hydrant-shaped tough guy who was working as the bouncer at the Gilded Cage, the strip bar in Middletown. In his spare time, Butcher was up for committing murder on behalf of his bosses.

I’ve returned, in the past few years, to some of those characters. Reporter Jack Richmond was a novice newshound in 1984, the time period for my novel THAT OCTOBER, which was published just this past June.

Butcher is in that book, too, although in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo at a Halloween party. He’s referred to as “Uncle Butcher,” but it’s good old Butcher. Complete with his characteristic baseball bat.

(By the way, that’s not Butcher above, but it is Ernest Borgnine in the great 1973 thriller “Emperor of the North.” In that movie, Borgnine is a vindictive and murderous Depression Era-railroad guard. I didn’t have Borgnine in mind when I created Butcher, but at least in that movie, he’s a pretty good illustration of Butcher. George Kennedy is also a passable doppleganger.)

But Butcher isn’t just a tough guy. I’ve enjoyed casting him in a variety of roles, from the threatening old uncle in THAT OCTOBER to his role in my story “Rousting,” published just recently by Pistol Jim Press. In that one, Butcher is a racist sheriff’s deputy who pushes his luck too far.

Butcher also showed up in “The Devil’s Cut,” my story in HOOSIER NOIR 7. In that one, Butcher is once again a sheriff’s deputy and is again murderous.

Is Butcher ever a good guy? Well, in my book SEVEN ANGELS – winner of the 2021 Hugh Holton Award for Best Unpublished Novel from Mystery Writers of America Midwest – he’s a mentor figure for Travis King, a troubled young man trying to make sense of his violent life.

I’ve included Butcher in a couple of other stories, too, and those – like SEVEN ANGELS – might see the light of day sometime, as THAT OCTOBER has.

Butcher often meets his end in my stories. He did way back more than 20 years ago in DEATH AND TAXES and he has since.

I don’t mind that Butcher’s lives and deaths conflict and contradict and that he seems to move back and forth through time at my whim.

When you’ve got a fun character, you don’t want to let them go.

THAT OCTOBER is set in 1984, and the echoes of Vietnam are almost as strong as the mystery

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BTJFXP Two soldiers comfort each other under the strain of combat in Pleiku, South Vietnam, 5/26/67.

Some folks who’ve read my novel THAT OCTOBER know there’s more going on than a murder mystery among teenagers in 1984. I won’t get too far into spoilers here, but there’s a point in the book when it becomes less about a killing in Indiana in 1984 and becomes about the echoes of Vietnam.

I knew from when I started writing THAT OCTOBER in 2021 that I’d make the Vietnam War a part of the book. I couldn’t write a book set in 1984 and ignore Vietnam. As one character, a grizzled old newspaper reporter, explains, the war had been over less than 10 years by that point.

People my age and even younger know that war was something a lot of us carried around most of our young lives. Our fathers and mothers had served in WWII and Korea and our brothers and sisters served in Vietnam. War was something we “played” in the backyard. But by 1984, Vietnam was the past.

That’s why THAT OCTOBER was my chance, maybe my only chance, to write about the ripples of the war in Vietnam, which had begun “officially” in 1955. To center a major character’s experience beginning in 1960 in Vietnam felt right.

If you read THAT OCTOBER, you’ll know what I mean. It might strike you as strange that at the end of the book a character gets a Purple Heart for their service in Vietnam, but the war – if often not top of mind – still had ripples in 1984 and still does today.

THAT OCTOBER makes its Kindle debut

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I’m not a stranger to my work being made available in different formats. Most – maybe all? – of my co-authored true crime books are available in e-book formats and “The Westside Park Murders” is available in an audiobook format from Audible and other platforms.

But there’s something neat about the e-book format of THAT OCTOBER, my 1984-set high school crime novel.

The book has been out in paperback since June 1 in an edition that shows off my friend and editor Jill Blocker’s beautiful interior design and my friend and artist Sara McKinley’s gorgeous covers. I’ve been really gratified by how good the response has been.

So last week I uploaded THAT OCTOBER to Kindle Direct Publishing and it drops, as the cool people say, on September 1.

The e-book is available for preorder now and I really appreciate the response so far.

Here’s the link:

Indiana Jones and the Perpetual Remake Machine

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A few weeks ago, rumors moved through online circles that Disney was planning to reboot the Indiana Jones series with a new series of films starring someone other than Harrison Ford as Dr. Henry Jones Jr.

I totally expect this will happen.

I don’t think it’s likely that Pedro Pascal, currently an industry darling and starring in “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” as well as upcoming Marvel movies, will be cast in the role of the adventurous archeology professor. For one thing, Pascal is 50 years old. Ford was 39 years old at the time of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I think it’s much more likely that Disney will cast someone in their 30s in a remake. They want someone who could keep a movie series alive for a decade or more.

That said, if “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” had been a hit in 2023, we’d be seeing now-83-year-old Ford in continuing adventures.

But Hollywood and Disney have – sometimes more successfully than other times – long ago decided it was okay to recast and remake and reboot.

There’s been attempts to reboot the series before, or at least introduce younger versions of Jones and younger characters who could step into the role. But it didn’t work with Shia LaBeouf as Indy’s long-estranged son in 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” – remember how the character started to place Indy’s hat on his head before the original reclaimed it? And it didn’t work with Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Helena Shaw in “Dial of Destiny.”

We’ve seen how some film series made recasting and rebooting work. Some handled it better than others, such as in the James Bond films. The “Star Trek” films did well with it too, at least at first. Disney and Lucasfilm tried it with the “Star Wars” films in a series of movies that worked fairly well but were harshly received by fanboys.

I’m only certain that Disney will reboot Indiana Jones at some point and will recast Indy.

Unless the practice of punching Nazis falls into disfavor.

Cold cases still pull at the heartstrings

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I was watching “Ballard” the other week – it’s a good series, by the way, and a very valid follow-up to the “Bosch” series and it’s own streaming sequel, “Bosch Legacy” – and it got me thinking about the cold cases I’ve written about over the decades.

“Ballard,” which stars Maggie Q as Renee Ballard, Los Angeles police detective who is featured in her own series of crime novels by author Michael Connelly, creator of “Bosch,” is about how the Ballard character is “demoted” to the LAPD’s under-funded and over-scrutinized cold case unit.

The unit, comprised of police officers and reserves and a handful of volunteers and interns, huddles in a cluttered series of rooms that look more like storage than an office. The cold case squad is the definition of an effort that is nothing like a priority for LAPD leadership but is an essential thing to the squad members.

Ballard is initially leery of the assignment – punishment, really, for daring to report another cop for assaulting her – but grows to find satisfaction in solving long-unsolved murders, bringing killers to justice and giving closure to survivors.

Along with my longtime writing collaborator Douglas Walker, I wrote about cold cases for many years for the newspaper in my hometown of Muncie, Indiana. The most notable cold case to many was the killing of two teenagers in Westside Park in 1985. Walker and I wrote about it in our third true crime book, “The Westside Park Murders,” released by History Press in 2021.

But our fourth book, “Cold Case Muncie,” released in 2023, is an entire book of cold cases, still-unsolved murders in the Muncie and East Central Indiana area.

We had identified more than 30 cold cases, some dating back to the 1960s or even earlier, during a regular series of newspaper articles beginning in 2010. We went back and re-examined many of those cases for the book.

We interviewed surviving loved ones of the victims and revisited the murder scenes.

We put an emphasis on soliciting any new information about the murders, including a point of contact for each of the police departments responsible for resolving those cases.

And we placed emphasis on the survivors. Many of the cases are illustrated by photographs I took of those people who, today, are still waiting for someone to bring closure for the killing of their loved ones.

I’ve noted before that closure is an elusive thing, even harder to achieve than it seems, and that’s pretty damn hard.

I’m glad “Ballard” has taken up the case of cold cases and I’m glad to have brought some attention to them too.