Catching Up

I apologize for a year of down time on the blog; mark it up as operator (my) error. No mystery, such as murder, kidnap, Covid strike. . . . just my same old man versus techno-demic. If you haven't suffered this affliction, congratulations. You must be well under 30! Not me, I'm double and change. Speaking of which, lots to catch up on the next few days. Book Four in the Bear Kotah series, Black Galaxie 500, is up and rolling. You could classify it as a mystery as Slick Kotah, Bear's brother, attempts to find his real father. Driving to Montana in his deceased mother's black Galaxie 500 convertible, Slick stumbles across more than he expected. How the Galaxie 500 figures in all this, well, you'll have to read it! Available in paperback or Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/Black-Galaxie-500-Kotah-Novel-ebook/dp/B08WYJKHNG

You might also ask, why a black Galaxie 500? Or why not a F250 Super Duty? Or my first vehicle, a '55 Merc? Good question. I'll work on answering that tomorrow.

I was compelled to use the Black Galaxie 500 by a promise to my late son, Rip, who had owned one and loaned it to us for an extended period back when he was working in NYC and didn't want to pay the high storage and parking fees. We liked it so much, I included it in my first novel which I was still working on at the time; Crossing the Red.. In that novel Bear Kotah drove the Galaxie when he was driving home from the Kotah ranch and was ambushed by Ramiro Jenkins' gang members. His and Slick's mother, Mary, had left the car to the family when she died shortly after Slick's birth. Big mistake by the gang. it was a turning point in the story. So there was a lot of sentimental value attached to the classic Ford by the time I got to writing Black Galaxie 500. . . on the part of my characters and the family. Rip had sold the car to a well-known actress by then. He died in 2019 just a few months before we published the book on Amazon. Rip had a lifelong search. Not for his father, but for something else, clear up to his untimely death in 2019. We miss him every day. If you knew him, you understand why. He had an endless crowd of friends and admirers. Still, he was a lonely person who never found his happiness, a creative genius who built a college degree in sustainable design before the colleges thought of it, and a culinary magician whose masterpieces graced the tables of family and friends without ado, other than, "I think you'll like it."

He was an enigma in his time. And we still love the puzzle of him. Sort of like the missing father in Black Galaxie 500.