Jennifer Petkus's Blog, page 20

Good Cop, Dead Cop on Denver's Channel 7

Thanks to Cathy Langer, lead book buyer for the Tattered Cover, Good Cop, Dead Cop was mentioned on the 11 a.m. 7News broadcast today. Langer was meeting with anchor Bertha Lynn to discuss local authors and GCDC was the second book (of nine) mentioned. Some of the details may have been incorrect, but the book cover was shown, my name was mentioned and the essential information about a dead cop communicating with his partner through the Internet was explained.
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Outlining The Background Noise of Souls

For those of you dying to know the progress of the sequel to Good Cop, Dead Cop, I will inform you that I've entered the deadly dull outline stage. You see my usual way of writing a new book is to just start hammering away at a scene I particularly like, and it doesn't have to be the opening scene. I then jump around writing scenes that amuse me and I usually keep typing until I run out of words, which is around a thousand.

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When Steve Jobs arrives on the AfterNet …

… everything will change.

Darrin Bell, creator of the comic strip, Candorville, has his main character being visited by the ghost of Steve Jobs. Yes, it is a case of "too soon" as Jobs admonishes Lamont, but I'd like to think that if anyone would understand the power of the AfterNet, it would be the former CEO of Apple.

Of course in my world, Apple has already created a low-cost home AfterNet terminal, and I'm sure the innovations in that terminal are responsible for a lot of the user interface improvements in the present-day AfterNet terminals that you'll see in the sequel, The Background Noise of Souls.

Chapter 8 Footnotes

There are few footnotes for Chapter 8, although I should mention that the news article at the beginning has a lot of relevance for the sequence, The Background Noise of Souls. The story concerns the death house at a Texas prison and the fact that shortly after execution prisoners show up online. In a sense, those prisoners are now free to leave the prison and enjoy the same access to the AfterNet as anyone.
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New sequel title

Although Merely Dead was a pretty good title, a line that I've written in the sequel just jumped out as an even better.

"What was that?" Munroe asked after the sound — he could only describe it as such — faded from the AfterNet field.

"That was what Shel calls the cosmic background noise of souls," Feore answered.

So the new title is: The Background Noise of Souls

Merely Dead

Merely Dead is the working title for the sequel to Good Cop, Dead Cop, which is currently being written. It's set eight months after the events of the first book, just about the time that Hurricane Katrina is targeting New Orleans, in fact.Read more »

Merely Dead

Merely Dead is the working title for the sequel to Good Cop, Dead Cop, which is currently being written. It's set eight months after the events of the first book, just about the time that Hurricane Katrina is targeting New Orleans, in fact.
Read more »

Mostly Dead

Mostly Dead is the working title for the sequel to Good Cop, Dead Cop, which is currently being written. It's set eight months after the events of the first book, just about the time that Hurricane Katrina is targeting New Orleans, in fact.
Read more »

Chapter 7 Footnotes

Currently the foundation's statutes read: "Work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented."

It's true that since 1974 the Nobel prize cannot be awarded posthumously.

Antonia Simone, the woman whose invention and death led to the discovery of the afterlife, praised the decision … Nobel watchers agree Simone is unlikely to be nominated.

Dr. Antonia Simone invented what later became known as the AfterNet field. Unfortunately her zeal in trying to develop the field led to the deaths of two volunteers.

"But Dr. Olaf Bols definitely deserves recognition and it would help dispel the notion that he 'stumbled into his field.'"

Bols' accidental death helped establish the validity of Dr. Simone's work. It was he that determined that a living person's fields could be "fingerprinted" for later identification, and was the first person to be so validated after his electrocution.

 Munroe had been asked to stake out a bench in Cheesman Park and observed a payoff between a driver's license examiner and the person running the scam.

Cheesman Park is a lovely park east of downtown. With the high-rise apartments surrounding it, it has a little New York Central Park feel. It's named after Walter Scott Cheesman and was, appropriately enough, originally Prospect Hill Cemetery. When you're walking through the park, you may occasionally observe slight depressions in the ground that might have been someone's grave (not all were removed when the cemetery became the park).

"The usual," he said. "Caught one of the games at the sports bar next to Coors Field."
She opened her eyes. "You mean Hooters, don't you?"

Coors Field, is of course, home to the Colorado Rockies, who have, as I write this in August 2011, pretty much given up any chance of a pennant race. The Hooters has closed, much to Munroe's annoyance.

Yamaguchi and Munroe parked on the street next to the church in the Five Points region of Denver.

Five Points is an historically black area northeast of downtown Denver. But like many areas has seen a lot of gentrification as lower downtown spread northward. It is so named because  Washington and Welton streets meet 27th Street and 26th Avenue, a consequence of the 45° angled downtown streets meeting the north-south/east-west oriented streets of the rest of the city.

"Wow, demotivators," she said.

My particular friend Lee adores demotivators, and I've always enjoyed this poster. I think it says a lot of the Rev. Anderson that he would have this in his office.

… like the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot.

I'm always happy to toot the horn for a fellow Coloradan.

Munroe spent a few hours that night at Duffy's, a bar near the eastern end of the 16th Street Mall.

In my world, Duffy's bar never closed.

Thanks to the 951 entrants to the GoodReads book giveaway

After two weeks, the GoodReads giveaway is over, with 951 registering in the contest and over a hundred people adding it to their to read shelf. I've gotten one text review so far and three ratings, all five star.

The three winners were all women (based on their first names), two in Florida and one in West Virginia. Congratulations and I hope you'll enjoy the book and want to review it.