It’s Finally Here!

Readers were not ready for this book when I first conceived it. At Thanksgiving time just after the turn of the century–gosh it still feels strange to use that phrase–and I was taking my annual driving trip from Texas to Wyoming.  My suspense series featuring bounty hunter Dixie Flannigan was gaining great reviews and lots of fans.

Somewhere on that long trip, with the sun–or the stars–in my face, the idea of emigration and our national motto, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe…” and I wondered what we would do if approached by refugees from a dying planet. Not coming here to invade or take over but with a lot to give to humans if we just lay out the welcome mat. I pitched the idea to my agent. He said, “Can you do it without the alien?”

“Well, no.” I understood where he was coming from. Science-fiction was in a slump at the time, romance had peaked out, mystery was holding its own, but legal thrillers were the rage. So I put Emissary on a back burner while I wrote other things, including a ten-year stint as a ghostwriter when my mystery series was dropped.

Today, however, with science-fiction peaking again and cross-genre novels taking up shelf space in our bookstores, Emissary‘s time has come. Thanks to Jeffrey Hastings, Diane Krause, Megan LaFollett, Eric Dunlap, and all the great people at Chart House Press, it is available for pre-order now and at bookstores on December 2, 2014. Also, thanks to Bill Crider, bestselling author of 60-something novels of mystery, suspense, horror, and humor, the word is out that Emissary has “plenty of action…interesting characters from political figures to tattoo artists…[and] a real slam-bang change of pace.”

Call your favorite bookstore and ask for it or

Order it now from charthousepress.com/books-emissary/