I’m pleased to report that The Big Freeze, the third in the Andy Sussman/Murray Glick mystery trilogy, is now available as an E-Book. Set in the Colorado ski resort of Sunburst, I was hoping it might do for skiing mysteries what Dick Francis did for horse racing novels — or at least wangle a few free downhill lessons at Vail or Telluride.  Alas, twas not to be…but here’s some good news: The Big Freeze makes great ski lift reading. Next time your triple chair lift stalls halfway up the mountain and the snow is blowing sideways, the wind tossing you around like an aspen leaf, just relax and fire up the ol’ Kindle – you’ll be at the top of the run in no time!

For this third novel, I thought  it would be fun for ace detective Murray Glick to write his memoirs.  That’s how the story starts, with Murray’s snowy manuscript showing up on Andy’s doorstep in New York. Narrated in Murray’s charmingly vain prose, the story traces his efforts to locate a missing suburban girl at the Sunburst Mountain ski resort. When the manuscript ends suddenly and Murray is nowhere to be found, Andy and Susie fly out to Sunburst to find him. With the unreliable manuscript as their only guide, they find themselves in the middle of a murder and kidnapping, centered around the potential development of a new ski resort.

I had great fun crafting Murray’s voice and plotting the story from multiple points of view. I also enjoyed expounding on Western themes.  Getting the publishers to care about these issues was another matter. As writers from Wallace Stegner to Norman Maclean have pointed out, the New York publishing world tends to be pretty obtuse when it comes to the West.  They weren’t about to change their ways just for me.

Yes, that’s right, I just dropped Wallace Stegner and Norman Maclean’s names into the conversation.   I actually wrote Wallace Stegner about some subsequent fiction of mine, which I hoped he would read. He replied, “I’m sorry, I just don’t have the time.” I considered using that as a blurb:

“I’m sorry, I just don’t have the time.”

                        Wallace Stegner

 I’d like to think the fact that he actually took the time to respond was a recognition of my literary significance. I’m sure he wouldn’t have disagreed.

In any case, the E-Book-ization of my mystery trilogy is now complete. If you didn’t catch them on first publication, I trust you’ll find their combination of mirth and insight into the human condition is undiminished by the passage of time.  For those of you wondering if there is any new and original fiction, crime or otherwise, in the pipeline, I would urge you to spread knowledge of the trilogy and the entire Katz of the Day Omni-Cultural Experience far and wide.

We do respond to overwhelming public clamor.