Contact Information:
Email Address: davidspederson@gmail.com
Books By David S. Pederson
Word Count: 78000
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: England, 1951. Black tie, French champagne, and a pinch of poison. Sir Roderick and Lady Endicott have planned a pleasant weekend for their family and friends at their sprawling country estate. Scandal is the last thing on the menu, but tempers simmer as difficult and disliked decorator Oscar Maxwell joins the party. By the time he suddenly drops dead after dinner, no one is exactly sorry. As the local inspector determines poisoning, suspicion falls on a charming and secretive man close to Lady Endicott’s brother, Professor Liam Cuthbert. Liam must wade through a tangle of secrets, rivalries, and outright loathing to get to the truth. Someone at the table is a killer, and if Liam doesn’t find them soon, an innocent man could be sent to the gallows.
Word Count: 72000
Character Identities: Information not available
Summary: Hollywood, 1939. When film director Orland Orcott is found dead in his locked study, police rule it a suicide. However, movie star Victor Marvel believes otherwise and sets out to investigate, aided by his handsome boyfriend, Griffin, and Eve Spellman, Victor’s smart, young costar. Suspects include Orland’s son, Tab, an aspiring actor who was blacklisted after his father found out that he’s gay, and Sheila, a former mistress of Orland’s, tossed aside when he took up with a new starlet. Added to the list are William Taylor, a has-been that Orland delighted in humiliating, William’s daughter Lydia, who may have slept with Orland to get her father a movie role. Agatha Mudd, a gossip columnist with a secret past is also a suspect, and Orland’s long-suffering wife, Marjorie. Was it suicide or murder? The trio is on the case to find the truth, but suspects and grudges abound. With so many motives for murder, finding the killer won’t be easy. But no one else cares as long as Orland Orcott is dead.
Word Count: 69900
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: When Milo agreed to accompany his friend Mark for a weekend getaway with six other men in northern Arizona, he did not anticipate a snowstorm stranding them all in their lodge. But they make the best of it. Their biggest concern is how they’re going to entertain themselves until the snowstorm ends. Complicating things for Milo is his secret attraction to Mark, not to mention Mark’s renewed attraction to his handsome ex-boyfriend, Brick, who seems like he wants to rekindle the relationship. But all is not as it seems in their cozy snow-covered lodge. When one of them is found brutally murdered, tension between the friends escalates. It seems that everyone has their secrets, and some of those secrets are proving deadly. Suspicion mounts as each person wonders who is behind the killing, and why. With no way to contact the authorities, it’s up to Milo and Mark to discover which of their friends is the murderer and stop him before they become the next target.
Word Count: 72,500
Character Identities: Gay
Summary: A bizarre old woman who worships the memory of her lost son. A nun with hidden secrets. A spinster housekeeper with a secret of her own. An angry young man with a troubled past. A neighbor who claims to talk to dead people at seances. Skip Valentine and Henry Finch encounter these eccentric people on their weekend trip to visit Henry’s uncle. When they learn of the groundskeeper who died in a mysterious fire shortly before they arrived, strange occurrences are imbued with ominous portent. The peculiar accidents, ghostly barking, a pounding heard late at night in the creepy old mansion, and a strange old box buried behind the burned-out carriage house all add up to something. Skip yearns to investigate. It’s all so perplexing. But when another death raises the stakes, the puzzle turns deadly. The solution may lie in a curious rhyme told by the groundskeeper before he died, but first Skip and Henry must decipher it.
