Cynthia E. Ledbetter, May 3, 2016 (Amazon) (THANKS!!)

Synopsis: Two young women are attacked in their dorm room at the local college. The only motive seems to be that they played a reality/virtual reality game. At almost the same time Leonard’s bookshop is vandalized. Although these crimes don’t seem connected, Frank Nagler thinks they just might be.

Review: Set in the down-but-not-out city of Ironton, New Jersey, this rather hard-boiled cop story also examines the topics of violence on college campuses and nepotism within city departments. This is the second in the Frank Nagler series and shows the growth of the writer; it’s an enjoyable novel with a good ending.

“A Game Called Dead” is the second Frank Nagler Mystery, following “The Swamps of Jersey.” (2014), both published by Imzadi Publishing of Tulsa.

Available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

In the first drafts of my Frank Nagler mystery, “A Game Called Dead,” college administrator Harriet Waddley-Jones was a self-centered critic of Nagler’s police efforts whose sole angle it seemed was to gain publicity for herself. Gladly, and importantly, in  rewrites, she changed.

She is one of the story’s important and quiet heroes.

“A Game Called Dead” is the second Frank Nagler Mystery, following “The Swamps of Jersey.” (2014), both published by Imzadi Publishing of Tulsa.

Available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Parsippany-Troy Hills Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

This is Harriet’s moment:

Waddley-Jones scanned the faces, some anxious, some smiling bravely; others like the administrators standing with folded arms, grim; athletes in the back corner, laughing.

“Thank you for coming,” she began. “I don’t want to dwell on the obvious, but these are currently hard, dangerous times. Two murders on our campus, a city facing terrorism – yes, it is terrorism when stores and community centers are being destroyed – and a police officer who escaped from an attempt on his life.

“Cowards hide behind such acts. But cowards fail, as will this one.

“But nearly twenty years ago on this campus, such cowards were in charge. When faced with allegations of rampant crimes at this school, they could not admit they fostered and even participated in the crimes.  They drove the victims away and rewarded the criminals. Reports were made and hidden. Even a lawsuit could not bring these crimes into the open.

“This is a shameful past, and I am here today because I was part of it, here today because I allowed the silence to descend.”

She paused and breathed deeply.  Some of the students, trapped in their seats by the size of the crowd were texting more than paying attention. The administrators stared at the floor or cast sideways glances at one another.

“You may have read a news story about the old lawsuit, and maybe you doubted its veracity,” she began again. “Don’t. It all happened, and perhaps more that eluded the investigators. But I know it was true.” She paused, having planned the impact, having waited for seventeen years, nearly half her life, to declare her identity.

“I am Student A.”

Harriet Waddley-Jones dipped her head, closed her eyes and gripped the sides of the podium. She was shaking, crying, trying to hold her emotions in check but wanting them to soar; wanting the words she had just spoken to grab ahold of the pain and guilt and wrench it from her soul. She wanted to be weightless, but instead was anchored. Free me, she thought. Please free me.

Some in the room gasped; some stood and applauded. Many sat in surprise, stunned a moment before they began to furiously text out the message.  The administrators unfolded their arms, and quietly begging pardon, sidestepped out of the rear door, where Jimmy Dawson caught Harriet’s eye before he pursued them for a comment.

“How does this occur?” Harriet continued.  “It happens when those in authority feel they have all the rights to act, and everyone else only has the right to be acted upon.”

A voice from the back: “Ah, lady, you asked for it. Getting nailed by some top professor probably helped your career.”

“Would you want to be raped, sir?” she shot back. “To be held down while something hard was shoved up your ass?   Or maybe watch as your girlfriend was pinned on a bed and your friends took turns?  Did I ask for that, sir?”

The crowd stirred by her challenge.

In that moment she chose to talk about the one thing she had never discussed. It is time to be free if this.

Dawson slipped into the room just before she started. Behind him Frank Nagler emerged.

Wordlessly, Dawson nodded, pursed his lips and then smiled briefly.

Nagler grinned weakly and said, “Thanks.” He tipped his head toward Waddley-Jones. “What’s going on?”

“She’s about to burn a hole in the universe,” Dawson said.

Nagler leaned over to Dawson. “She told me she’d been raped as a teen ager.”

“It’s a lie, a story she told to hide the truth,” Dawson said.  He looked up at Nagler and tipped his head toward Waddley-Jones.  “She’s Student A.”

Nagler looked Dawson, and then cast a long gaze at Harriet Waddley-Jones. He thought for a moment about the conversation outside the home of Michelle Hansen, Adams’ last victim, the jokes, the causal chatter about naked girls, then previously, the “sister” who had been raped; then her own rape by the friend of her father, the desperate lies; how hard that must have been for her and how he missed the pain disguised by humor and sarcasm. “Oh my god.”

She began again. “I was nineteen, thrilled to have been chosen for a big project in Washington, D.C.  I had never been there before. The Capital, the monuments, museums, the helter-skelter traffic, the excitement and noise and life.  What an experience. And then to be working on a minority voting project with the leading educator in the field. Imagine my excitement.”

She glared at the athlete who had challenged her. Her voice grew stronger.

“Yes, imagine my excitement when my professor came to my room with a bottle of wine and told me it was time to celebrate.  And first we cheered with wine the work and the community response. Then we toasted the program. Then he told me how beautiful I was, and drank to it, and how all the young volunteers were drawn to me because I was such a leader and so beautiful.  Then we drank. A song came on the radio and he pulled me to my feet and said, ‘Dance with me,’ and I said I was tired. And he said, ‘One dance,’ and then held me tightly.”

Her voice softened with fear and confusion and became childlike, and her eyes filled with pain as if she was shedding the years between and taking on the persona of the woman she was at nineteen.

“And I said, ‘One dance,’ and we swirled around the room, my head dizzy, and he kissed my neck and I said, ‘No,’ and he unzipped my dress and I said, ‘no, no,’ and then it fell to the floor, and then he unhooked my bra and thrust his tongue in my mouth and put one hand between my legs, and then I was naked and he was inside me and I was crying, eyes closed. Then he pulled out, fumbled with his pants, finished the wine from the bottle, threw it on the floor and left me there.”

Waddley-Jones stared at the floor and when she looked up her eyes were fierce and her face hard.

In a voice like a hiss: “Everything I was died at that moment in the dirty little hotel room. Ev-er-y-thing,” cutting the world into four parts.  “But what was worse, everything that I wanted to be also died.  I’ve lived my life as a lie because I could not forget when I signed the agreement with this college when I was twenty that they took away my right to speak. Well, I’m taking it back. Can you give that all back to me, Mister Critic?  All the love I could have given, but didn’t trust enough to give; all the love that others felt for me and I could not receive? Can you give me back all the time I have hated myself, all the hours I felt the shame of that moment like a rash that would not heal? All the time I’ve spend locked in this emotionless box; all those things I have missed?  Can you give them back to me?  Never,” she said bitterly.

“And then this broken-hearted city, scarred by events in the past it cannot put to rest.  And today someone is using those events to terrorize.  Using those events for revenge, because it is the only emotion they can feel.  I say to that person, please stop.  There is time to heal.  That is what I say to Ironton.  Come together.

“Free your soul as I have freed mine. Stop, I say. For the love…” she paused, “Just for love. Please stop.” Her voice was a whisper.

Thanks to my publisher Imzadi Publishing and graphic artist Anita Dugan-Moore.

4.0 out of 5 stars for “The Swamps of Jersey.”

Very well written

By Kaila on Amazon.com:

“This was a very interesting story. The writing is very unique and very much its own style. The author is very well written and has an amazing way with words. The imagery makes me feel as if I can see everything going on. The metaphors bring the book to life in a way I’ve not seen often. I really enjoyed the mystery to this story and the characters are fun. You find yourself either thinking there is something weird about them, or you like the characters. I don’t think I found any character I didn’t like though. The suspense was very well done and I love that I didn’t see who the killer was before I found out. That is always a surprise to not know halfway through a book. I really enjoyed this writer and this story.”

The second book in the series is “A Game Called Dead.”

 The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

 For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

Available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

One of the understories in “The Weight of Living,” the third Frank Nagler mystery, is a connection between a 1932 murder and the current case. Can one case help solve the other?

It is a question reporter Jimmy Dawson ponders:

Jimmy Dawson read the last words on the computer screen and folded his hands in front of his face as if the shield could block out the horror.  “The life of Sarah Lawton” might have been the most difficult story he had ever written.

The jitter of diner noise flitted around Barry’s. A spoon tinning the side of a coffee cup, a cough mid-sentence, “but then he said…”; the slap of a spatula turning eggs, a plate sliding across the counter top, the thump of the cash drawer closing; “Thanks. You bet. See ya again…” ; the rattle of a paper bag, the metal scrape of the door opening; street noise car engine shouted voice, Hey, Ray!  the roar of a bus at the corner floating on the dusty, gassy vapor, a soft clank as the door caught, then vacuumed away.

“She had the gentlest hands, long fingers; elegant.”

That’s what her mother Jeannette Lawton said as she gazed at her daughter in her casket. She used to dig in the dirt of the back yard for that last potato, scraping her knuckles and being cut by the thorns of the brambles.

She tried to cover with a scarf the tan stain on Sarah’s neck, the now-faded rope burn that the mortician refused to cover with cosmetics because he was judging how the young girl died. “What a horrible thing they did to you, my girl.”

And it was horrible, Dawson thought, amazingly horrible, in fact.

The story unfolded in the diary that Sarah Lawton wrote and in letters her family wrote to the church before she was killed and after; letters seeking solace, venting anger. It dripped from notes written by staff at the Appleton home that were found tucked in the books delivered to Leonard’s store and leaked from the hundreds of photographs Appleton saved. Scene after scene, page after page connected.

Those rich soulless men taking the joy and lives of the girls they decided they owned, using them, discarding them; choosing more.

“July 7. More girls arrived today,” Sarah wrote in her diary. “They delight in the grandness of the place, the marble floors, wide sweeping staircase, soft pillows on chairs and couches. They know not that this is the gate to Hell. They know not that soon their souls and dignity will be stripped away, grist for the pleasure of heartless men who will laugh at your pain, the pain they cause and take such pleasure in delivering. Learn you will soon that no one hears your cries. Learn, too, as have I, that it is best to hide your heart to save it. If you show it, they will devour it.”

It was also a story that raised the most anger, Dawson thought.  The powerful, brazen in their authority making no secret that they thought the lives of the poor workers they employed were nothing, and then proving it by taking their daughters for their own pleasure.

And here we are today, Dawson thought, with circumstances so similar only the names have been changed. See what our money can buy? They proclaim. See what lies I can get you to believe?

Sarah Lawton understood this.

“Aug. 12. What do these fine men tell their families of their repeated absences? Do they not carry the stink of our forced union home with them? Do they not carry some scent of me, of my skin they have kissed and fondled?  But I detect you.  Your flowery bodice spray, the sea mist in your hair that your husband carries on his fingers as he touches my mouth. What do you say when those same fingers touch your tongue and you sense the unmistakable taste of me?”

The details of Sarah’s life filled Dawson’s mind.  Daughter an unknown mother, born into a house of incest, rescued by a poor but loving family; then the factory girl, but soon the sexual captive; finally the hero.

Yes, she brought them down, Dawson thought, at the cost of her life. And yet, here is the dusty tale of her brief life at the center of another more current scandal. Her death perhaps the apex upon which the new mysteries unravel.

But none of would end her sadness or pain, Dawson knew.

“Sept 13. No one hears me. My family is distant and thought I am happily working at Mr. Appleton’s factory, when in truth I was a slave at another type of factory. And now, here again, the sterile joyless farm home. How cruel is this circle of time. My mother once rescued me from this place, took me away from these cold quarters. How saddened she would be to find her here again. The smell of death rises here; such is Mr. Garrettson’s desperation. Nothing he can do would satisfy Mr. Appleton’s demand for revenge. Not even the deaths of the two young girls dispatched last week, killed for not being me. What depths we have reached in this world? There is no one to call to, no god, no savior, no friends to speak for me. This is the darkest day.  They will come for me soon. The stiff rope will encircle my neck and the platform upon which I stand will be kicked away and I shall die. And none will know it.”

He touched the computer screen to close the story. I need to let this wash away.

Who else has ever lived a life like that? he thought.

Calista.

The thought burst into his head.

She and Sarah Lawton are the same woman decades apart. The difference is that Calista is walking around, smoldering with rage and shame. That was the look on her face the day those books from the foundation arrived. The hated past, reborn.

I was smiling at 3 a.m. today.

I had just typed the last word in the last paragraph of the third Frank Nagler story, “The Weight of Living.”

So it’s done.

Except for the typos, the edits and rewrites, but all that, in the world of book writing, constitutes done.

 And it’s not really a draft, because I write and edit constantly. On my reserve hard drive I have maybe twenty versions, and a dozen more cut outs, stuff that got deleted, reused, or never made it at all.

So, yeah, done.

I was smiling because I knew what the last line of the book would be weeks ago and had to maneuver the story and characters through the traffic jam of plot to get to the point when I could add the last sentence.

The surprise is that the line is not delivered by the character I first imagined would do so, nor in the setting I thought. It works better where it ended up.

What’s the book about?
Finding the identity of a young girl abandoned on an Ironton, N.J. street in the middle of a cold March night. It’s a tale that has Detective Frank Nagler reconnect with an old nun whose family has a dark secret, with deceit, and manipulation. It is about some of the most broken characters I have ever written about. It is about their salvation.

That is why that last line made me smile.  In six words the line offered the redemption that all the broken people were seeking.

Some of you won’t like it, and I’m sorry. It’s not a shoot-‘em-up. It’s not about terrorism or cheating spouses, or gambling or zombies  or aliens — all of which are fine; not set in a flashy location, but instead, an old mill, town trying to survive.

Its plot is closer to “The Swamps of Jersey,” with its ups and downs and numerous possible bad guys, than it is to “A Game Called Dead,” which was a race to the end.

But I like it, a lot. It was the hardest of the three Nagler books to write, but that is the goal, somewhat, to present a challenge to yourself.

That said, I’m going to give Frank and the gang a vacation.  We’ve been palling around for the past four years and I have other projects to take on, and other characters calling for my attention. But I have other Nagler stories to tell.

Maybe it will be Smitty, the baseball hero of “The Summer of the Homerun,” http://wp.me/p1mc2c-7x whose rambling untitled tale opens:

 “This story starts with me hanging from a tree branch about forty feet in the air after my successful effort to break the one I was standing on.

It was a successful effort.

We needed the fire wood.

Life is about hanging on to something, and at that particular moment I was glad I had that other branch to hang on to. The ground seems awfully far away.”

Or maybe it will be Henderson and Nola Jensen and the curious village of Mount Jensen, Maine in a story now titled, “That time the world visited Mount Jensen, Maine:”

“The Diner was shrugged under the last of the gigantic spruce  trees that once stood like a castle wall around the Inn’s property;  tucked it was into the drooping green barrier,  a spy, like some country boy on the roof of the grocery with binoculars watching the New York girls on the lakeside veranda, laying on their  blankets with their bikini tops unhooked, their tight little asses  tanned against the  white bikini bottoms, waiting for one of them to roll over and for one magic second point a pair of sharp white titties to the sky.  Did they not see us on the roof, Henderson always wondered? Did they not know how exotic they seemed to the collection of teen-aged boys  gathered there, grabbing the glasses out of each others’ hands  and yelling, then  ducking when one of them thought one of New York girls might have looked their  way?  But of course they didn’t see us, Henderson knew.  They arrived with their families in long sedans, stepped from the back seat with  shades and ear buds, phone in hand, tight shorts and cut-off T-shirts and stretched, arching their backs like  a cat, then took three steps and lowered the  shades half way and with an  Oh my God, mother, what are we doing here, glanced up and down  the dusty main street of Mount Jensen, Maine with its five houses, old schoolhouse, unpainted church and a grocery store and decided that the two days at the Inn, before their week at tennis camp, were going to be the worst days of their lives.”

If you have not read the first two Nagler stories:

The books are  available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

Available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

I am pleased to say that the third Frank Nagler book, “The Weight of Living,” has been accepted for publication by Imzadi publishing.

No release date has been announced, but clearly it will be in early 2017.

Thanks to the Imzadi group for their support.

Two years ago they took a chance on an unknown writer and published “The Swamps of Jersey.” Two years later followed “The Game Called Dead.”

I have watched the company grow in confidence and expertise in that time. I am pleased to be a part of that progress.

But it’s more  than that… This is three real books! All you guys who think it’s impossible to find supporters for your work, look at this:  Three Books!

“The Weight of Living” was a difficult book to write.  It was a new direction for Ironton, N.J., Detective Frank Nagler.  The characters are among the most troubled and troubling I have written about. It is not an easy book, but it is a good read.  There are surprising heroes among the broken people.

The Nagler stories are not classic thrillers or mysteries. They are atmospheric puzzles. The challenge for me as the author is to create the puzzle pieces and lay out the instructions so the reader can complete the puzzle.

I asked friend and author Devorah Fox (devorahfox.com/) to read the story. She is as good a writer as you will find.  Please look her up. She has a new thriller out, “Detour” and will soon release “The Zen Detective.”

I have read them both.

“Detour” is a fun, read with a funny and wise look into Jewish family life that will resonate with anyone who has attended large family events.

“The Zen Detective” might possibly be the best detective book you read.  Look for it soon.

Here is what Dee said about Weight. (I’m guessing she won’t mind I use it.)”

“You will read it with your mouth hanging open, your brain ensnared and your heartstrings tugged. Simply brilliant.”

I have never had anything I have ever done called “simply brilliant.” (I may need to go back and read it to make sure I sent her the right book.)

What is it about?

The plot is a search to find the identity of a young girl who was dropped onto a snowy Ironton street wearing a tank top and shorts.

How does it play out?

Here’s some dialogue between Nagler and reporter Jimmy Dawson. They are at Barry’s the local diner with is a favorite meeting spot:

“Jimmy Dawson set the tablet computer aside and finished his eggs. He had written the story, and still didn’t believe it.

“A century-old mine shaft with bones? Discovered while investigating a drug house? Can’t make this stuff up.”

Dawson wiped his mouth with a napkin and leaned over the table toward Frank Nagler.

“Except you did. A drug house?”

Nagler smiled.

“It’s possible. Besides, it’s Jefferson’s statement. The captain did tell us they suspected drug activity there. We had to hold back some information, Jimmy.”

“Like the fact that you’re up there in the first place because they shot at you?”

Nagler smiled slyly.

“Welcome to the cat-and-mouse game. But you know that.  It’s not any more unbelievable than a 1932 suicide made to look like a murder, which might be a clue in a possible case of generational incest fueled by illegal financial dealings. And you’re writing that story.”

If you have not read the first two Nagler stories, they can be found here:

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

Available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

I will be a guest on the Georjean Trinkle’s Internet radio show “Hot in Hunterdon” from 4 to 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12.

Here is her announcement: “Award winning writer….now award winning book….so pleased to have Michael Stephen Daigle on Hot in Hunterdon Monday so we can visit again with Frank Nagler, one of our favorite characters – Swamps of Jersey and Game Called Dead.”

  “We do, at times, find characters that seem so alive we are wondering what they are doing in their next book! Hmmm, I guess that is why it is called the Frank Nagler series….” – Radio host Georjean Trinkle.

Here’s the URL: www.hunterdonchamberradio.com/hot.htm

Also, on Wednesday, Dec. 14 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. I’ll be appearing at the  Hackettstown Free Public Library  speaking about and reading from my Frank Nagler Mystery series.

I’ll be at the library at 110 Church Street from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. December 14.

Thanks to Program Coordinator Nicole Dow for setting up this event. (And for the cool posters.)

The first two Nagler stories are available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

Thanks to Nicole Dow of the Hackettstown Free Public Library for the opportunity to read from and discuss the Frank Nagler mystery series.

 We discussed how Frank and his hometown of Ironton,. N.J. are linked, and how his love for his wife Martha, who died when they were both young, haunted him.

And we discussed villains: Mayor Howard Newton from “The Swamps of Jersey,”  #ARMAGEDDON from “A Game Called Dead,” and introduced “Tank” from the upcoming “The Weight of Living.”

Here is Tank, introducing himself to Frank Nagler:

“Outside a steady rain washed away all other sounds; just the splash of water on asphalt and cement, tapping on roof tops and drumming metal car roofs; a perfect wall in which to hide.

We walk through this wreckage, seeking what does not exist: wholeness.  This is the weight of what we are, he thought. The weight of living.

A few cabs and delivery trucks splashed through the streets left damaged by winter’s wrath. Walking again. I wish I could walk this all away. What did Del say the other day: You see how deep the poison goes, how strong is the wrong in what they doin’.

Tell it, brother.

His phone rang and he answered it out of habit. “Yeah.”

“Detective Nagler.”

Nagler closed his eyes and spit into the street. He glanced quickly around for a parked vehicle.

“Fuck you, Tank.”

“Oh, please. If it had been me shooting, you’d be dead. But Alton, well, he missed.”

“It’s not me. She is off limits.”

The receiver filled with a shallow breath.

“Nothing is off limits.” Said slowly like a hiss.  “I take what I want.”

“You won’t take her.”

“Then I’ll take something else.”

“No …”

“It’s already in motion, Detective Nagler. Already in motion.”

Don’t let him bait you, Frank.

Nagler lightened his tone.

“So why do you do this, Tank? That’s the perfect name for you. Something blunt and brutal, something destructively dumb. Tank.” He expelled the bitter name.

“I take because I can, and I can because everyone wants something from me.” A deep laughed filled the phone.

“What, money?”

“Oh, please. Money is easy. Turn on late night TV or watch that Wall Street cable channel. You’ll see.  Selling the American Dream. Give me a grand and I’ll give you back five. I have magic beans, the ear of God. I can conjure everything you want with a snap of my finger. I am the Wizard of Oz, but the heart I present to you is empty of feeling, the brain, devoid of thought. Money, I have more money than they will ever find, trinkets galore. I command a dark world.”

“You’re just nuts,” Nagler said, chuckling. “Just fucking nuts.”

“No, Detective Nagler. I’m in charge. Take Commissioner McCann. If I were Henny Youngman, I would add ‘please’ and get a big laugh. But, no.  McCann wants power, so I give him the illusion that he has power. He makes what he thinks are command decisions, but fails to realize that they had been previously plotted.  And he also fails to understand that if he does not carry out my plans, there is a certain matter of a bribe he took in his first year as a prosecutor that allowed the scion of a wealthy family to walk away from a situation where he had pumped his pregnant waitress girlfriend full of drugs and threw her off a highway overpass into the path of a truck.  It was so well planned…” A smirking voice.

“A bribe?”

“I’ll send you the paperwork.” The smirk gone; satisfaction, perhaps, even, boredom.

“You find all this amusing, don’t you, Tank? Taking, ruining people’s lives.”

“These are lives that are already ruined, Detective Nagler. Alton Garrett?  Calista… that is not her real name but for the life of me I cannot remember what name I gave her…”

“So she is your daughter?”

Nagler could see the shrug in his voice. “Daughter. Niece. Wife.  The same.  She is family, Detective Nagler.  Family is flesh, and flesh is a commodity.  I create flesh, and I can destroy it.”  A pause. “Alton Garrett wants love, so I give him the illusion of love. Calista Knox wants freedom, ah, a truly more dear commodity.  She has a heavier price to pay. And you want relief, assurances.  They too, come with a high cost.”

The phone went dead.”

The first two Nagler stories are available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

My Frank Nagler mysteries are set in Ironton, N.J., a fictional Dover and Morris County. In the third book in the series, Detective Frank Nagler ventures  into other parts of the county, including a visit to the  former Ringling estate in Jefferson, where the carriage house remains, and on the nearby county golf course, stone foundation of former elephant sheds can be seen.

The 1,000-acre estate was build by Alfred Ringling, one of the founders of the so-named circus, which has announced it will close after 146 years.

I used the setting for something different, but with a nod to its history.

Information on the Ringling site can be found here: http://www.njskylands.com/hs_jefferson_081

The site features a story and photos by Robert Koppenhaver, hereby credited.

There is the scene:

“You the cop?”

“Yup. You George Dickinson?”

“Be so.”

“Then we know who we are.”

“That’s a fact.”

George Dickinson claimed to be a distant relative of the old New Jersey governor on whose family’s land iron ore was discovered, boosting a centuries-long industry that put Ironton on the map. While the forges and mills filled Ironton’s sky with black smoke, miners cracked open holes in the ground in the northern hills to drag out the ore.

The forested hills were deeper and darker than Nagler recalled, as if the sunlight skipped over the tops or was absorbed by the dense forest. Nightfall would come early here, he thought. Steep-sided valleys carved by glacial water and ancient rivers split the hard-rock hills into segments that made up a mining district that ran to eastern Pennsylvania and produced iron ore, zinc, slate, coal, and limestone.

That’s all gone now, Nagler had thought as he drove through the beautiful yet unsettling landscape; overgrown, collapsed on itself, the history of industry and struggle worn down through time; it was a closed-in and moody place, perfect, he decided, for the twisted visions of Remington Garrettson.

….

There was some dispute about George Dickinson’s ancestral claims, but Nagler didn’t care. He had lived in the area for eighty-five years and his family settled in these hills before the Revolution, whether it was the right Dickinson family or not. Besides, Nagler thought, how could you not like a man playing golf in a lime-green shirt, red knickers, a white hat and shoes and knee-high argyle socks?

 “I play every day since they turned that chemical dump into a golf course.” Dickinson winked at Nagler. “That was a pleasant change. But I had played here as a kid. There was a little course of water and I used the old sheds as a green.” …

 “Those walls the remains of the elephant sheds?” Nagler asked.  He nodded toward a stone framework at the edge of one of the golf holes.

 “That’s it.  Can you imagine? Old Ringling had about a thousand acres for himself, built that mansion down the road that’s now owned by the church, and had lions, tigers, and elephants and what-all here. They used to drive the elephants down the valley road to the train stop. What a sight!”….

 “Just wondering. Beautiful spot. Can see why folks settled here. How many people lived up here?”

“Few hundred, scattered.  The end of the mining cleared it out pretty much. When Ringling was here in the Twenties, there was the start of a lake settlement.  When old Remington lived here, weren’t many others. He managed to find the one flat spot of land up on the mountain, worked a stand of apple trees, and then by luck after a washout, found an iron vein right near the surface. There’s two versions. One, he worked it hard for a couple of years, set aside some reserves and fixed up the house and all; and the second, that he barely made a go of it. Truthfully it’s somewhere in between. Mind if I play through here? There’s a foursome three holes behind me. They let me play as long as I don’t hold up the paying customers.”

Nagler smiled. “Swing away.”

Dickinson settled the ball on a tee and pulled out a driver with a head the size of a grapefruit. Nagler recalled a line from Jimmy Dawson, who said in other sports the players took steroids, but in golf it was the equipment that grew.

Dickinson took a smooth swing and the ball jumped out maybe a hundred and fifty yards, driven less by the power of the swing than the size of the metal clubface.

….

“So where’s the old Garrettson place from here?” Nagler asked as Dickinson lined up another shot: He topped it and the ball bounced out about thirty feet.

“Maybe a mile south.  The old mining camps, where the real money was, were about three, four miles southwest of here over the mountain. His place is at the edge of the fields. No one looking to make real money would have opened that vein.”

“Anything left there?”

“Yeah, heard hikers say there are some buildings, roofs caved in, windows shot out.  There’s a hiking trail that heads up that way. It’s generally smooth since all the rocks have been picked out.”

“I heard there was something called ‘Garrett’s Way?’”

“It’s an old creek washout. He used it as a way to his place.  Heard he blocked it off half way up with blowdowns.”

Dickinson took another swing and with an iron drove the ball cleanly down the fairway.

“All I heard about Garrettson was that he was crazy. People would see him on the valley road with a shotgun yelling at something, probably God. They had learned to stay away. I mean, Detective, they weren’t stupid. The wife dies when there were three kids. Then there’s ten kids and no new wife? Just wasn’t anybody’s business, I guess.”

The first two books in the series are “The Swamps of Jersey,” (2014) and “A Came Called Dead,” (2016). His book was a runner-up in the 2016 Shelf Unbound Indie Book contest.

 The first two Nagler stories are available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

 Available for free downloads in several formats on Smashwords are the following:

“The Summer of the Homerun,” a short story about baseball and being a teen-ager.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/299057

Sample: “The ball seemed to be something other than an object struck by a wooden bat and sent sailing through the air over the park; it was more like a bird, something with an intelligence of its own, or like time itself moving as we  stopped to gaze and wonder.”

“The Resurrection of Leo,” a short story collection. The main story is about a lonely man who learns to love again.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/282799

Sample: “Then I saw Helena, now resting on the bed. She was enraptured with the baby John, lost in his miracle and their survival amid the blood-soaked towels and sheets and the mess of his birth. She was both crying and laughing at once.

“He’s here,” she whispered; discovery begins.

I moved closer and like an ancient touched John’s small astounded face with a warm cloth and watched as he in confusion experienced water for the first time and learned of it.

“I …”

“Say nothing,” she commanded.

But after a minute Helena gave up the baby John to me and I held him.

For that moment and evermore, I am.”

And a bonus. A reading of one of stories in the Leo collection, “Weight,” by fantastic voice artist Diane Havens.

Sample: “The heart holds the heaviness of love and affection. It is where the joy of that first reaction rests, trapped in the blood, gaining weight until like some awakened seed it fills all of us. It is the moment of the first glance, the first touch and kiss, the instant of innocence and promise.

It is also where the bitterness of ending hides, cozied in some trapped corner, hoping to stay out of reach; seeking to become lighter.

In the mind love is one more electron flashing across a synapse, an idea triggering another electron to react and move; it is where we reason away all that happened at the end, categorizing coldly our actions to make sure the face we see in the mirror the morning after carries no stain of blame, no remorse, nothing but survival, having in some twisted logic claimed victory.

Love in the mind is weightless; only in the heart does it have weight.

I awoke that morning weightless; you were no longer in my heart and I wondered why.”

Is my Frank Nagler mysteries series actually a dystopian saga? It’s a thought.

Granted, I don’t have beautiful, heroic teen-agers running through carefully staged ruins fighting the evil establishment and seeking to create a new utopian society.

Dystopia is generally defined as a situation of chaos and hopelessness.

So, three books into the series, a pattern is evident: The stories have evil, a city in social and at times deliberate economic chaos, terrorism, death, a sense of hopelessness among the citizenry, streets filled with protestors, and empty broken building, piles of  debris left by a terrible storm and ignored by an uncaring city government.

And the stories have a troubled hero — Frank Nagler.

This discussion, well, internal debate, comes as I plan the next two Nagler books.

One is a prequel involving the initial Charlie Adams serial killer story, and the cancer death of Nagler’s wife, Martha.

This one has a working title of “Lock Down,” which reflects the city’s response to the killings, and Nagler’s response to Martha’s death.

The second is the untitled fifth story in the sequence, an immediate pick-up of the story from “The Weight of Living,” due on April 25.

So, here’s the argument:

CHAOS:

From “The Swamps of  Jersey:” He had not seen the sky for days, felt the heat of the sun, wore dry shoes or walked outside without that raincoat since the storm blew in and sealed the hills above the city with a dense smothering grayness, a swirling menace of thunder clouds and shrieking winds that pounded the city with an apocalyptic rain that sent the Baptist preachers howling to the hills about sin and damnation.  It emptied the grocery store shelves of everything but a few cans of cream of mushroom soup,  and locked the residents in the top floors of their homes as the river crashed its banks, flooded streets and rearranged the city landscape like a madman with an earth mover.”

From “A Game Called Dead: “The momentum for repair was lost in the political scandal that followed the flood and sent Mayor Gabriel Richman, ex-mayor Howard Newton and police commander Chris Foley to jail. …. The result was blocks of holes, homes and businesses empty and detours blocking broken bridges. …. the city looked like the Twentieth Century never happened, the modern sheen scrubbed off, the red brick, the rusted steel frames rising, cast scarlet by a setting sun, the rattle and hum of life diminished.

From “The Weight of Living”:  “There was noise and light when I was a child, Nagler thought from the back porch while wearing a t-shirt and boxers, the sound of labor and prosperity, as ephemeral as it was.  We labored; they prospered. Ten thousand more nails, a thousand wheels, a million bolts and pins, the pieces that connected this to that, and each of us to another, all lighted by the yellow-orange glow of hot iron, driven by the hellish hiss as it cooled. Then it all cracked, rusted, fell to disuse and from that grew the silence. And from that silence emerged the Warren Appletons of the world, and perhaps the Tank Garrettsons. The smiling face of shysterdom.”

EVIL:

“From “Swamps:” “Because that was what Howard Newton could deliver: services.  Help with a permit, a building inspection, working papers for some underage kid, a job in the road department that suddenly was opening on Thursday; a little environmental clean-up problem at your auto repair place.

It was the whole subterranean wink-and-nod culture that laughed in the face of the U.S. Attorney and his gang of sixty saps who managed to get caught.  They all knew how the game was played but just got so full of themselves they thought no one would ever notice.

Howie Newton had been doing it all his public life.  A little at a time.”

  From “Dead:” “What is it going to take for you to realize how this game called dead is played?  I am trying to teach you. And the longer it takes, more people will die.

Each death is a lesson and a clue.

And at some point they will blame you.

Is that my goal? To discredit you, to leave you shamed and wounded?

It is one of them. You’ll soon understand the others.”

From “Weight”: “These are lives that are already ruined, Detective Nagler. Alton Garrett?  Calista… that is not her real name but for the life of me I cannot remember what name I gave her… Daughter. Niece. Wife.  The same.  She is family, Detective Nagler.  Family is flesh, and flesh is a commodity.  I create flesh, and I can destroy it.”

HERO: From “Swamps:” The ancients knew what to do with rain like this, he thought wickedly, squinting into the horizontal blast of water.

Conjure an honest man with a ship and spin a parable about the wages of sin.” 

From “Weight.” Lauren Fox: “I know you hurt. We all do.  I … do,” her voice cracking. “But I can hurt in the privacy of my room where no one will see it. But we need you, Frank. It’s not fair, but you don’t get to hurt in private. You have to hurt in front of all of us.” Lauren sighed deeply and closed her eyes tightly. “This is a hurting place and we need Frank Nagler to stand up for us…

That’s what this city feels when it sees you, Frank. It sees Charlie Adams in jail and Gabe Richman and Chris Foley and Tom Miller, all gone.  It sees you and finds the strength to go on.”

The previous Frank Nagler books are, “The Swamps of Jersey” and “A Game Called Dead.”

They are available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The books are also available at the at the following libraries: Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

Also at:  Bobby’s News and Gifts, 618 Main Street, Boonton.

The Clinton Book Shop, 12 E. Main Street, Clinton. http://www.clintonbookshop.com/

Sparta Books, 29 Theatre Center, Sparta. http://www.spartabooks.com/

For information on independent book sellers visit, http://www.indiebound.org/

Howard Newton in my mystery, 2014’s “The Swamps of Jersey.” understood exactly what’s going on in Washington, D.C. these days.

Newton is a former mayor of Ironton, N.J. He’s an old style ward heeler,  favor collector and dispenser of the political goodies. He dresses up his corruption in populism.

Newton: “So they set up an alternative way of doing business, because, hell, they had no money, but mostly they knew they could not trust the mill owners or the bosses or the bankers, the landlords or anyone who had control over their lives. So we all did favors, and some of the favors got big.  It was how we fought back against a system that was killing us, one in which if we played by the rules, we had no chance to succeed.”

The first Frank Nagler mystery. Available at Amazon, Nook, Kobo and Wal-Mart

The old man placed the cigar on an ashtray, stood up and put his hands in his pants pockets.

“Did that make us corrupt?  Don’t think so.  Made us traders.  Trade something, get a little extra for it when you trade it again. It was all so small time.  But you know what?  People didn’t lose their homes to the banks.  If they got behind somehow it was made right.  And when they got hurt on the job and the factory boss threw them out, their kids got fed, and the house got fixed.  Then they did a little work for you.  Look at that flood last week.  Those people will be paying off those repairs  for years because the insurance companies who sold them home insurance didn’t tell them that it didn’t cover  water damage.

“What’s it mean when a lobbyist for the oil business sits in a committee room and helps a Congressman write a bill about oil regulations?  Or when the bankers cook the books in a way that even other bankers can’t figure it out? The U.S. Supreme Court gave human rights to corporations and said that money is free speech; said big companies can cheat women out of equal pay. The big stores pay so little or schedule employees so they work a little less than full time so they have to get health insurance from the government.”  Newton pointed a finger at Dawson.

“That’s corruption, Jimmy.  Big time, in your face, stop us if you can corruption and they have the money, the lawyers and the rules to make it stand up.”

Clouds overhead shifted and Newton was suddenly standing in full sunlight; like a bat he shuffled back into the shade of the patio.

“They make rule after rule to shut that door of opportunity for the little guy. Get their hands around the throats of the middle class and squeeze.  They make deals that only benefit themselves and their money men.  The cut taxes for the rich and screw the poor.  Remember that congressman who wanted to get rid of Medicare and let the insurance companies run it?  That would put old folks out of their homes, take food from their mouths.  These assholes act like the Great Depression happened to somebody else.

“They won’t be happy till they grind everyone else under their wheels, the grinning bastards.  Eisenhower said fear the military-industrial complex.  These guys make the military-industrial complex look like a carnival, such is their immeasurable greed.”

“The Swamps of Jersey,” and  the sequel, “A Game Called Dead” are available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The books are also available at the at the following New Jersey libraries: Mountainside; Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

The Frank Nagler Mysteries are now available at two new libraries.

Thanks to the Deptford Free Public Library and Franklin Township Library for accepting into their collections. “The Swamps of Jersey,” and the award-winning “A Game Called Dead.”

The books are also available at the following New Jersey libraries:

Mountainside; Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

The third book in the series, “The Weight of Living,” will be published by Imzadi Publishing on April 25

The first two Nagler stories are available at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

I will also be at the West Deptford Township Book Festival at the Riverwinds Community Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 6.

I will be reading from all three Nagler stories t the Mountainside Public Library, Constitution Center, Mountainside, N.J. at 1 p.m., June 17.

I will be reading from and discussing the Frank Nagler Mystery series at the North County Branch Library, Hunterdon County Library, 65 Halstead Street, Clinton, from 11 to noon, Saturday, May 20.

 Thanks to adult program coordinator Dana Neubauer for setting up the visit.

This is the second time I have read at the North County library.

This will be first chance to read from the third book in the series, “The Weight of Living,” set to be released April 26.

I will also be at the West Deptford Township Book Festival at the Riverwinds Community Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 6.

I will be reading from all three Nagler stories at the Mountainside Public Library, Constitution Center, Mountainside, N.J. at 1 p.m., June 17

The books are also available at the following New Jersey libraries:

Mountainside; Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System.

The Nagler books are available online at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The third Frank Nagler Mystery, “The Weight of Living,” will be released on Wednesday, April 26.

My publisher Imzadi Publishing, has set up online pre-release links to secure your copy of the book, for Kindle or Kobo ebook formats

Kindle version: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071CXW1JW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_xnQ-yb4WA6C3Y

Kobo ebook version: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-weight-of-living

Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-weight-of-living-michael-stephen-daigle/1126280404?ean=2940157337551&st=PLA&sid=NOK_DRS_NOOK+EBooks_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP75008

 “The Weight of Living:” A young girl is found in a grocery store Dumpster on a cold March night wearing just shorts and a tank top. She does not speak to either Detective Frank Nagler, the social worker called to the scene, or later to a nun, who is an old friend of Nagler’s.

What appears to be a routine search for the girl’s family turns into a generational hell that drags Nagler into an examination of a decades old death of a another young girl, and the multi-state crime enterprise of the shadowy ringmaster.

The deeper Nagler looks, the more he and his companions are endangered, until the shocking climax that leaves Nagler questioning his actions to both solve the crimes and heal his damaged soul.

The previous Nagler books are:

“The Swamps of Jersey” (2014) is about political corruption and murder, and I attempted to write it in real time, that is to say, reflecting some of the activities that mark our present lives, but use them in a story that is broad and wide, and with luck, filled with the lives of characters struggling to make sense of troubled times. The central character is Frank Nagler, a cop, whose troubled heart is ever present.

Nagler is called out on stormy night to investigate the report of a dead woman in the Old Iron Bog. It is the first event in a chain of events that set the hard-luck city of Ironton, N.J. on edge. Besides the possible murder, the city was flooded when a week-long storm settled in and wrecked homes, businesses, and streets, and Nagler is trying to make sense of a series of letters that claim to expose theft of city funds, except they are so incomplete he wonders if it is really so.

Then there is Lauren Fox, a woman sent to Ironton to jump-start economic development. She and Nagler are attracted to one another and begin to become serious when she leaves town without an explanation. Nagler was an emotional recluse following the death of his wife years before. They had been childhood sweethearts, and her death crushed Nagler.

The story of Frank Nagler picks up two years after “Swamps”  in “A Game Called Dead” (2016)

Ironton, N.J., is still a city struggling with its economic and rebuilding troubles, but new heroes emerge. Meanwhile a break-in at the local college leaves two women badly beaten, and one later dies. Following a series of criminal acts in the city, including several that damage the book store owned by Leonard, Nagler’s friend, the story takes on a sinister twist.  The title comes from the students’ name for a video game that has taken on a real-world life. They call it “A Game Called Dead.”

The story is tense and propulsive.

The Nagler books are available online at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

Today is release day for the third Frank Nagler Mystery, “The Weight of Living.”

My great thanks and appreciation to the Imzadi Publishing team: Janice Grove, graphic artist Anita Dugan-Moore, and copy editor Kate Springteen Tate.

Imzadi is an independent publisher and we have gone through growing pains since 2014, when my first Nagler mystery, “The Swamps of Jersey,” was published.

 As I tell audiences at readings, I had never heard of them, and they had never heard of me, so it was a perfect marriage.

The company has grown and developed new editing and marketing skills that have boosted our visibility. The efforts are greatly appreciated.

So, Frank Nagler.

“The Weight of Living” is his most difficult case.  The presumably simple task of finding the name and family of a young girl discovered standing in a grocery store Dumpster on a cold night instead becomes an increasingly urgent battle to bring peace and salvation to a number of characters whose lives have been torn as a result of long-hidden actions.

They tell lies, they at times confront the truth and then run from it. They are angry, pained and broken and turn to Detective Frank Nagler for answers.

But where does he turn when the weight becomes too much to carry?

He asks: “Where does all this pain go. And why does it weigh so much?”

The story drags the reader down the rabbit hole and back, offers turns and unexpected twists, characters to both loathe and admire, feel sympathy for and cheer.

“The Swamps of Jersey” (2014) is about political corruption and murder, and I attempted to write it in real time, that is to say, reflecting some of the activities that mark our present lives, but use them in a story that is broad and wide, and with luck, filled with the lives of characters struggling to make sense of troubled times. The central character is Frank Nagler, a cop, whose troubled heart is ever present.

Nagler is called out on stormy night to investigate the report of a dead woman in the Old Iron Bog. It is the first event in a chain of events that set the hard-luck city of Ironton, N.J. on edge. Besides the possible murder, the city was flooded when a week-long storm settled in and wrecked homes, businesses, and streets, and Nagler is trying to make sense of a series of letters that claim to expose theft of city funds, except they are so incomplete he wonders if it is really so.

Then there is Lauren Fox, a woman sent to Ironton to jump-start economic development. She and Nagler are attracted to one another and begin to become serious when she leaves town without an explanation. Nagler was an emotional recluse following the death of his wife years before. They had been childhood sweethearts, and her death crushed Nagler.

The story of Frank Nagler picks up two years after “Swamps”  in “A Game Called Dead” (2016)

Ironton, N.J., is still a city struggling with its economic and rebuilding troubles, but new heroes emerge. Meanwhile a break-in at the local college leaves two women badly beaten, and one later dies. Following a series of criminal acts in the city, including several that damage the book store owned by Leonard, Nagler’s friend, the story takes on a sinister twist.  The title comes from the students’ name for a video game that has taken on a real-world life. They call it “A Game Called Dead.”

The story is tense and propulsive.

The Nagler books are available online at:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/hVQIII

Kobo: https://goo.gl/bgLH6v

NOOK: http://goo.gl/WnQjtr

http://www.walmart.com

The first two books are available at the following New Jersey libraries: Mountainside; Morris County Library; Somerset County Library System; Bernardsville Public Library; Hunterdon County Public Library; Mount Olive Public Library;  Phillipsburg; Warren County, Franklin branch; Mount Arlington; Wharton; Dover; Hackettstown;  Clark, Parsippany and the Ramsey library, as part of the Bergen County Cooperative Library System Deptford Free Public Library and Franklin Township Library (Gloucester Co.). And, the Palmer (Pa.) Branch of the Easton Public Library.

Online links to buy the “The Weight of Living” are:

Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/194465304X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1493327665&sr=8-3&keywords=daigle+michael+stephen

E-Book:

Kindle

NOOK

Kobo

Also, I will be at the following events:

May 5: Allentown Central Catholic High School, writing club forum. 301 N. 4^th Street, Allentown, PA, 4:30 p.m.

May 6: The West Deptford Township Book Festival, RiverWinds Community Center, 1000 Riverwinds Drive, West Deptford, NJ. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

May 20: Author discussion and reading, North County Branch Library, (Hunterdon County), Halstead Street, Clinton, NJ. 11 a.m. to noon.

Dedicating books is one of those special things writers get to so to thanks those whose support and love mattered.

The Frank Nagler books have been dedicated to my family and writer friends who have read, supported, and offered opinions on the works, for which I am forever grateful.

 “The Weight of Living” has a special dedication to Marie Howard, a colleague of mine at the Central Maine Morning  Sentinel in Waterville. 

She was a Jersey girl from Paterson who brought to Maine that urban toughness and a great sense of fairness that dominated her reporting. She lived for many years on her horse farm in the middle of the nowhere part of Central Maine.

People like Marie Howard made the newspaper business special, rewarding and fun. She would have fit into any newsroom I worked in, a pros-pro among equals.

The dedication:

“ ‘The Weight of Living’ is also specially dedicated to the memory of Marie Howard, my colleague at the Central Maine Morning Sentinel of Waterville, Maine. She took on a powerful law enforcement official over potential lies he told about a shocking case. That fight is the story behind “Weight.”

Her efforts are memorialized in the book in the scene when reporter Jimmy Dawson leaves the diner and finds his car boxed in by two large trucks. That happened to Marie as part of an intimidation campaign by this official.

Marie epitomized the hard work and dedication of my many newspaper colleagues I had the pleasure to work with from Fairhaven, Mass, to Skowhegan and Waterville, Maine, and Bridgewater and Parsippany, N.J.  Thanks, guys.”

“The Weight of Living” was released April 26.

Here are the online links:

Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/194465304X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1493327665&sr=8-3&keywords=daigle+michael+stephen

E-Book:

Kindle

NOOK

Kobo

I’m very excited to be included to participate in the Bergen County (NJ) Cooperative Library System’s BooksNJ2017 event.

 I’ll be ready to discuss and display the Frank Nagler Mysteries:  “The Swamps of Jersey,” the award-winning “A Game Called Dead,” and the newly released, “The Weight of Living.” Available at Amazon, Nook, Kobo and Wal-Mart.

The event is held every other year and draws thousands of readers and book lovers to the Paramus Public Library, 116 E. Century Rd, Paramus.

I attended BooksNJ2015, which drew over 3,000 people.

BooksNJ2017 is from 1 to 5 p.m., June 11.

The event is still being organized. For information: http://www.booksnj.org.