Bullet Catch Showdown

I was pleased to receive a contract from Robert Hale for Bullet Catch Showdown. It’ll be my 30th Black Horse Western.

For this milestone novel I wanted to write something a little different, although in actuality I’d planned on this novel being my 25th. A few years ago I wrote a short story about a man who earned a living by catching bullets with his teeth. When I’d finished the story, I thought the idea could be developed further and so I carried on writing.

The story went well until I reached the half-way point. I usually have at least one major plot twist in my stories, and this time I wrote in a particularly massive twist. I hadn’t thought that would happen beforehand and when it did, it took me completely by surprise leaving me with no idea where the story would then go.

The twist was only two words long and I could have easily deleted those words and carried on writing, but I didn’t want to do that. So the story languished in development hell for a couple of years until the obvious solution hit me and so I resumed writing.

By then my projected 25th novel had become my 30th, but that’s not as important as finally getting the story finished and, as it’s turned out, published. The novel should be available around November 2014 and here’s my draft blurb:

The stage magician Malachi Muldoon claimed to be the world's most dangerous practitioner of the arcane arts with his performance of the notorious bullet catch. So his show in Bear Creek intrigued both Adam Clements and Deputy Hayward Knight, but for different reasons.

Adam joined Malachi on stage and became a part of his act while Hayward got a chance to solve an old mystery. It seems the show harbours a dark secret, as wherever Malachi performs a trail of bodies is left behind.

Before long, Adam and Hayward become embroiled in Malachi's web of deception. So can they unmask the guilty when they are forced into a showdown with a man who hides the truth in plain sight?