Deadly Ink 2008 Short Story Collection, June 2008

"The Franklin Folio is Missing"

Pages 1-12

Private Investigator Mark Sauer is hired to track down a missing folio of papers written by Benjamin Franklin. But when the man who hired him turns up dead, Sauer has to find out who put an end to his contract before it was even an hour old.

This is the story that introduced my readers to my private eye, Mark Sauer. The story came about because of an on-line notice that the anthology in question was extending its reading period by two weeks, and that if I could write a story in that time period, I should submit it--as long as the story involved pen & ink, a deadly incident, and was set in New Jersey.

The odd thing was, when I created the Fifth Precinct series, I put in a tough female cop and her loveable male sidekick, an amateur sleuth who ran a bookstore, a band of bounty hunters, even a pair of hip young female 'repo men' ... but I never thought to add a private eye. He joined the cast as a result, and the story was chosen to lead off this anthology.

Author's Note: on the bottom of page 9, there should be a blank line between "Harkness's killer" and "Victor Marsten stared at me." The typesetter left out the break indicating the scene shifting from the murder scene to Marsten's house.

The short story collection is available at Amazon.com.