Trouble in the Nation’s Capital City. Enjoy!

Imagine a Mayor of Washington, DC. Let’s call him Wendell Watson. He’s a brilliant, cynical man who manipulated his way through politics, and is now tightly ensconced in the Mayor’s office. He’s also a shot caller in the world of crime as well. He has his Directors, his Chiefs, and his Secretaries, and also his fixers and hit men. He rules his world, and his underworld. He sips fine single-malt Scotches, and orders murders. 

So one evening — and I realize I’m giving away the first thirty pages or so of the novel — he decides to engage in a little extra-curricular activity with one of his staff, in the Mayor’s Office. But it turns out that while he is discovering the delights of this woman’s body, he also discovers the recording device in her purse. And so he hits her. Hard.

And she hits back. Hard. With a bottle of gin. And then with an ash tray.

And then a member of the Mayor’s protective service bursts into the room and shoots her in the head.

And then someone else — a woman who had been in his office to steal a bid proposal and who had been hiding — suddenly arises and sprints out of the room.

And then Watson — high on excitement and arousal and also the little bit of cocaine he had sniffed up earlier — commissions the man who had just killed his lover to also eliminate this witness.

But here’s the thing: this novel, though fictional, is about real people. And real people tend to disappoint those who expect them to act from type. So the protective service member who Watson commissions to murder the witness, though he has a bad anger management problem, is also lonely, and sentimental. And the woman he has been sent to kill, far from being a victim, is clever, resourceful, and not terribly scrupulous. And when Watson realizes his mistake, he reaches out for a real professional killer. Who happens also to be a stone lunatic.

Lee and I had a blast writing this tale. Editing was another story. Editing is always another story. We went through about ten drafts before we thought it was ready for market.

And we waited.

I already told you about Lee’s incredible efforts to get this piece marketed. (If you missed it, I invite you to read “Persistence”.) He succeeded, and as a result Capital City is now available in paperback and Kindle.

Interested in reading it? Click here.