I knew when I completed GARDEN OF HEAVEN in March, 2008, that a 240,000-word novel by a relative unknown would be a hard sell. Nonetheless, I will continue trying to sell it.

However, I’m turning my immediate attention on a 60,000-word novel called JOCK STEWART AND THE MISSING SEA OF FIRE that began making the rounds this week. Those of you who have chanced by my Morning Satirical News weblog have already met the main character: he bills himself as a hard-boiled reporter for the Junction City Star-Gazer of the kind seen in Hollywood’s noir movies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Whereas “Morning Satirical News” takes a gallows-humor look at real issues, the novel finds Jock–and some of the recurring fictional characters from the blog–trying to track down who stole the Mayor’s prized racehorse Sea of Fire and who killed the Star-Gazer publisher’s prized girl friend Bambi Hill.

I’m classifying the book as humor. Now, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that a prospective publisher also thinks it’s funny.