Shadows on the Swing

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Summary

When Rick Mallory—a charming social climber with dangerous appetites—is found dead in the garden swing behind his seaside bungalow, authorities hastily rule it a suicide. Private investigator Alex Hunter isn’t convinced, and as he digs into Mallory’s past, he uncovers a web of buried scandals, political corruption, and carefully protected secrets that suggest the truth is far more inconvenient than murder. Told in a hard-boiled, first-person voice and grounded in psychological realism, the novel will appeal to adult readers who enjoy classic noir in the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, with a strong sense of historical authenticity and moral ambiguity.

Status
Complete
Chapters
49
Rating
n/a
Age Rating
18+

Shadows on the Swing ~ My Story

Shadows on the Swing

My Story

This story is based—loosely—on real events. I’ve chased this tale for more than fifty years, through yellowed newsprint, half-forgotten websites, and dead-end files.

Each time I sat down to tell it in my own fashion, I found myself writing the same book the original author had already written. This version lets me step out of those shadows and follow a detective’s trail into imagined territory.

The original account never answered the question, Who Dunnit? So I took my own shot at it. What you’ll find here is fiction: conclusions drawn from research—countless newspaper clippings, archived correspondence, and conversations with fellow writers—but the twists I chose belongs to this novel, not to history.

The truth, I suspect, still lies out there—

Just beyond the reach of any final chapter.