NEWS

TouchWood Editions, a division of Heritage House, has bought the rights to publish

Never Sleep With a Suspect
(on Gabriola Island)

SUSPECT is the first novel in George Szanto and Sandy Frances Duncan's Islands Investigations International detective novel series, which they are writing under the pseudonym, T. Shorty Barlow.

The concept of the series: Two investigators; he, Noel, in his mid-forties, lives in Nanaimo, BC, gay, his partner recently dead; she, Kyra, mid-thirties, is from Bellingham, WA, thrice married, now independent. They've been friends since Kyra was ten, Noel once her mentor, she now his equal. Their expertise is islands, the Gulf Islands in the Georgia Strait, the San Juans in the Pacific Northwest.

In the first novel they form their partnership, Islands Investigations International. The novels will alternate in primary locale, Canada/U.S.; but crime doesn't recognize national boundaries. The Canadian titles all begin with Never..., the American ones with Always..., plus the name of the island. Hence, the title of the first novel as above, and the working title for the second

Always Kiss the Corpse
(on Whidbey Island)

In SUSPECT, when a body is found dumped on the grounds of a Gabriola Island art gallery, Kyra and Noel find themselves investigating murder, art forgery and the boutique opium trade.

In CORPSE, the open coffin at a viewing holds the body of a transgendered young man. His mother, leaning down to kiss him one last time, screams, "That's not my son!" Enter Kyra and Noel.

A shorty Barlow is a lens attachment that doubles the power of the telescope eyepiece to which it is fitted.