![Cover of Blood Wing by Daniel P. Douglas: a 1950s U.S. Air Force propeller transport plane on a wet runway at dusk beside a red-lit windowless aircraft plant, under a stormy moonlit sky. Tagline: "In 1950s Long Beach, some secrets are built to never see daylight."](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tfaq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F59855d6c-c3f9-49e9-9b73-56e89da33c32_2031x3250.png "Cover of Blood Wing by Daniel P. Douglas: a 1950s U.S. Air Force propeller transport plane on a wet runway at dusk beside a red-lit windowless aircraft plant, under a stormy moonlit sky. Tagline: "In 1950s Long Beach, some secrets are built to never see daylight."")
Some of you have been following this since the longlist. Some of you showed up at the shortlist. Either way, you have been patient, and I owe you a book.
Blood Wing: A Cold War Noir Thriller is available now in eBook and paperback on Amazon and in eBook on other major book sellers.
It is the second entry in Jack Morrison’s Blood & Bourbon Mystery Files, and it was named one of ten finalists in ProWritingAid’s inaugural Novel Beginnings contest, selected from 14,570 entries worldwide. That is a number I still have trouble making sit still in my head. But here we are.
The book picks up Morrison in January of 1951. A Black night-shift janitor named Ezekiel Wilkins is dead at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach. The company calls it an industrial accident and closes the file without interviewing the widow. The family hires Morrison because Ezekiel’s brother once shared a foxhole with him in Italy in 1944. Some debts do not expire.
What Morrison finds behind the plant’s windowless concrete walls is a Cold War espionage operation, and a murder the federal government will classify into official nonexistence before it can be proved. The investigation lives the McCarthy era and the Lavender Scare, the period purge of suspected homosexuals from federal and defense employment.
Blood Wing is a novella. Roughly 24,000 words. A complete story you can finish in one sitting, the way it was designed to be read. It works as a standalone and as an entry point to the series.
If you are new to the series, or if you want to go back to where it started, Blood Tide: A Harbor Noir Thriller is on sale for 99 cents for a limited time. Blood Tide is the first case in the Jack Morrison’s Blood and Bourbon Mystery Files, and it’s set on the Los Angeles waterfront. It’s got corrupt cops, heroin smuggling, and murder.
![Series promo banner for Daniel P. Douglas: the Blood Tide and Blood Wing covers flanking center text reading "Discover a darker L.A. Some secrets are built to never see daylight. Justice comes with a body count."](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!55hV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3cb4b3a7-2a0f-4b38-8ea4-48623257cfa5_1940x600.jpeg "Series promo banner for Daniel P. Douglas: the Blood Tide and Blood Wing covers flanking center text reading "Discover a darker L.A. Some secrets are built to never see daylight. Justice comes with a body count."")
Thank you for reading, for subscribing, and for following along through a spring that turned out to be more interesting than I expected.
Daniel P. Douglas
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.