Visit the new Observer’s Casebook website, hosted by Cenolithic!

The Observer is a Security Corps officer posted to the port city of Lemaigne in a fictional, dark romantic, Age of Sail world — with a touch of pulp fiction grit.

When I first submitted the original short story version of The Ligan of the Disomus to a writers’ group at West Virginia State, one of the other writers described it as “Melville meets film noir meets the X-Files.”

That was a jackpot critique as far as I was concerned, and it cemented the Observer’s world in my mind as a place I wanted to write more about.

Book 1: The Crow and the Kinnebeck [finished, under revision] – A mysterious talking crow haunts the streets of Lemaigne as the Observer oversteps his authority to prevent a backwoodsman from taking revenge on the man who murdered his wife. An excerpt from Casebook:

“The Empty House” – An ancient house in the heights of Lemaigne was once home to a prominent townsman and his children, until it began to collapse, along with his reputation among the city’s elite.

Book 2: The Ligan of the Disomus [finished, under revision] – The Lemaigne Observer grudgingly investigates a series of murders committed by strange brothers from across the sea, and realizes that his world and his Commonwealth are far more mysterious than he wants to admit. An excerpt from Ligan:

“The Two Brothers Contract” – Having apprehended accused murderer Marcus Reider, the Security Corps Observer assigned to the port city of Lemaigne decides to take him inland for sentencing.

Book 3: The Chief of Creatures – [working title, outline] In the aftermath of the events in Ligan, the Observer and Diana Ashcraft have to commandeer a ship, flee the agents of the Security Corps, and deal with mounting news about the widespread clampdown.  Is the Commonwealth under a coup?

Book 4: The Blade and the Purse – [working title, outline] The Blood Tasters have returned, hunting for their mongrel Mashika, while the Observer and Ochsard try to recruit the Purser Corps in their struggle against Commander Lea Thomas.