Update - Jan 2020

It’s been a while since the last update, and I’m happy to report that a new draft of the novel is complete. I put it aside for a couple of weeks, while I was busy with a work project and finished re-reading it yesterday. The story has come together much better than the earlier drafts. On the advice of my publisher, I stripped out quite a few complications that were cluttering things up.

That said, there’s still work to be done. It’s possible that things were pared back a bit too much. I need to spend some time beefing up the opening chapters to give them more breathing room and adding more depth to the main character, detective Jack Waters. But it’s the first time I’ve re-read a new draft and not been embarrassed. So definitely good progress.

I don’t when the next round of edits will be completed, it’s likely going to take a few months. I will also likely tap into a couple of beta readers to provide an objective perspective. The publisher has set a very high bar for this book and I want to make sure it is as good as it can be.

In the meanwhile, thank you for all your support and encouragement. This has been a tougher project than I ever expected, so thank you also for your patience.

--Zack

PS. I attended BoucherCon, a mystery writers conference in October and met a many authors including fellow Canadian David Morrell, who wrote the book First Blood, which became the basis for the Rambo series.