“What has she put you up to? Chasing down phantom killers? She has killers on the brain.” “That fool woman will undo me yet,” he said. Rusty Taliaferro wrapped both palms atop his cane and lowered himself into an oak chair opposite me. “She questions the official disposition of your granddaughter’s death,” I said. “What the devil has her in an uproar now?” I handed him my license like a penitent driver does to a disgruntled highway patrolman. His teeth were capped or he wore dentures. He exuded gray sideburns, mustache, eyebrows, and longish hair. He was half a head taller than me even if with the stooped shoulders. My wife said you came to talk about Carl.” Johnson?” A man’s baritone filled the room. I sat at the oval oak table while noticing a copper tea kettle collection on shelves across the center aisle.

Their circular two-story foyer was lit in brilliant harshness. Her tall, lithe profile tucked around the door. You’ve nothing to lose except to get rid of me.” “Who are you with? The Washington Post? My husband is retired and no longer active in those government affairs. Nonetheless after this exchange of terse dialogue, he realizes the mystery confronting him will be difficult and thorny to solve.

Frank dislikes trafficking between the various castes while pursuing his case. A major theme underlying Dirt-Brown is the stratified society entrenched in Middleburg and Potomac. I wanted a bit more than another PI yarn. Frank is investigating the disappearance of Carl Taliaferro, and this is a side trip to interview Carl’s affluent parents.įrank’s visit with the Taliaferros becomes a pivotal scene. Our hero, PI Frank Johnson, has left the bucolic fox hunt country in Middleburg, Virginia, and driven the short distance to posh, fashionable Potomac, Maryland outside Washington, D.C. My novel is the debut title in a modern hardboiled detective series. I asked Ed to apply the ' page 69 test' to his latest book this is what he reported: The Dirt-Brown Derby (Mundania Press, 2006) and The Blue Cheer (Point Blank/Wildside Press, 2007) are his first two mysteries featuring his PI Frank Johnson. Ed Lynskey is a crime fiction writer and poet living near Washington, D.C.

Troglodytes by Ed Lynskey