Boston seemed the perfect
setting. As a port, it was almost as important as New York. The city, already
known for banning books, was also the home of 4000 speakeasies, quadruple the
number at the start of Prohibition. Nowhere else in America was there such a
surface divide between the pious elite and the powerful mob.
How this story started began
is not in Boston, but in Newport News, Virginia. I was touring backstage of that
city’s Mariners’ Museum, primarily built to keep Huntington Shipyard workers employed
during the Depression. The founders, therefore, had no idea about acquiring and
curating artifacts so the museum now has an abundance of some items and a
dearth of others.
Immediately, the idea of an
Indiana Jones-type adventurer searching the globe for maritime artifacts came
to mind.
Gratifying, then, are early
readers’ comments, such as “Indiana Jones meets The Maltese Falcon” by Margit
Weisgal of the Baltimore Sun and others, “…Jones meets The Sting”
by award-nominated author (and regular blogger here) Michael Rigg, and similar comparisons.
Here’s a synopsis:
Boston, May 1929. Expelled
from Harvard and disowned by his father, Charlie Bohannon is down to his last
nickel when he stumbles across a chance at salvation: a priceless Egyptian
statuette hiding in the smoky recesses of a speakeasy. Learning it was stolen
from a long ago-expedition led by his college dean, he sees returning it as his
only shot a redemption – but the plan shatters when the artifact is stolen and
the thief is murdered.
From the corrupt halls of
power where Joseph Kennedy pulls the strings to the seedy docks of the
Atlantic, Charlie suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of several dangerous
men. They don’t just want the statue; they want its legendary counterpart, the
jewel-encrusted King’s Collar. They think Charlie can find it. And they’ll
happily kill for it.
Aided in his quest to find
the King’s Collar by daring socialite Olivia and salty ex-sailor Punchy,
Charlie plunges into a shadow-game where killers hide in plain sight. When his
friends are kidnapped, the hunt for the Collar becomes a race against time. In
the cut-throat world of the Prohibition era, Charlie must find the treasure –
or pay for it with their lives.
Another surprise for me is how
much early readers like Punchy, the “salty ex-sailor.” So much so that I now
offer readers a free short story with Punchy as the protagonist. (www.authorjefftanner.com/fiction/punchy)
The King’s Collar
publishes June 30, and can be found at The Book Bin on the Eastern Shore, or
pre-ordered online (Amazon.com:
The King's Collar: 9798897471522: Tanner, Jeff: Books). Or, if you’re
likely to run into me soon, you can order it on my website and I’ll bring you a
signed copy!
Dolls, second in the
series, publishes December 8. Both books
are published by Koehler Books. I’ve already written books three and four so with
any luck, we’ll see those hit the market in 2027.
Clair Lamb, editor, said this
about Charlie. “I like Charlie; he’s good company.” I hope others agree.
