Dan Decker Books

Mitch Turner #6, The Second Option, is done!

I am happy to report that The Second Option, Mitch Turner book #6, is done and that copy editing and beta reading is underway! I can now safely say that I should be publishing this book in December. 
It's always interesting for me to get to the end of another book. In some ways, I'm always glad to be done with the project because I've read through it so many times that I feel like if I have to do it one more time, I'm going to go crazy. On the other hand, it feels like I'm letting go of something that I've spent months on, and there's a little bit of nostalgia as well. 
With each new Mitch Turner novel, it's always interesting because it feels like a visit from an old friend. It's amazing to me how distinct Mitch Turner is of a character. Earlier today, I was working on edits for The Fixer, which is written in first person as well, similar to the Mitch Turner novels, and I thought how curious it was how instantly when I switched over to working on The Fixer from The Second Option. I immediately slid into the different character even though it was also written in first person. 
Kind of fun how that works. 
Anyhow, I am finally in a place where I am now going to be publishing The Fixer, I know I've been teasing this book for many months, but it's finally coming, and I anticipate that I should have it out next week! 
And then, it'll be time to turn my attention back to the final edits from The Second Option. More to come on that very soon. Hope everybody out there is having a great week!

Announcing The Second Option, the next Mitch Turner Legal Thriller!

At long last I’m ready to reveal the title of the next Mitch Turner novel. I’ve previously just been referring to it as Mitch Turner #6, but I can now announce that it will be titled The Second Option. 
I'm really excited about this title, and I think you will be too, when you read the book.
One of the things I wanted to highlight this week was the George W Dunne Cook County Office Building, which plays a big part in this story. It’s interesting sometimes because I hear other authors talking about how cities can be a character in their stories. In The Second Option, I almost feel like the Dunne building is a character in the story because of how often it comes up. One of the interesting things I found during my research for this novel was a video taken from the inside of the elevator at the Dunne building. It was actually useful to the story.
Here is a link.
I don't have a lot of things I'm going to say today because I'm heads down still working on The Second Option, hoping to get it done here soon. I'm very close, so that's all I'm going to say. Just a reminder to be looking for The Fixer, coming soon in December! Anyhow, hope everybody's having a great week!

Writing update on Mitch Turner and a little about Barbara in book six!

Mitch Turner #6 continues to move along. I am somewhere between 84 and 89% done. The story is really coming together. I just had a conversation with one of my primary editors and let him know that I should be getting it to him in the near future for copyediting. 
This week I wanted to talk a little bit about Barbara. She has been Mitch's love interest on and off since the second book. And was even the subject of a full book in The Verdict. She does make an appearance again in this book. One of the things that's very curious to me is just how distinct her personality is in my own mind. I have a very clear mental image of her and her personality, and feel like I know her about as well as I know Mitch. The Barbara storyline has always been fun and interesting because I has never gone how I anticipated. Barbara goes her own way, perhaps this is why Mitch's so attracted to her. Anyhow just thought I would let you know that there will be more of Barbara in this book, not nearly as much as there was in The Verdict, she probably won't ever be the full subject of another book like she was in that one, but she does make an appearance, and I guess I will leave it at that! 
Anyhow, I have lots more I could say, or I could get back to writing on Mitch Turner #6, so I think I will go do that. 
Be on the lookout for The Fixer coming soon!

Mitch Turner will return soon!

Well, here we are in a new month! November 2024. The end of the year is just right around the corner. While things have been very busy, I have been spending a lot of time here at Grim Archer Media headquarters working on Mitch Turner #6. Today I was looking at a note for a potential title for this book, and it struck me that the note that I made might be the actual title. It's still not a final decision, so I won't say anything about it here, but I think I have a title that will fit nicely with the book as a whole. More to come on that in the next few weeks.
Anyhow, it has been another great week of incredible progress on Mitch Turner #6. Just the other day, I added in a few paragraphs at a key place that slightly adjusted the whole story. I’d peg it at about 80 - 85% done. I figured today that I would talk about the victim in Mitch's most recent case to give you an idea about what the story is going to involve. Ainsley Karsten is found dead in the basement of the state's attorney's office building. She’s smart and dedicated and always wanted to be a prosecuting attorney, and she accomplished that dream when she came to work at the state's attorney's office, even after receiving considerable resistance from her parents, who would have preferred that she'd gone in a different direction. In her spare time Ainsley liked to help people who were having legal problems, but were having difficulty getting other officials to pay attention and help meet their needs. So why did she wind up stabbed in the basement of the State’s Attorney’s office building? And why was Frank Ward charged with her murder? 
One of the interesting things about being an author is the emotions you sometimes feel about the things that happen in your book. I really like Ainsley's character, and find myself wishing it would have been somebody else so I could write a story about her one day. So that's a little bit about the victim in this case. 
Last week in talking about The Fixer, I spoke about Kirk Hoffman, telling you about his approach to practicing law. Even though his law practice is based in Salt Lake City, he takes clients from all over, and in future cases, we can expect to see him popping up in interesting places. Kirk Hoffman is an avid outdoorsman, whose favorite vehicle is a Jeep, so unlike Mitch Turner, who likes fast cars and city life, Hoffman enjoys four wheelers, and spending time out on the middle of a trail in the middle of nowhere, getting lost and trying to find his way back. It’s kind of how he lives his life. Anyhow, I'm starting to feel really good about where everything is on Mitch Turner #6, so I will definitely be turning my attention to publishing The Fixer here in the next couple weeks. That's it for this week I hope everybody has a great week!
 

Mitch Turner #6 is right on target!

Happy Halloween! It’s been another week and another draft of Mitch Turner Book 6 is done! I've had a couple more ideas come to me on the title of the novel but still nothing has solidified yet. Things are coming together, and with every passing day, I become more comfortable that I will hit my self-imposed deadline. There is not a lot to say about this part of the process as I fine-tune the story and the writing. 
Book Six introduces a number of new characters that haven't been mentioned in previous books, characters that might show up again in future books. 
A new character I want to highlight today is Cook County State's Attorney Patrick Rebane. He has a huge ego and has had mixed interactions with Mitch Turner in the past, though they haven't ever had a case facing off against one another. The Patrick Rebane character is fun to write because he doesn't see the world in the same way Mitch Turner does, which brings them into inherent conflict. I'm hoping everybody has an entertaining time meeting this character and seeing him has he interacts with Mitch Turner and the rest of the cast in this particular novel. 
I also just wanted to take a moment as well to talk about Kirk Hoffman, the main character in my upcoming novel The Fixer. As I've mentioned in other places, Kirk Hoffman is a brand new character that's never been seen before anywhere else, but I am planning to have him appear in other books in at least one other series. No, it's not Mitch Turner, but another one. I'm not going to reveal anything more about that yet. Hoffman is in his mid forties and has dedicated his life to making sure that he protects innocent people, refusing to take clients that he believes are guilty. His approach to practicing law is all about staying out of the courtroom as much as possible and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt his clients are innocent by finding the actual criminals. 
As I look at my schedule, I'm currently thinking of trying to get The Fixer out in the middle of November, we will have to see how it goes, though. I've been making enough progress with Mitch Turner Book Six, and I've had enough momentum that I think I’ll be able to do that. 
Since it's Halloween, I thought I’d highlight Grizzly Wolf, one of my Halloween short stories that I published several years back. Here is the description:
Jim Cannon and his coworker Melanie have been called in to rescue an injured hiker and his girlfriend. They get out of the car at the trailhead and immediately hear a wolf howling. They don't know what to make of this because wolves disappeared from this section of the forest over a hundred years ago.
Armed with a tranquilizer gun and a pistol, and hoping that these weapons will be sufficient should they run into any trouble, they don't make it far before they find the torn up body of a hiker.
Fearing the worst, but knowing they still have one hiker to rescue, they push forward at considerable personal risk. Minutes later they come face to face with a wolf-like creature.
Jim and Melanie are forced to run for their lives.
This story has many twists and turns while they fight for survival. Fans of monster stories will find this exciting and chilling, while also enjoying the wild ride. Pick up your copy today!
 

Mitch Turner #6 is building momentum!

Mitch Turner #6 is inching forward along with increasing momentum, even though I did have a few days out of the office during the last week. I’m somewhere between 72% to 77% percent done with the manuscript. At this point I’m fine-tuning storylines, fixing problems, looking for continuity errors, and refining the story as a whole.
It’s always interesting how at this stage of the writing process, just a few words in the right place can shift the whole story. It’s always fascinating when that happens.
I have a couple of different titles that I’ve come up with over the last few weeks but, nothing’s stuck out to me as being the right title yet though so I still don’t have anything to announce on that front.
Since I’m gearing up to release The Fixer in November, here’s a little more about it:
Kirk Hoffman is about to have a blast from the past when the son of a former client is charged with murder and comes to Kirk for representation. Kirk initially doesn’t want to take the case for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that he thinks the guy probably did it, but he agrees to take a look at the case over the objections of his team. That’s when things get interesting and he becomes concerned there’s a possibility that this guy who seems likely to have committed the crime could be innocent.

Making great progress on Mitch Turner #6!

I have made great progress this week on Mitch Turner #6! The story is coming together as a whole. At this stage, I’m usually focused on what I can cut out. Many times, when I am writing, I will have various ideas that make their way into the manuscript. Many make it through into the final pass, but a lot of them don’t because they don’t fit, and because of that, I always have to be careful to look at what’s there, decide if it makes sense for it to stay, and if it does, how is it going to work into the overarching plot.
 
Mitch Turner #6 features Frank Ward as the defendant. It starts out with Turner coming out of a meeting at the State’s Attorney’s office in downtown Chicago. He becomes curious when emergency responders pull up to the building, and he sticks around to see what’s happening. He soon sees a woman rushed out on a stretcher and a few minutes after that, Frank Ward is brought out in handcuffs.
 
Ward looks dazed and confused, and when he sees Turner, his eyes light up and Turner knows exactly who Frank Ward is going to call for representation.
 
The problem is Turner still hasn’t forgiven Ward for what he did to Barbara.
 
This story has been on my mind for a while now. I knew Frank Ward would be Mitch’s defendant at some point and that it would be an uphill battle for Turner every step of the way. Things are moving very well on this project. I’m technically at the end of draft four and will start draft five soon. At this point in my process, I am usually trying to do a draft a week for a book that’s this long because I like to work on the book as a cohesive whole, and doing rapid iterations through it allows me to see the pieces that need to be brought together or massaged or edited or deleted.
 
Also, don’t forget that The Fixer is on the horizon and will be coming out in November! I am super excited about this book. It features Kirk Hoffman. This is the first novel in which Kirk Hoffman appears. He’s an attorney who works with a dedicated team that he has collected together over the years. His express goal is to find justice, and he’s usually interested in making it happen outside the courtroom rather than within. So be on the lookout for The Fixer! Just a reminder, The Killers Club is now out as an audiobook. Anyhow, that’s how everything is going over here. Have a great week everybody!

Writing Update and All about Mitch Turner Book 6!

Hello and welcome back to the Dan Decker Books podcast. I hope everybody out there is having a great week this week. Over here at Grim Archer Media, things couldn't be going any better. Things have been going very well. As you probably know, I released the Killers Club audiobook last week and that has been off to a
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fantastic start. Thank you for all of you out there who are supporting that particular book. I know that there's a substantial portion of my readers that prefer audiobooks, and so I'm glad that I'm able to get that out there for them. I'm hoping to get more audio books out soon within the next six months or so.
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For me, it's always kind of a bit of a decision to if I'm going to do an audio book or not, because even though it takes, I'm not the one doing the narration or anything like that, it does take a substantial chunk of my time to review the audio book and make sure
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that I'm happy with how everything's been done. That usually takes somewhere between a couple days to almost a full week, depending on the length of the audiobook. The Killer's Club was a much longer book, so that took a lot more of my time. And it left me a little bit drained,
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but I'm hoping to do some other audio books here in the near future. One of the audio books that I'd like to see done is Only the Guilty. And then I also want to start working on the Jason Maxfield books and getting those all turned to audio. So we'll see how that goes.
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At some point, I am definitely planning to do those books. Anyhow, the big thing I've been working on now that the Killers Club audio book is out is Mitch Turner No. 6.
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I've been thinking about it today, just wondering how long it is that I've actively been working on this project. And I started doing it clear back in June. It looks like the first day I narrated a file was June 12th. If you don't know, I actually do narration. I've found that narration works really well for me.
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And I kind of have a little bit of an unusual process, I think. Well, a lot of authors don't use narration, but for me, what I do is I actually pull out a voice recorder and I pace around my office while I dictate a chapter, usually about 10 minutes or so. Sometimes that's a full chapter.
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Sometimes it's part of a chapter. I will dictate that. And then I will run that audio through Dragon Dictation. I have the most recent Dragon Dictation software, and then it will transcribe that for me. And then what I will do after that is then I will do a couple passes. Usually I can't remember. Sometimes I won't.
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Sometimes I'll just move on to the next chapter and we'll see how it goes. So back in June, I was still working full time on Jason Maxfield number four. I was hoping to get it done before I needed to start working full time on Mitch Turner number six, but I didn't,
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it didn't quite work out the way I wanted. Uh, Anyhow, so I started working on it on June 12th, and that's when I would start just doing a 10-minute, maybe 15 or 20-minute amount of narration every day, and then going and working full-time on Jason Maxfield. Well, somewhere in August,
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I think that first or second week in August, I finished with the present draft I was working on with Jason Maxfield, number four. I'm not sure if that was draft three or four, something like that. After I was done with that, setting it aside,
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then I went and I have started working full time on Mitch Turner number six. There was some of the narration that I needed to finish. I was probably at least 50 or 60,000 words into it by that time.
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And so I went and I finished narrating the rest of the book before I started going back and revising it. Usually for me, it works better to have kind of the whole book finished. or a whole outline in place. I say I'm a discovery writer,
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but really what I am doing that first draft is making an outline of the book. And it's always surprising to me that there are sometimes things I put in that I'm like, oh, I think I'm probably gonna delete this later, where I actually come back and I find a way to make it work.
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It's always kind of interesting how that works out. But anyhow, so back in August, I started working full time on Mitch Turner. Number six, I got to the end of draft one or the outline as you want. It could also be referred to. And,
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About that time, it was just over 100,000 words, which was what I was shooting for. Most of the Mitch Turner books are all about 100,000 words. The Good Client's a little shorter, the Presumption is a little bit longer, but they usually fall within that general range.
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And then I go through and then I flesh out a lot of the things that haven't been fleshed out or or what have you. So by the time I was done with that process, really draft two, I was up in the 140,000 word range, which is a lot more than I wanted the book to be.
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Luckily though, as I was working here and I'd actually just finished draft four, Ray. So draft four is done and I'm now starting, just started today on draft five. But now that I have that But during the middle of draft four, it swelled up almost up to 145,000 words.
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But I found some chapters that weren't really adding anything into it. So I've been able now to get it down 10,000 words to about 135,000 words. which is a lot more comfortable for me for this particular book. The Mitch Turner books usually move along at a pretty good rate.
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There isn't a lot of filler or fluff to them. And so I'm happy where that's at right now. And I'm thinking that by the time I'm done, I'll probably get it down to about 130,000 words. We'll have to see. But I'm feeling really good at the end of draft four.
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The story is pretty much solidified and the book is all the main points are there. Now it's just going back and reworking the details, making sure transitions are working, making sure I have appropriate foreshadowing, making sure I have all sorts of little details like that. So that's where I'm at, feeling really good about it.
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I have had some projects in the past that took me a lot more effort to get to that point. There was one project I was working on where I would go home and I'd tell my wife, not quite sure who did it yet. And I would tell her that for a month or two even on that project.
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That project took me a lot longer to kind of figure out the details. Since that time, I've been a lot more detailed about the way I kind of approach a particular project. And what I will often do is I will make notes actually in the document as I go.
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Word has a comment feature that allows me to just make a comment and then I'll go back and revise it. So when I was done with draft three of Mitch Turner, number six, and still don't have a title yet. have a couple of things I'm still mulling over, probably will be for a few more weeks here,
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if not another month or so. But I had like about 150 comments and I went through and I got most of them removed and I think I got it down to about 40. So at the end of draft for today, I was looking and I had just over 200 comments of little kind of task list items I
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needed to go back and rework and revise and edit and kind of look at. Anyhow, so, uh, draft four is off to a great start and it's just going really well. Uh, I haven't yet said when I am targeting to release this, uh, primarily cause I like to give myself some wiggle room,
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but I am hoping to release this in the December, January timeframe. We'll have to see a lot of the Mitch Turner books have come out, uh, about that time. The good client, if I remember correctly, was released in January. Then the victim's wife was released in December of that same year. The presumption,
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I actually think I got out in August, but then I know the verdict came out in November and then the last mile came out last year in December. And so I'm starting, I'm targeting that same general timeframe. And I'm feeling really comfortable that I'm going to be able to hit that. So that's really good.
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So everything is on track with Mitch Turner, number six. And yeah, I think that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Been very happy with how it's going. I was hoping, and initially I was planning to stop at this point and take kind of a break and work on the fixer to get that done.
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And like I said, the fixer is pretty much ready to go. I just have a couple... Edits from a couple different people I need to go through and revise and see if I'm going to put them in or not.
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And then I need to print it out and read it through myself, which is something I always do now. I always print out the book and read it through one final time on paper just to make sure I'm happy with how the final product, how the final art piece has turned out.
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Anyhow, so I was hoping to do that with the fixer, but I just have enough momentum going right now. on this particular Mitch Turner book and I'm feeling really good about it that I think at this point I'm planning to just power through all the way until I am done
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completely with Mitch Turner number six to the point that I turn it over to my editors and copy editors and start that process, and then get the fixer out. So unless something changes, which it always could, but unless something changes, that means that I am targeting to release the fixer in November.
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originally I was planning to release it much earlier than that, but time just had a way of slipping away from me this year. Uh, I hope not that everybody doesn't start to expect two legal thrillers from me every November and December, because that's what I did last year is I released only the guilty in November and
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then last mile in December, but that's what I'm doing again this year. So hooray, it'll be, it should be a fun time. Anyhow, that's pretty much all I have along the lines of updates and, uh, Thoughts for this week.
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I kind of wanted to go over my process on Mitch Turner number six and talk a little bit about that. I feel like I've covered that pretty well. Haven't given away a lot of spoilers other than that it's about Frank Ward. I will say, though, that I...
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I've been planning to do a book where Frank Ward was the defendant for a while now. I think I knew going into it, and I think it's pretty obvious from the first chapter I was just looking at, the first dictated chapter that I did clear back in June,
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that I was definitely planning that this was going to be Frank Ward's book for a while. And I couldn't be more pleased with how it's coming along. Anyhow, have a great week. And, oh, just a reminder, if there's anybody listening to this who has not yet signed up for my email newsletter, if you do that,
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you get a free e-book and a free audio book copy of the short story, The Arraignment, which features Mitch Turner and is read by Eric G. Dove. Have a great week, everybody. The text, audio, and music for this show are all copyrighted by Dan Decker. All rights reserved.