Daniel P. Douglas, an Albuquerque indie author, has released Blood Wing: A Cold War Noir Thriller, the second entry in his Jack Morrison's Blood & Bourbon Mystery Files series. The novella, named a finalist in the inaugural ProWritingAid Novel Beginnings Contest, is now available in eBook and paperback. Set in Long Beach, California, in January 1951, the story follows ex-LAPD detective turned private investigator Jack Morrison as he probes the death of a Black night-shift janitor at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant. The company dismisses the incident as an industrial accident without interviewing the widow, but the family hires Morrison because the deceased's brother once served with him in Italy during World War II.
What Morrison uncovers behind the plant's windowless concrete walls is a Cold War espionage operation and a murder that the federal government will classify into official nonexistence. The investigation delves into the McCarthy era and the Lavender Scare, the systematic purge of suspected homosexuals from federal and defense employment. The story centers on a widow who refuses to accept a lie and a federal prosecutor who can pursue the spying but cannot restore the man who died, raising questions about justice when the official record will never tell the truth.
Selected from 14,570 entries worldwide, Blood Wing advanced through a longlist of 183 to a shortlist of ten finalists in the ProWritingAid contest, judged on opening pages, voice, and character. "Being a finalist for the Novel Beginnings Contest is one of the most meaningful moments in my writing life," Douglas said. "I'm grateful to ProWritingAid, the contest readers, and the judges for recognizing Blood Wing." The author, who writes under a pen name shared with his identical twin brother, draws on his experience as a U.S. Army veteran and former senior intelligence analyst to provide authentic detail for the conspiracy and thriller elements.
At roughly 25,000 words, the novella is a complete story readable in a single sitting and requires no prior reading, serving as an entry point to the series. Readers interested in Morrison's first case can find it in Blood Tide: A Harbor Noir Thriller, set on the Los Angeles waterfront. For more information, visit the author's website or the ProWritingAid contest page.
