Bliss
Description
Private investigator Ian visits his friend unannounced, only to discover the man lying in bed, not asleep but dead. Ian resolves to find out how his friend died and, if he was murdered, to bring the killer to justice.
But the details of the case are bizarre: the door of the condo unit is locked and the only other occupant is a bodybuilder, Horst, found sitting on the living room couch, half asleep or drugged. Ian calls 911 and the cops, when video footage showing no one entered or left the condo around the time of death, fixate on Horst as the most likely suspect.
Ian is convinced Horst is innocent and offers his services to help the police solve the mystery of his friend's death. But the situation is complicated, not only by the self-contradictory nature of the physical evidence, but by the fact that Ian increasingly finds himself drawn to Horst. Worse, the lead police detective shows increasing signs of interest in Ian himself.
Love and death become strangely intertwined, their resolution not easily discovered. Is Horst as innocent as Ian believes? Can Ian help solve the locked-room mystery?
More details
Person
Academically, I have trained in several sciences and done research in them, publishing a number of scientific papers. I have also worked in various office jobs in the computer engineering field, where I found that cubicle life did not suit my temperament at all. In between these occupations I have also written articles and stories for several local and international community (LGBTQI) periodicals, co-authored a biography of a 19th Century historical figure, and published several novella-length stories in the erotic romance genres.
While all things interest me, from the physical functioning of our world and engineering control systems of all sorts, to the neurons that direct action in the brain, what particularly fascinates me is the manner in which our actions are directed by the mysterious functioning of the human heart.
