Excerpts

“My life holds three simple pleasures…”

…bourbon, books, and broads.

That’s right, folks: Somewhere in Hoboken, New Jersey, circa 1935, at fictional Lester College, a private dick and occasional college professor sits in his office, planning moves for his play-by-mail chess games. Pulp Novel BETA 0.1 is underway, under the working title Hard Lesson. And that means that I’ve got excerpts for you.

The opening sentence (which will probably change tonight, since I’ve built up enough steam to edit a bit):
I sat in my tiny office at tinier Lester College, my attention divided equally between the cherrywood board in front of me and the worn nickel flask in my right trouser pocket.

Our protagonist describes his chess games and his job:
I came by most of my opponents the same way I came by clients, mainly word of mouth by people who should know better than to talk. Almost all of them–clients and opponents both–were professors of some sort, complete with fancy titles and letters after their names. Didn’t make them any better at chess, but it sure made me enjoy sticking it to them each week.

So I sat, caught between pressing the attack with my queen’s bishop or taking another pull of bourbon. This particular academic crumpled under pressure. Most do. I guess that’s why I’ve got a job.

What people say about our protagonist:
Some call me a professor. Some call me a private detective. Some call me a fraud. I’m not in the habit of arguing with any of them.

Our protagonist meets his client:
She wasn’t lying. She was trouble, five and a half feet of it. Her close-cropped black hair framed an austere face, pretty despite the paleness and freckles. She wore a navy pantsuit, which somehow managed to make her look feminine and commanding at the same time. I imagine that was on account of her curves, the type that would probably cast a real pleasing shadow on a fella’s window shade. I knew at a glance that she was the sort of dame a man makes mistakes for. Big ones, and without asking why.