Daniel P. Douglas announced the release of Blood Wing: A Cold War Noir Thriller, the second entry in the Jack Morrison's Blood & Bourbon Mystery Files series, in eBook and paperback formats. The novella, named one of ten finalists in the inaugural ProWritingAid Novel Beginnings Contest, 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 in Long Beach, California, in January 1951.
The company classified the death as an industrial accident and closed the case without interviewing the widow. The family hires Morrison because the dead man's brother once shared a foxhole with him in Italy during the 1944 Gothic Line campaign. As Morrison digs deeper, he uncovers a Cold War espionage operation and a murder that the federal government will classify into official nonexistence. The story explores themes of justice, racism, and the Lavender Scare—the period purge of suspected homosexuals from federal and defense employment—set against the backdrop of the McCarthy era.
Blood Wing advanced through a longlist of 183 to a shortlist of ten finalists, selected from 14,570 entries worldwide, 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 novella, roughly 25,000 words, is a complete story readable in a single sitting and serves as an entry point to the series. Readers can find Morrison's first case in Blood Tide: A Harbor Noir Thriller, set on the Los Angeles waterfront. Douglas, writing under a pen name he shares with his identical twin brother Paul, is a U.S. Army veteran and former senior analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, providing authentic detail for the thriller elements. He was named a 2014 Foreword Reviews IndieFab Book-of-the-Year Award Finalist in Science Fiction and is a Readers' Favorite Award winner.
