"The sink squeaked on and in the mirror a ghoulish face gazed back. Drooping eyebrows, receding hairline. Grey and white sprouts like mold on the edge of a steak left out for days outnumbered once brown hair grafted to a speckled scalp. Eyes, dull and greying, showing the telltale sign of coming cataracts with a bland halo around the brown iris. No Achilles here, no sir, nothing of that external virility or virtue pushing through the bag of meat brushing his teeth."

CAUDAVORA is a neo-noir character study set in a fictional North American city and concerns the exploits of Moses Stoner, a private detective with failing memory, survivor's guilt, and a string of failed cases as he tries to escape the mental prison he's created over years of drinking and sulking by solving what may very well be his last case. His client is a Texan oil heiress named Maureen "Moe" Carcano, a jilted failed debutante in her thirties who married a mentally unwell and physically attractive sculptor, Clarence. Clarence's disappearance and the subsequent lack of police investigation, along with all other PI agencies in the city refusing to take her case lead Maureen to Moses' practice, where the two of them collaborate to recover Clarence while avoiding the law along with agents of the suspected cult that led to Clarence's vanishing.

Currently, CAUDAVORA has a complete first draft; the entirety of it can be read and hopefully understood. It is in a pending state while I attempt to contact a literary agent or editor, but if you are interested in reading it as a test reader, please contact me via e-mail here and I can send you a PDF. Its overall length is ~100000 words, or about 180 pages in raw text format.

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