J Douglas Knauer

A Dirty Way to Die J Douglas Knauer

You think you've got problems?




Doc Goold calls it cognizant premonition triggered by causal hypersensitivity, but Manny Shepherd and his Vietnam vet buddy Steve Mallinotti call it Shepherd's Luck, that special knack to sense bad shit lurks around the corner. Manny felt the slump in his gut minutes before he witnesses Steve's girlfriend Rita Hayward get slammed in the mud to her death by a gal dubbing herself Screaming Eagle.




Mired in shock, guilt and a drunken haze, Steve coerces Manny, who has little on his Private Investigator's plate, to figure out why Rita died like that at Peoria's Heart of Illinois fair when back in their youth at Neelys Landing, Missouri, Rita reigned as a star gymnast. How could a simple Judo throw have killed her?




No way will Manny jeopardize his tenuous yet sensual relationship with Tazewell County's District Attorney, Lisa Shelton, to hang around half-naked, oil-bodied beauties with names like Virgin Witch, Passion Queen, Midnight Fire and Holy Terror, just to expose the obvious-Princess Lay-ya aka Rita Hayward just took a bad...okay, seriously bad header.




Steve's heart-tugging story of Rita's journey to professional mud wrestler fame and haunted by Rita's single staring dead eye watching him, Manny takes the leap onto the St. Louis Slingers on-tour bus. Shepherd's Luck bites hard amidst boobs and bullets as Manny is targeted while he hunts down a scheming, sadistic killer.