Elliot Arthur Cross on Ask Me No Questions

Guest post by Elliot Arthur Cross

I love old detective movies. Everyone lies as a hard-boiled detective gets to the bottom of some murder mystery, usually after taking on a seemingly innocent case. A smart-talking gal Friday assists, and a dangerous femme fatale causes plenty of confusion. Toss in a few red herrings, an action scene, and you've got a recipe for a good time.

Ask Me No Questions is my spin on the classic formula. Sure, my story's set in modern times, complete with texting and Facebook-checking, and there's plenty of man-on-man action, but the film noir essentials are there. My Sam Spade is Dylan Lakewood, a college graduate struggling to pay the bills working as a survey taker in a mall. His gal Friday is his fun-loving roommate, and the client who gets him involved in the murder mystery is less a grieving widow and more a seductive skater.

There are plenty more parallels to the noir films, but that would be spoiling the fun Dylan finds himself sucked into.

There's a certain pleasure found in reading murder mysteries. People like concrete problems that will be solved by the end of the story. If you read a horror novel, odds are decent there's going to be some sort of mysterious evil shenanigans that won't be fully explained. If you read a romance, the question is how will two people will get together, but you know they will in the end, and it's more about the journey. Check out a comedy, and it's entirely about the journey. But a mystery presents a challenge. It is perhaps the most interactive reading genre.

So I challenge you, dear reader, to dive into the world of Dylan Lakewood in Ask Me No Questions. Besides the heavy duty sex, there's a brain challenge I've carefully laid out. Can you solve the caper, or will my killer get the best of you?

Elliot Arthur Cross
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