Welcome to the start of a brand new year.
To start off 2026, I am pleased to announce that the audio book of Mann Hunt is now available worldwide on Audible, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books and most other audio distribution networks. For the first three months, Amazon has a deal where you can get the download for 99 cents if you have an Audible membership. So if you like to listen to your books, check out your favorite distributor, and you can listen to the book that started it all.
And with a new year comes a brand new book in The Declan Hunt Mysteries series. Over the next few months, I’m going to start revealing little bits of information about the novel to whet your appetite.
Read to the bottom to discover the first clue to the plot of the new book.
I am currently in the middle of content editing and the manuscript will be going to the publisher in the upcoming few months with a release date sometime in the late summer or early fall.
So what is content editing? I like to think of it as another draft of the book. Once I’ve finished a complete version of the novel, then I go back through the mystery, and tear the book apart into scenes. I’m looking at how to best introduce characters, when to reveal the right clues at the right moments and how to create a fun, well paced journey for the reader. Sometimes this means shifting a chapter to a different location earlier or later in the book. Sometimes it means changing some of the details, which has dominoes further in the plot which need to be corrected. It is a lot of detail work. I think of it as a giant puzzle. There are many possible solutions, but I am always looking to find the best solution in order to create the most interesting mystery.
It may come as a surprise to some people, but the branding of a book starts almost a year in advance of the novel being released to the public. This is especially important when creating a series of books. If you look at any of the covers of The Declan Hunt Mysteries series, you will see that the style of the covers of each volume is similar. The font used for the titles is the same. Each book has a title at the top, there is a visual image that connects to a lead character, and at the bottom of the cover is the tag line for each story.
I am fortunate, in that I get a fair amount of say in what the ultimate product will look like. In consultation with my publisher, I have been able to determine my own titles, my own tag lines and I have worked with a professional cover artist, describing what I would like to see which has led to the final images. It is a process that involves collaboration and strong communication.
Sometimes that communication results in something unexpected. For instance, the below cover was the first artistic rendering of Mann Hunt. The Declan image was based on a description that somehow conflated, Ian Mann (the victim) with Declan Hunt. The graphic image was different than I had imagined, and the tag line also needed modification.
The ultimate cover had a different version of Declan and the tag line was also altered. It is important to note that the artist is working off of written descriptions before they start their work, so the responsibility for getting it right is shared between myself, the publisher and the artist. It is not unusual for there to be a few attempts before the cover is fixed.
If you have read the books, and you go back and look at the cover, you will see clues to the story. In Mann Hunt there was the floating body in the river, the Calgary backdrop, the visual of the hero, and the tag line. Even the title was a clue, as it contained the name of the victim (Ian Mann) and the detective (Declan Hunt). Often the tag line relates not only to Declan and Charlie, but also to the villains of the piece.
So here is the first clue connected to the upcoming book. Each one of the first three books in the series has had a tag line that has a similar question.
For Mann Hunt it was “How far would you be willing to go to finish the job?”
For Hoodoo House it was “How far would you be willing to go to keep a secret?”
For The Burnt it was “How far would you be willing to go to reveal the truth?”
I can’t reveal the title of the new book yet, but I CAN reveal the tag line for the new book, which is ….
“How far would you be willing to go to keep the one you love?”
The fourth and final book in the series will tie together Declan’s past, his time with Charlie, as well as bring to light some answers to some other troubling questions connected to a pervasive threat in all of the books. The theme of fathers and gay sons will continue to be explored. And the web of jobs and cases, secrets and terrible truths, and what it costs to navigate a relationship when dealing with a criminal element will all be brought to light later this year.
I can’t wait to share more, but that will have to wait until next month.
In the meantime, if you have read any of my books, and are inclined to leave a review, please do so. Those reviews help other readers find my work.
Next month … another secret will be revealed about the next book.
Until then, thanks for reading.
Warmest Regards,
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Peter E. Fenton 