William Fletcher

Created by Grant Bywaters

“His face looked like it’d been shoved into an airplane propeller.”
— from The Red Storm. Boxing ain’t pretty.

The Red Storm by Grant Waters won the Minotaur Books Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Contest, and introduced WILLIAM FLETCHER, a black ex-fighter turned rookie private eye, looking for work in all the wrong places in Depression-era New Orleans.

Problem is, his past as a former heavyweight contender is a little shady, and being Black doesn’t help, especially in the Big Easy.

Desperate, he takes on a former criminal acquaintance, Storm, as a client. Storm, it seems, is anxious to find his estranged daughter Zelda and Fletcher figures it’s really just another wandering daughter job, after all.

What could possibly go wrong?

But when Fletcher starts knocking on doors, he sets off a catastrophic chain of events that turns the city into a bloody battleground between two rival syndicates.

Then Storm is murdered and Fletcher finds himself trying to avoid being nailed by the cops or either of the two gangs. With Zelda’s safety in the balance, the unlikely private detective finds himself with a lot more than he bargained for.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author, Grant Bywaters, is a former licensed private investigator who wrote The Red Storm, his first novel, while finishinghis bachelor’s degree in psychology at Portland State University in Oregon. He’s since written one more P.I. novel, 2020’s Farewell, Las Vegas, featuring private eye Joe Roddick.

UNDER OATH

• “..for a first novel and a noir at that, The Red Storm is remarkably free of clichés…Grant Bywater’s debut is a stunner.”
  —Historical Novel Society
• “Hopefully, it will become a series and we’ll get to see more of PI Fletcher”
  — Sam Millar (New York Journal of Books)
• “… a solid, hard-hitting (in more ways than one) debut. The New Orleans period background is very well done, the characters and story compelling. A hearty welcome to Grant Bywaters and William Fletcher. I look forward to their next.”
  — Bill Pronzini

NOVELS

• The Red Storm (2015) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• The St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Contest
  Winners 1986-2014.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.