A cozy mystery novel in progress
The story concerns the struggle for moral agency in post-Covid years, folded into a cozy mystery novel set in multiple locations in New York City.
The primary scene of the crimes is an imaginal Fifth Avenue non-profit, The Manhattan Writers Center. Suspects comprise residents of its Women’s Poetry Fellowship and board members. Amateur sleuths are loosely inspired by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.
Manhattan Writers Center Staff
Charles Balin-Pelham, Executive Director
Madolin Cohen Blum, Program Director
Astrid Adams, Administrator
Women’s Poetry Fellowship Resident Fellows
Hesther Blum, Celebrated Poet
Priscilla Underwood, Southern States Poet Laureate
Aeisha, Camden, New Jersey
Abbie Bleuet, Brattleboro, Vermont
Cyra Bilal, Contributing Editor, Al-Khansa (in exile)
Writers Center Board‘ Executive Committee
Carole Newman, Board and Executive Committee Chair
Julie Carew, Vice Chair
Arnold, Board Treasurer
Raz McKenna, Member and Novelist
Keith Blakemore , Member, Actor, Entrepreneur
25th Precinct
Dawkins, Detective Lieutenant
Emily Gold, Detective and Madolin’s Second Cousin
& Incidental Characters
BOOK ONE
Chapter One: The Dream
Chapter Two: Installation of the Fellows
Chapter Three: Scene of the Crime
Chapter Four: The Master
Chapter Five: Mt. Sinai Hospital
Chapter Six: Second Cousins
Chapter Seven: First Fellows Lunch
Chapter Eight: First Executive Committee Meeting
Chapter Nine: Saturday Supper
Chapter Ten: The Lounge
Chapter Eleven: West Village Halloween Parade
Chapter Twelve: Holiday Party Recital
BOOK TWO
Chapter Thirteen: Christmas in Central Park
Chapter Fourteen: Second Fellows Lunch
Chapter Fifteen: Second Executive Committee
Chapter Sixteen: A BBQ in Harlem
Chapter Seventeen: Hanky Panky
Chapter Eighteen: Change of Season
Chapter Nineteen: Three Times Lucky
BOOK THREE
Chapter Twenty: Green-Wood Cemetery
Chapter Twenty-one: The Interim
Chapter Twenty-two: A Visit to Arnie
Chapter Twenty-three: 25th Precinct
Chapter Twenty-four: Goings On
Chapter Twenty-five: A Cup of Tea
BOOK FOUR
Chapter Twenty-six: In Search of a Scream
Chapter Twenty-seven: First Anagnorisis
Chapter Twenty-eight: The Back Story
Chapter Twenty-nine: The Loo
Chapter Thirty: The Things You Can Hear!
Chapter Thirty-one: Brooklyn
Chapter Thirty-two: The Interview
Chapter Thirty-three: Cyra & Abby
Chapter Thirty-four: Settling Accounts
Chapter Thirty-five: Farewell to the Fellows
Chapter Thirty-six: The Signature
“Moral injury is present when there has been a betrayal of what is morally correct by someone who holds legitimate authority in a high-stakes situation” and “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to acts that ultimately transgress one’s deeply held moral beliefs.”
— Jonathan Shay; JM Currier et al.
“Moral injury is at once trauma and poetic injustice.”
— M. Tancred
“It is not what is criminal that costs the most to say, it is what is most absurd and shameful. Had I been left to myself, I should infallibly have declared the truth.”
— Rousseau (author’s translation)
