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With the release of my newest Redinal Hu/ Red Wine story just a week away, I thought I'd offer a little background on the story. However, being a novella, I can't say too much about the story without spoiling the story itself.
This story is a sequel to The Darval-Mers Dossier, featuring the main character of that story, majordomo and ex-lawyer Redinal Hu. Finding himself left to look over a large, and empty house in the wealthy borough of the Rivers, he has a lot of time on his hands. He fills some of that time by doing occasional consulting work for his old law firm, and since the Darval-Mers affair, for his friend, Roghly VonEv's private inquiry agency. Most of that work is background and legal research, though at Roghly's insistence, he's taking lessons on arms and hand-to-hand combat. Just incase.
As I said in an my last blog post about my writing projects, I came up with this story in order to bridge the time gap between The Darval-Mers Dossier, set in autumn and a different story I wanted to write that would take place the following summer. That story became The Isle House Ghost. due for a Q! 2026 release. As such, I wasn't concerned about the length of the story, I just wanted a little something to fill that time gap. I set the story in the Lorrian winter holiday period to match my planned release date in early November. It ended up running some 25K words. A solid novella, but still not long enough to make a print version of it very appealing. Thus, initially it's an ebook only release. I'm planning on bundling it, with with The Isle House Ghost. a 38.5K word novella and its 9K word short story sequel titled Nine Again.
Besides bridging the length of time between the stories, I wanted a story that included Red Hu's good friend, former colleague, and sometimes lover, Lorivel Carvie. She only appeared as a voice on the caller in The Darval-Mers Dossier, so I had her appear in order to introduce Red to her cousin, who remains a character throughout the rest of the story.
One of the happy accidents in writing this story was that Red gains a side-kick. All good detectives need a side-kick, if only to explain to the readers what they are thinking. I hadn't really planned on a side-kick in this story. It came about as a "why not?' sort of addition as I was writing it. The side-kick's name is Ellington. We met him in the Darval-Mers story as fun-loving dog Red's retired yardman had adopted so that the neighboring children would not lose him entirely when he was exiled for breaking too many knickknacks. I used Ellington in that story somewhat as a side-kick, having Red talk out loud to, in order to organize his thoughts and speculations about the case. I wrote those scenes that way in order to make those thoughts an external dialog into shorter sections instead of big block of internal speculation, plus Ellington adds a dash of humor - at least I have fun with him. Ellington plays a much a much more active role in this story. And he's going to remain Red's faithful sike-kick going forward.
Other than that, I don't want to say too any more about the plot of the story than what is revealed in the blurb below.
I do think, however, that a little background on the story might be helpful.
These Red Hu/Wine stories are set some 1,500 years before Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, just prior to what became to be known as the Second Founding or the Humanist Revolution. This was later stages of the period that would become after the Second Founding, the Age of Sorcery.
The first founding was when the Commonwealth of Lorria was founded after the planet was terraformed and the passengers landed from two slower-than-light settlement ships which had sailed from our own solar system. They had traveled for ten plus thousand years to reach the planet.
The subsequent first 1500 years saw the population slowly growing, and still featured the advanced technology of the solar system spanning society they had come from. However, one of the three settlement ships has yet to arrive, placing some limits on this technology and manufacturing capacity. Moreover, it seems that the manufacturing of key high-tech components needed to support this level of technology were not, at first, in great demand, so they were not manufactured for a long time. And when things started to break down, ten plus centuries later, it seemed that too much time had passed so that the know-how had been forgotten, and could not recovered in time to prevent a nearly complete collapse of the high tech society. At the same time, the population has reached a stage where it is growing rapidly, making the short-falls in manufacturing all the more pressing.
This then is the turning point where these stories take place. Pocket callers, i.e. cell phones, and info-systems, i.e. computers still exist, but as they break down, they are not being replaced. The question arises as to what to about the situation. The traditionalist plan is to keep the old system of production, everyone is a craftsperson, but require each item to be as durable and repairable as possible, so that new manufacturing can be focused on meeting the demands of the expanding population. The progressive faction want to introduce more efficient manufacturing methods, including human-manned assembly lines, systems of production at odds with the founding ethos of the world.
This conflict is not played out within the population, but rather within the rich and powerful Founding Families, also known as the Great Houses. Lorria is governed, such as it is, by a non-political bureaucracy, as there is universal agreement about the nature and shape of society, with no political factions. The Great Houses have, since the Founding, divided and operated this bureaucracy for the public, and their benefits, and this growing crisis has split the Great Houses into Traditionalist and Progressives camps, with the newer wealthy concerns outside of the Founding Families, divided as well. There have always been feuds and rivalries within the Great Houses as they strive to maintain and increase their wealth and power within the government and society, but as the crisis builds, these rivalries have only increased the bitterness and ruthlessness of these rivalries, so that they increasingly employing agents to do their often illegal biddings.
The Red Wine Agency stories that I used as a plot device in Chateau Clare are the basis for this set of stories. However, I don't think I'm the type of writer to do those thrillers justice, so I have my stories featuring Redinal Hu as he slowly becomes Red Wine, gentleman for hire. The are, in effect, prequels to the Red Wine Agency series of books, set perhaps a year of so prior to Red setting up his own agency. And as such, are much more small scale affairs with lower stakes than what I would imagine a full blown Red Wine Agency thriller would feature.
So with that background out of the way, here's the blurb. Look for the story itself to be release on or a few days before or after November 6, 2024. As always, it will be free in every story, except Amazon where the ebook will be $1.99 and the audiobook $3.99
In
this sequel to The Darval-Mers Dossier, Redinal Hu finds
himself once again playing a small, but perhaps dangerous, role in
the Great Game.
When
Red’s former colleague and good friend, Lorivel Carvie, calls and
invites him to dinner – her treat - Red suspects it’s more
than a social get-together. As much as he wishes it was. And, as it
turns out, he was right.
Lorivel’s
cousin, Carleesa Trilae, is the private secretary of their great
grandmother, Penlane Trilae, the First Minister of the Commonwealth
of Lorria. The First Minister has received a summons to appear before
something called the Founders’ Tribunal to defend her
administration against charges that she is not following the founding
principles of Lorrian society. What this Founders’ Tribunal is, and
who’s behind it, is a mystery. The Minister believes it to be a
ploy of a cabal of Great Houses. Nevertheless she is determined, even
eager, to face this secret tribunal to let them know exactly what
they need to do if they want to maintain the founding principles. Her
great granddaughters do not think this is a wise idea. They hope to
persuade her to accept Red Hu as her legal counsel and bodyguard.
Well,
Penlane Trilae hasn’t remained First Minister of the Commonwealth
of Lorria for over half a century by being timid. So it’s on to
plan two.
The
Founders’ Tribunal is a 25,000 word novella that takes place several months
after The Darval-Mers Dossier. Set during the troubled
times leading up to the Second Founding, this story is Red Hu's first outing using his alias, Red Wine, a gentleman for
hire. The story is takes place in the same world of Chateau
Clare and Glencrow Summer, but in an earlier
historical period than those two novels.
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