Big News: Publishing My First Book

Lake Mead near its low point in 2022

This fall, I'm publishing my first book, a novella titled Body in a Barrel. Here's the back cover description:

A body in a barrel just appeared on the shore of Lake Mead, and Lenny Battaglia is worried: what else might the drought-ravaged lake reveal as it continues to drop? News of the barrel dredges up long-submerged memories, forcing Lenny to reckon with his past as a Las Vegas mobster. Body in a Barrel is a gritty novella about organized crime, murder, fear, guilt, grace, and unlikely friendship in Sin City, inspired by true events.

The Story Behind My First Book

By day, I work as an engineer at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, focused on water imports from the Colorado River. In July 2022, Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River (and the largest in the United States), dropped to its lowest level since it filled in 1935. The low level was due to a combination of too much water use and paltry inflows driven by climate change.

As the reservoir dropped, things long-submerged began appearing on newly exposed mud beaches. Things like bodies. Investigators concluded that most of the bodies were drowning victims, but one of them showed up in a barrel with a gunshot wound. Based on clothing and footwear still worn by the victim, authorities concluded he was killed in the late 1970s or early 1980s, a period during which organized crime was rampant in nearby Las Vegas.

Understandably, people began to speculate about who the victim was and the circumstances of the killing. (The best survey of possibilities I've found is on the blog of the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.) Soon after the grim discovery, a colleague sent a tweet around on our work chat that said something like, "Breaking: Las Vegas mobsters become climate advocates."

After I stopped laughing, the tweet set my imagination spinning on a darkly comic short story centered on a washed up mobster in his 60s who is alarmed by news of the body in the barrel. My jokey first draft ended with the protagonist, Lenny, making a donation to a climate action group.

Las Vegas billboard inspired by the May 2022 news that a body in a barrel had been discovered on the shore of Lake Mead

Some writer friends who read the first draft convinced me there was potential for a more complex and interesting story about Lenny, so I went away and wrote some more. After many drafts, the result was a story that was too long for most magazines but shorter than a novel. So I've decided to publish it independently as a novella.

In the coming weeks and months, I'll post more about the history and inspiration behind the story, I'll share the cover design when it's done (early July), and I'll even post the first chapter to tempt you. I plan to release it on Amazon in paperback and e-book under my new imprint, Press Together. The current launch date is mid-September, but it's still somewhat fluid. Watch this space!