My New Book: The Big Granola: An Enlightened Mystery Is Finally Out!

Well, folks, my new book is finally out! It's called The Big Granola. It's a funny Florida neo-noir mystery with an enlightenment theme. I hope you'll take a look at it on Amazon.

 It's the story of Holden "Max" Cash, "an FBI washout," who retires on a disability at the age of 35 to Florida's Space Coast, where he generally feels sorry for himself and plays small-stakes tournament poker to pass the time. From within this milieu, he gets drawn into a murder investigation of a poker pro named Ursula Morand, and he suddenly has a new identity as a private investigator, whether he likes it or not.

Soon, a rocket billionaire is implicated in the killing and the story is off to the races.

Ultimately, all my books (3 so far, with a couple on the way) are about encounters with more or less enlightened individuals and how that plays out in a person's life. In this case, Max Cash meets Big Granola, a poker pro who appears to be enlightened, but may actually be a suspect. Max has to sort that out.

Here's what the back of the book says: 

From Florida's quirky Space Coast, private investigator Holden "Max" Cash is hired to untangle a Miami murder that reeks of rocket billionaire cover-up and corporate rot. Clues lead through smoky poker rooms to the glittering facades of the powerful—yet every trail seems to circle back to nothing. 

Then Max meets Big Granola, the laid-back poker pro whose enlightened gaze cuts through the bluff like sunlight through the humid Florida haze. But is he sage or suspect? What begins as a routine case morphs into something deeper—a collision of hard-boiled cynicism and quiet revelation. Max's hunches sharpen into soul-deep intuition, illusions crack, and the truth emerges, not from evidence alone, but from seeing clearly for the first time.   

The blurb goes on to ask: "In a world built on lies and high stakes, can a jaded, wise-cracking detective wake up before the house takes everything?"

Can he, indeed!

In this new day of AI, it must be said that the entirety of the interior text was created by me alone. I refused all help from AI! But a new day has truly dawned. AI has made it extremely easy for a one-man-band like myself to produce a high-quality product, providing quality graphics and commercial writing that rival the big publishing houses at a price that has long-since been completely unaffordable.

Take a look. I hope you like it and give it a read. I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings about The Big Granola. It's available in both paperback and Kindle varieties.

 

 

 

 

Stephen Mitchell's Tao te Ching Tranlation

 Tao te Ching

by Lao Tzu 

Translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1988

Section: Tao

1
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

2
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

The "Ahhhh" Moment

People talk about the "Ah-ha!" moment, but you hear less often about the "Ahhhh" moment. It's something that you might want to try to work into your schedule at least once a day. Maybe even more often if you can.

I have an Ahhhh moment every morning I go to the beach. It usually happens as pre-dawn I hit the apex of the A. Max Brewer Memorial Bridge. I don't know who A. Max Brewer is/was, but I sure like his bridge. Here is a picture of my morning commute. You can just make out the edge of the Indian River (which is actually a lagoon). Majestic. Ahhhh.