by Ray Fashona

Mike Zinarelli’s life has not turned out the way his college self thought it would. Having once basked in the hazy comfort of pot smoke, cocaine, booze, and sex, sex, sex, Z’s adult life leaves him disillusioned. Once dreaming of making a difference in the world through cutting-edge journalism, Z now watches the decline of the print newspaper and feels the irrelevance of his unused potential. Remembering the virile youthfulness of days past, Z muses on his lifeless, complacent marriage and realizes his age through the one-sidedness of ogling his twenty-something neighbor from a window. In an attempt to revive the spark of life he felt during his college days—debating literature and philosophy, riding the highs of drugs and jazz, having wild sex—Z secretly drinks Jack Daniel’s all day, reaches out to an old college friend, and even sees the woman who once brought him to the brink of a violent, nearly murderous rage: his nymphomaniac college girlfriend, Crystal Cassidy. His clandestine meeting with Crystal, however, puts him at the top of the list of suspects for her mysterious disappearance and assumed death. A quarter of a century after their rollercoaster romance—and the best sex of his life—Crystal Cassidy still has her hooks in Z. Caught between trying to maintain his innocence and living vicariously through his past, Z struggles to survive in the present ... and a surprise visit from Crystal’s adult son only complicates his effort. At the risk of losing everything he’s worked for—regardless of how far short it fell from what his college self imagined—Z must fight for his family and break free of his obsession once and for all.


Page Count: 216
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.5
Publish Date: February 13, 2014
Imprint: Milford House
Genre: Mystery