C. Norman Noble

*Stephanie Isn’t Here:* I wanted to return to modern times and chose as my location an area that I knew well -- the USA’s Pacific Northwest. Of course, the events described are imaginary; the setting of Rainier Falls, Washington and the characters who live there are figments of my imagination. My protagonist is a local hero, star football player returned from college to teach the sciences to the youth of his town. Loved by his kids and loves them in return, his life is nearly perfect. Until . . . The first chapter of the book sets the tone for all that follows: A journalist for a local Seattle newspaper writes at the conclusion of the murder trial, “Didn’t the jurors hear what I heard? More correctly, didn’t they not hear what I didn’t hear? Where was the evidence? Where were the eyewitnesses? What did the prosecution have but supposition? Everything was entirely circumstantial. The police work was shoddy. The forensics was non-existent. “If ever there was a miscarriage of justice, it occurred yesterday in the courtroom of Judge Roger Eitreim when Cortland Thomas Harper was found guilty of the First Degree Murder of Stephanie Ann McCauley.” Proving his innocence and freeing him from prison becomes the task of the outraged journalist whose investigation takes him deep into the seamy world of the Russian mafia.

About The Books: Stephanie Isn’t Here