Author Description

WE'LL GET THERE FAST AND THEN WE'LL TAKE IT SLOW It was, without a doubt, the worst day of her life, when the song had drifted up through the apartment window and she had heard it for the first time. It had made an impact that had been nearly hypnotic. She'd rolled over to the bedside table and picked up her phone and called a friend she knew who worked part time for a travel agency. Why not? It was the shank end of summer, she had two weeks before classes started again, she hadn't spent much of her grad assistant stipend for the quarter... Paula had laughed at her. “Funny joke,” she'd said. “You know how many calls we're getting since that goddam song came out?” “I'm not joking,” the Mayor who was not yet the Mayor had said. “Why would you think I'm joking?” She could nearly hear Paula rolling her eyes. “Because, babe, the place isn't real. You might as well try to get a flight to Brigadoon.” During the unsettled period after the initial discovery of Earth10, she – Doctor Professor Ifidayo Dolores Gauthier – had greased some palms and pulled some strings, and somehow or other, a lifelong land grant to 'the unexploited region in Earth10 that is equivalent to the Florida Keys of Earth1' had been issued to her. She had crossed over, with a few of her fellow discoverers, and Kokomo had, at long last, been born. And now, of course, two thirds of the population of Earth1 wanted to invade it, exploit it, or just plain destroy it. For twenty years she's used every bit of craft, guile, and political influence she has to keep forces inimical to Kokomo's existence at bay... but now, Kokomo's first murder has just happened, and Kokomo's new sheriff will have to discover whodunnit... and then the Mayor will have to decide what to do about it.