Florschutz publishes mystery novel on Amazon.com

A ghost hunting, gun-toting detective is at the heart of a new, self-published book by Wrangell native Max Florschutz and early sales are showing a positive reaction to his writing and storytelling abilities.

The book, “One Drink,” was completed by Florschutz in the past month and is available as an e-book for the popular Kindle platform.

A look into his first chapter draws the reader in with mystery and suspense – and reveals the firearm-wielding penchant of the book’s main character, Jacob Rocke.

“She was fairly plain looking,” Florschutz writes of the thoughts of Rocke as he meets a potential client in a bar in Vermont. “Brown eyes, a slightly narrow face framed by slightly unkempt dark brown hair that stood out next to the dull red of the leather seats in my booth. She had the look of someone who was more at home driving a minivan then lounging around classy bars in downtown Vermont in the early hours of the morning. Unless her husband was cheating on her or she had some other sorrow to drink away, but then Arlo’s was hardly the place to do that. No, you only came to Arlo’s if you were going to conduct a certain type of business or you were just plain out of your league and didn’t know who to turn to. And given that her bony fingers were tightly gripping her small purse with both hands, I figured she was the latter. That and she hadn’t noticed my left hand reach for my .44 below the table. Yes, I carry a .44. You’d be amazed how well it works over what some would consider more conventional items in my line of work.”

That is just a portion of the first chapter in Florschutz’s 100-plus page e-book, and in the beginning, it tells a story of how Rocke comes to the aid of a family being terrorized by a ghostly wolf.

Florschutz said the story had its genesis in a writing assignment he undertook while attending Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

“I originally got the idea to write the book when I was finishing school in Hawaii,” Florschutz said. “I had a writing challenge from one of my teachers to go out into a graveyard and write a one-page story about it. So, I wrote about this guy that vacationed in a graveyard and he ends up telling a story about his vacation to one of the ghosts residing there, and basically, since it’s a Hawaiian graveyard, it’s sunny, upbeat and the ghosts here are all happy.”

Out of that story, Florschutz said he came up with the idea of a character that deals with ghosts and spirits and can communicate with them the way regular humans interact with one another.

“About a year later, I decided to write out a story using this character from the graveyard, and I decided to do it in the first person and make it a mystery,” he added. “I worked out some plot details and it took off from a 2,000-word short story and turned into a 33,000-word, 100 page book which I really enjoyed writing.”

The plotline Florschutz arrived at deals with Rocke and his work as an urban investigator of the paranormal, including werewolves, ghosts and more otherworldly characters.

Florschutz said the difference between his character and others in the genre is that Rocke is a believer in the fantasy aspect, but uses real world tools and skills, rather than magic, to solve his dilemmas.

“One of the first things Rocke mentions in the book is that he is licensed by the federal government to do these things under the umbrella of the National Security Agency, so he is authorized by the government to investigate these things,” he said. “And he is not like Harry Potter when he does his work. I wanted him to not be a wizard like in the ‘Dresden Files’, but to have the abilities of being smart and careful. So he is a cynical, hardworking detective that is very easily separated from other characters out there that tackle these kinds of issues with magic. Most of the time you hear about cool magical powers. Rocke has a pistol and he thinks things through.”

While Florschutz’s book is currently only available on the Amazon website for the Kindle platform, he isn’t ruling out the possibility of a soft cover version being published in the future.

“The way that will happen is if the book gets popular enough that a publisher contacts me and would sit down to work out details with me,” he added. “As of now, I am happy to release it on my own and Amazon gives me a great gateway for people to access the book for Kindle. At the same time, I am very happy with it on the Kindle platform. Other places that sell e-books are sometimes cheap, questionable or not reliable. For now, I think it will stay with Amazon for the Kindle, though if it becomes a hit, I’ll have no problem with printing it.”

Florschutz graduated from Wrangell High School in 2004. He attended Brigham Young University where he graduated with a dual degree in Business Management and English. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Connecticut and Rhode Island and said that time spent in service of his faith helped him to develop the gritty, no-nonsense nature of Rocke’s character.

“I spent about 19 months serving in ghettos, which was awesome,” Florschutz said. “I loved every minute of it. It was eye opening and I preferred being in the city where I could see people and see real-world things happening every day. There are cities where I would see a divided line, one street, where there would be a rich and upscale area, while across the street there would be garbage and trash lining the roadway. That influenced the story in a lot of ways because the main character can view ghosts and things downtrodden while others around him cannot.”

For those readers who are interested in picking up a copy of the book for their Kindle platform, it can be found by searching “One Drink” at http://www.amazon.com.

Florschutz lives in Provo, Utah where he is deeply involved in the video game industry as well as his forays into writing fiction.