The Mike Khepri Mysteries

Set in Oklahoma, The Mike Khepri Mysteries follows the misadventures of Chuck Manchego and his beetle-faced, homunculus sidekick, Mike Khepri, as they tear their way through the state in hell-raisingly raucous, sometimes thinly disguised trials of self-discovery and awakening rooted in archetype, lore, myth, and memory. The "mysteries," or cases, they undertake propel them into a rural yet noirish and supernatural crime-scape where the stakes are the preservation of the soul and of sanity itself. Comedic, epic, and grotesque, the novel lampoons masculinity while celebrating the indomitability of the unmistakably Southern characters within. Beneath the outrageous dialogue, the novel also explores the paradoxical relationship between creativity and suffering: that suffering begets creativity, and creativity heals suffering. As they sear their way across these pages and into folklore, Chuck Manchego and Mike Khepri riotously attempt a feat no less ambitious than to map the boundaries and inventory the contents of the human soul.