Coming this fall: Book 6 of The Haight Mystery Series
Readers have been asking for a while now when the sixth novel in The Haight Mystery Series is coming out. (One reader even told me she’s rereading the first five while she waits!) I can finally share a few things: an approximate publication window, some story details, and how the book has evolved since the original idea.
What I still can’t tell you is the title.
A little background first. I published Book Five of the series, The Flaming Turret, in May 2024 and then decided to step away from 1960s San Francisco for a bit. Instead, I jumped ahead to the tech-crazed 2020s with Presidio Biotech, which follows Jake Spracklin – Jimmy’s grandson. With a past marked by substance abuse and homelessness, Jake is trying to put his life back together by working at a biotech startup. When his boss turns up murdered, Jake and the company’s CEO, Emily Fairfield, become suspects and must find the killer before the cops close in.
Some readers have told me Presidio Biotech is my best detective novel yet. Still, the pull of the original series is strong. A few months ago, I returned to Jimmy Spracklin’s world and began work on Book Six.
I try to give each Haight novel a distinct theme. A Hitman on Haight Street centered on an outdoor concert, while The Prodi Syndicate focused on the visual arts. In Book Six, the theme is music – and some of the great concert halls of San Francisco. The first murder takes place within an up-and-coming band, and I’m working toward a climax in a fictional music hall tentatively called the Albion.
Fred Romero, the Haight-Ashbury vigilante, is now breaking out as the leader of a new rock band. His girlfriend Jasmine continues her rise to stardom, and together they’re the king and queen of the Haight-Ashbury music scene. The dream ends abruptly when Romero is found dead in his new apartment – just upstairs from Spracklin. Jimmy gets the case, and suspicion soon turns to his old nemesis Andy Fox, newly returned to the Haight and rebuilding his empire.
I’m having a great time writing this book. One of the pleasures has been creating lyrics for Romero’s band. I’ve included song lyrics in every Haight novel – mostly for my own amusement, though many readers tell me they enjoy them. As a student of Michael Connelly, I aim for lean, efficient prose, and the lyrics are a rare indulgence that keeps the writing fun.
Early in the book, Romero’s band debuts a new song at a concert in the fictional ballroom – an Irish drinking song, of sorts. Jasmine has new songs as well, and the other band members contribute their own. They’re also, unsurprisingly, quite bitchy about each other’s work. In this novel, I’m hoping the songs themselves contain clues to Romero’s murder. We’ll see how that works out.
I’m about 43,000 words in, and Jimmy Spracklin is – wait for it – getting into trouble with the higher-ups at the SFPD. Andy Fox is – again, wait for it –plotting, scheming, and getting inside Marie’s head. And I’m sure that by the time I finish the first draft, I’ll want to rewrite a huge portion of it.
As for the title, I’m still not sure. I usually change titles as I write. Early working titles for The Haight included An Incident on Haight Street and Haight-Ashbury Homicidal.
I try hard to choose titles that help readers remember what a book is about – The Flaming Turret, for example, centred on an arson case. But I also have a habit of using place names or unusual words that don’t always stick. Originally, I wanted much of this book set at the Fillmore. A grieving Jasmine was going to say she and Fred Romero were once the King and Queen of the hall, but now she was “the Fillmore Dowager.” That was going to be the title.
I’ve since moved away from the Fillmore (the 1969 version of the club no longer exists), and in any case, few people know what “dowager” means – and it’s not a great fit for Jasmine. (A dowager is a widow with a title or property derived from her late husband.)
I’ll come up with something before I publish the book – about ten months from now.
Meanwhile, Presidio Biotech continues to do well. I was especially pleased by a recent five-star review from a reader in Washington State who called it my “best yet.” Readers have taken to Jake Spracklin and Emily Fairfield, and I’m beginning to think this novel may be the first in a series of technothrillers set in modern San Francisco.
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Hi. I’m Peter Moreira and my latest novel is the technothriller Presidio Biotech. I’m also also the author of The Haight Mystery Series — retro mystery novels set in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Go to my home page to join my mailing list and receive a free prequel novella.
