About The Perfect Triple Threat

THEY’RE BACK. Dako­ta Stevens, the tough, wise­crack­ing New York pri­vate eye, and his “Watson”—brilliant chess grand­mas­ter Svet­lana Krüsh.

The Per­fect Triple Threat, the 4^th install­ment in the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed Dako­ta Stevens Mys­tery Series by Chris Orcutt, fea­tures three novel­la-length mys­ter­ies that occur before or between the nov­els.

In this mys­tery tril­o­gy, Man­hat­tan PI Dako­ta Stevens and his “Wat­son” Svet­lana Krüsh solve cas­es in the Green Moun­tains of Ver­mont; Dutchess Coun­ty, New York; and the mean and glam­orous streets of L.A., tan­gling with chain­saw artists, sev­en-foot tall Native Amer­i­cans, motor­cy­cle gangs, ex-cons, crooked cops, nude celebri­ties, and Chi­nese gang­sters.

“The Adven­ture of the Babysit­ting Detec­tives”: While car­ing for a friend’s boys over Colum­bus Day week­end, besides learn­ing that child­care is not easy, Dako­ta and Svet­lana find a num­ber of mys­te­ri­ous items in the woods and uncov­er a con­spir­a­cy.

“The Mys­tery of the Van­ish­ing Greenskeep­er”: A num­ber of bizarre inci­dents at a Mill­brook area golf course, cul­mi­nat­ing in the dis­ap­pear­ance of the head greenskeep­er, prompts the club’s man­ag­ing pro to call in Dako­ta to inves­ti­gate.

“The Case of the Fake Real­i­ty TV Show”: A Hol­ly­wood stu­dio exec’s daugh­ter is arrest­ed for an armed jew­el heist, but she claims it was only the pilot of a new real­i­ty TV series. Trou­ble is, her fel­low cast mem­bers and the pro­duc­ers are gone and can’t cor­rob­o­rate her sto­ry. Dako­ta and Svet­lana must team up with the head of stu­dio secu­ri­ty, sexy Barb Soames, to prove the girl’s inno­cence.

Buy: Ama­zon | Google Play

 

Excerpt from The Perfect Triple Threat

I rocked in the rock­ing chair, sipped my cof­fee and admired the panoply of reds, oranges, golds and rus­sets on the dis­tant moun­tain­side. Across the yard, at the tree­line where the boys had run into the woods, the breeze rus­tled the birch­es and poplars, rain­ing down yel­low leaves on the lawn. Every now and then the met­al detec­tors beeped and squealed in the woods.

The glass door slid open behind me and Svet­lana came out with a steam­ing mug of cof­fee. She was dressed in full autumn regalia: brown suede jack­et, cream cash­mere sweater, scarf, short tweed skirt, knee-high stock­ings and boots. She looked like a mod­el in the fall fash­ion issue of Vogue. I whis­tled.

“Wow, nice out­fit. But I’m a lit­tle wor­ried about it.”

“Wor­ried? How?” She cupped her hands around the mug and blew.

“I’m wor­ried we’re going to walk into some gen­er­al store today,” I said, “where a bunch of old timers are sit­ting around a crack­er bar­rel, and you’re going to give them all heart attacks.”

“That would be unfor­tu­nate.”

With a smirk, she sat in the rock­ing chair next to mine, pinched her knees togeth­er and sipped her cof­fee.

“What is a crack­er bar­rel any­way?” she asked.

“Beats me. A bar­rel of crack­ers maybe?”

“Who would eat a bar­rel of crack­ers? That can­not be right.” She scanned the mead­ow and the hill­side down to the trees. “Where are our young charges?”

“In the woods, find­ing arrows,” I said. “How did your chess les­son with them go last night?”

“Quite well, I think,” she said. “Although nei­ther shows much inter­est in chess. They seem to pre­fer video games and out­door sports.”

“Yeah, about the chess—I think they’re only doing it because they’re hot for teacher.”

She blinked sev­er­al times. “Excuse me…‘hot for teacher’?”

“The Van Halen song ‘Hot For Teacher’? The 1984 album?”

She closed her eyes and shrugged.

“I forget—you didn’t grow up here,” I said. “You didn’t have time for rock bands and songs about guys attract­ed to their female teach­ers. You were too busy play­ing chess and learn­ing how to be a young Com­mie.”

“Well, ‘hot for teacher’ or not,” she said, “they are adorable—bright, curi­ous and good-look­ing. And you know I loathe most chil­dren. Espe­cial­ly the ones their age.”

“I know,” I said.

A deli­cious breeze washed over us and float­ed down the hill, fol­lowed by a lan­guorous moment of bliss­ful peace and silence. It was one of those few moments that makes all the trou­ble of own­ing a prop­er­ty worth­while, and I wished Ryan and Nina could be here to enjoy it.

Then, in the next instant, the qui­es­cence was destroyed by a pierc­ing shriek from the trees. Birds scat­tered from the tree­tops.

“Oh my God!” James shout­ed. “Oh my God!”

Then Jack shrieked. Svet­lana and I looked at each oth­er.

“The joys of par­ent­ing,” I said.

“Pre­cise­ly,” she said.

We put down our cof­fees and ran for the woods.

“Jack?! James?!” I shout­ed. “Where are you?”

“Over here!”

 

Why is The Perfect Triple Threat a collection of three novellas?

I love writ­ing nov­els, but they require triathlon-lev­el endurance, and if they’re mys­ter­ies, they need to be based on big ideas. This trans­lates to a lot dis­parate parts that all have to fit togeth­er, and it’s this “fit­ting togeth­er” stuff that is the most exhaust­ing part of the mys­tery-writ­ing process. Novel­las can be based on small­er ideas, small­er mys­ter­ies, and yet they allow for more atmos­phere, more descrip­tion, and deep­er char­ac­ter­i­za­tion.

Some of my favorite works of fic­tion are novel­las or long sto­ries includ­ing John Stein­beck­’s Of Mice and Men, Phillip Roth’s Good­bye, Colum­bus, and Stephen King’s Rita Hay­worth and the Shaw­shank Redemp­tion. In the mys­tery realm, I have adored Doyle’s Sher­lock Holmes sto­ries and novels—especially the longer sto­ries “The Naval Treaty” and “A Scan­dal in Bohemia.”

 

How are the stories in The Perfect Triple Threat different from those of the first three novels?

The major dif­fer­ence is that the three cas­es are “small­er” and less intri­cate than the ones in the nov­els. I meant for these cas­es to be exam­ples of the ones that Dako­ta and Svet­lana typ­i­cal­ly get between their “big” cas­es.

 

What’s next on the horizon for Dakota and Svetlana?

I have admired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sher­lock Holmes sto­ries since I was a young boy. In fact, those sto­ries are what inspired me to start writ­ing the adven­tures of Dako­ta and Svet­lana almost 15 years ago. I plan to write a col­lec­tion of mys­tery short sto­ries about Dako­ta and Svet­lana in the vein of Holmes and Wat­son. This is like­ly to take quite some time, espe­cial­ly since I want every sto­ry in the col­lec­tion to be a pol­ished gem.

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