Ken Knoll Architectural Mysteries
In The Accused Architect complications rattle architect Ken Knoll’s business and personal life as he returns from the holidays to find himself searching for a missing dead man. Events are set in motion when Edison, Ken’s well-meaning intern, removes the corpse from a project site to deter a police investigation from delaying the construction schedule. Now the body has disappeared, and Ken is driven to find it and solve the crime before repercussions ruin the firm. The mystery deepens when the firm’s administrative assistant is found murdered on the same project site, and Ken’s beautiful supervisor is arrested. She implores him to clear her name. Ken finds himself faced with solving two puzzling murders, one beset by a police investigation, the other a murder known only to Edison and the killer.
In the second book of the series, Civic Center Corpse, architect Ken “Cannoli” Knoll’s world is turned upside down when the sign on his new project, the Neumann Auditorium, plunges from the building killing Jerome Neumann, the businessman who donated $3 million to the project. Cannoli’s boss dispatches him to prove that the firm’s design was not at fault. Cannoli is appalled to find his old college classmate turned investigative reporter, Shirley Hansen, poking around. She is there at every step of the investigation, a thorn in Cannoli’s side, looking for the dirt and the killer as he seeks to solve the murder.
Neumann’s wife insists the sign’s falling was not an accident and begs Cannoli to prove that her husband was, in fact, killed by his mistress when he broke off their affair. Cannoli wonders if perhaps it was the wife who murdered him when he decided on the mistress. Meanwhile, Cannoli is delighted when a Hollywood actress appears at the site of the sign plunge, intrigued by the death. Ken begins seeing her romantically, despite his intern Edison’s warnings about his sudden good fortune. There are plenty of suspects, as Cannoli discovers Neumann’s former business partner held a grudge against him for a deal that went bad and ruined his life. He wonders about Michigan poet Molly Gross, who, despite her position on the city’s planning board, was an outspoken critic of the project. And there’s the activist group who had protested, sometimes violently, the destruction of the library’s old Fitzgerald Reading Room to build the auditorium. As Cannoli digs deeper, his prime suspect is murdered and suddenly he finds his own life in danger.
Non-Fiction
Christian contributed the “Persistence” chapter in The 28-Day Thought Diet, compiled and co-authored by Vanessa Lowry.
Short Stories
“Library Quest” is included in the anthology “Short Sips: Coffee House Flash Fiction,” edited by Jessica A. Weiss and published by Wicked East Press. Available on Amazon.com here
“Chambers” won the Grand Prize in the Bright Harvest Prize prose competition, sponsored by Aquarius Press, in Dec. 2011, and was published July, 2012.
Poetry
“Stoney Creek” – published in Michigan Roots, A Poetry Society of Michigan Anthology, 2021.
“Leaving Tawas, July 3rd” – awarded 3rd place, Category 3: Founder’s Prize, Poetry Society of Michigan, published in Peninsula Poets Fall Contest Edition, 2021.
“Falling” – Honorable Mention, Category 7: Love, Poetry Society of Michigan, published in Peninsula Poets Fall Contest Edition, 2020.
“Why I Like Tuesdays” – Honorable Mention in Soul Making Literary Competition, January 2012.
“Kiss” – published by WestWard Quarterly in the Winter 2012 issue.
“Music Plays” – published online by “Yes, Poetry” in January, 2012, Vol. 3 Issue 1.
“Euphoria” – published by The Storyteller Magazine in the Oct/Nov/Dec 2011 issue.
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