Daniel P. Douglas's Blood Wing: A Cold War Noir Thriller, named a finalist in the inaugural ProWritingAid Novel Beginnings Contest, is now available in eBook and paperback. The novella, released July 16, 2026, is the second entry in the Jack Morrison's Blood & Bourbon Mystery Files, following Blood Tide: A Harbor Noir Thriller.
The story follows ex-LAPD detective turned private investigator Jack Morrison as he probes the death of a Black night-shift janitor at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach in January 1951. The company dismisses the incident as an industrial accident, closing the file without interviewing the widow. The family hires Morrison because the dead man's brother once shared a foxhole with him in Italy in 1944 during the Gothic Line campaign. As Morrison uncovers a Cold War espionage operation behind the plant's windowless concrete walls, he confronts a murder the federal government will classify into official nonexistence. The narrative delves into the McCarthy era and the Lavender Scare, the period purge of suspected homosexuals from federal and defense employment, centering on a widow who refuses to accept a lie and a federal prosecutor who can pursue the spying but cannot restore the man who died.
Selected from 14,570 entries worldwide, Blood Wing advanced through a longlist of 183 to a shortlist of ten finalists judged on opening pages, voice, and character. The contest is run by ProWritingAid, the writing-software and education company. "Being a finalist for the Novel Beginnings Contest is one of the most meaningful moments in my writing life," Douglas said. "I'm grateful to ProWritingAid, the contest readers, and the judges for recognizing Blood Wing."
At roughly 25,000 words, Blood Wing is a complete story readable in a single sitting and requires no prior reading, serving as an entry point to the series. Readers seeking Morrison's first case can find it in Blood Tide, set on the Los Angeles waterfront. Writing as Daniel P. Douglas, a pen name he shares with his identical twin brother Paul, Phillip Garver has authored short stories and novels across space operas, supernatural westerns, and hardboiled thrillers. His experience as a U.S. Army veteran and former senior analyst in the U.S. intelligence community provides authentic detail for the conspiracy and thriller elements in his stories.
