Michael D. Davis with his first book. Chronicle/John Speer

“I like crime, comedy and horror, it all blends together pretty well,” Toledo author and artist Michael Davis said in a September, 2019, Chronicle interview.

Well, New York publisher Anthony Knott also does. After catching Michael’s work on the Yellow Mama webzine – an internet-based magazine self-described as a “crime fiction / horror ezine” he encouraged Michael to expand.

The result is series of short stories based upon Michael’s “booze addled detective” Count Wharton and published in a book entitled (remember this is 2020 and the web is “wide”) “The Bloody Whorehouse Detective Agency.”

Among the stories there’s murder, Qaurtertown, the Iowa Division of Criminal investigation, Irma, Dynamite Dotty and a whole lot more in the short stories by Michael. Each is accompanied by his own original artwork.

Although not his first published work by far, this is Michael’s first book. It’s available on Amazon and Ebooks.

On the book dedication page, Michael credits his mother, Laura Davis,for “reading everyone of my stories” and “always willing to tell me when it’s crap, it’s insane, not insane enough, funny, not funny.”

He also cites Cindy Rosmus and Kenneth James Crist for encouraging him to write the Count Wharton series and Knott, the publisher, for his guidance.

On the back cover: “Michael D. Davis writes horror, crime and humor with equal dexterity and illustrates his own work with a gifted cartoon style. Michael has penned hundred-word dribbles, short fiction and short stories with more than fifty of them published on a variety of ezines and in print anthologies.

Read Michael Davis September, 2019,Chronicle story: tamatoledonews.com.

No internet? Toledo, Tama and Chelsea public libraries provide free internet access.