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On second thought, does that example above (about the Duke) even need an 'and' to be grammatically correct? The longer I stare at it, the more it appears correct as is.

How are you doing, Amy?

Thank you, Temple. :-)

Okay. The reporter is out for the first draft. I want to see how the story reads without him before deciding if there's any use for him. I've decided that if there is a reporter, he'll die late in the story. A thinning of the herd.

I'm considering adding an annoying reporter to dog the detectives throughout the hunt, also per your suggestion.

Let's just say he's not the marrying type. Feel free to guess though. :-)

I can't figure out a way to have my detectives discuss the case "to date" (which is roughly 3-5 days old) for the reader's benefit without it coming off like it's solely for the reader. The draft internal monologue I wrote strikes me as phony too, although I could probably live with it. I have a scene later where they report to the "higher ups", but if I pull that scene forward (so they have someone to report everything to, including the reader), things will move too quickly. I'll have even more trouble telling the detectives' half of the story while limiting the gore. Granted, the Book of Revelation is mostly murder and mayhem, but it doesn't often go down to telling about the deaths of individuals (with details like the cardinal hanging from the chandelier). Mostly the Book of Revelation is death on a large scale, which starts in my book two. I'm not sure how many individual deaths I can get away with before it becomes inappropriate for a Catholic audience. So far, there's been only one confirmed murder (the hanging cardinal). Murders two and three almost went undetected since the two clerics appeared to die in their sleep and were buried without an autopsy (a common occurrence in Italy). There'll be at least one "accidental" death (details TBD) and perhaps one cleric discovered to have been buried alive.

One option is to make most of the deaths seem natural, but it's hard to keep up the tension that way. Another option is to have the detectives visit other cities (countries?) where more deaths have occurred before they get there. The latter is fraught with problems, not least of which will be other police officers "telling" my detectives everything they know about a case, rather than the detectives actively investigating. It also requires knowledge of police practices, ranks, vehicles, landmarks, and terminology outside of Rome, which requires more research than I'm willing to tackle for a few extra deaths.

Suggestions?

I like both of your versions. They're actually in the basement of the precinct building, ordered there by the "higher ups" to keep reporters and fellow detectives at bay. I like the idea of a reporter dogging the detectives at every turn, though. He could have his own secrets related to the case, maybe even sent there by the Antichrist.

Thanks
Dirk

I managed to verify with Microsoft support staff that you can reinstall your standalone copy of Office 2016/2019 on another machine if your old one dies. It just requires a call to Microsoft for them to update their activation database. I'll check out LibreOffice before I punish my credit card for Office 2019.

Bill, although Open Office is still supported, most of the open source community has moved to LibreOffice (same original codebase). Nevertheless, stick with what works. Which office suite do you use to create your finished book for Amazon, Kindle, etc.?

Thanks, Bill. I would love to buy MS Office 2019 (or 2016), but from what I've read, they only work on the machine on which you install it. If your hard drive or computer die, you have to buy another copy. Do you know if that's correct?