Chad Schomber

Meet Thomas Yard

I have new fiction project in the works. So this is your first peek and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it when you’re done. Be sure to leave a comment. Please and thank you.

The series follows Thomas “Yard” Irwin, a forty-one-year-old former professional baseball player living in Daggerfront, a fictional town on the Gulf Coast.

Baseball was another life. These days he teaches tourists to scuba dive, rides a bike instead of driving a car, and spends his free time at the Sailors’ Rye.

He’s worked hard to make his life uncomplicated. But as you’ll see, there’s always something keeping him from living the simple life.

Yard doesn’t solve crimes for a living and doesn’t go looking for trouble.

That’s important because I don’t want each story to begin with him working a case. Trouble just happens.

A dive goes sideways. A friend asks for help. Yard notices a detail that feels off and he has to find out why.

That’s usually where his problems begin.

Yard pays attention.

He isn’t a character who glances at a stranger’s shoes and reconstructs the previous twelve hours. What interests me is ordinary observation sharpened by experience. His baseball years are part of that.

A long time spent competing at a high level changes the way a person sees movement, timing, pressure, failure. Yard spent years studying pitchers and fielders, looking for small shifts that might give him half a second of advantage. Those habits didn’t disappear when baseball ended.

Neither did the wear on his body.

I don’t want him shrugging off injuries because the plot needs him back at full strength. His knee is damaged. At forty-one, recovery takes longer. If he makes a bad decision on today, he still feels it next week.

Experience helps but it doesn’t make him bulletproof. He can read a situation well and still get it wrong.

That’s important to me. I’d rather watch Yard build a sensible theory from incomplete facts, follow it, then discover he took a wrong in thinking. Being capable doesn’t mean he’s right all the time.

Then there’s Daggerfront.

I wanted a place that could generate a lot of stories without requiring an implausible body count.

Daggerfront runs on tourism, fishing, diving, marinas, waterfront hotels, old families, new money, and the businesses that survive because people come down to the Gulf expecting a good week.

Most of them get one.

Boats come and go at odd hours. Hotel rooms turn over every few days. Charter captains know stretches of water most visitors will never see. Locals just go with the flow.

And then there’s the water. Lots of it. That changes a crime story.

Visibility collapses after a few feet. Currents move things. Depth changes what’s easy, what’s dangerous, and what people can hide.

The books will be lean, fast-moving novellas. Each story will work on its own, while Daggerfront gets deeper, more interesting.

Yard has a sister.

Yard’s older sister, Mary Beth, lives in Wisconsin. She knows her brother too well. More than the people in Daggerfront ever will. She also has the advantage of being far enough away to tell him when he’s being an idiot without any immediate consequences. Sibling love I guess.

The longer the series goes, the more I want those relationships to matter. I also don’t want suspense to depend on somebody pulling a gun every thirty pages.

A person can be frightening without making a threat. An unanswered phone can change the direction of a story. So can a boat tied up in the wrong slip, a hotel employee remembering something, or a man who suddenly becomes very interested in what Yard knows. Or doesn’t.

Violence will happen.

I just want it to cost something when it does. Within the violence the reader learns an important detail. A wrinkle gets created or gets ironed out.

That’s roughly the territory I’m building around Thomas Yard: crime, mystery, Gulf water, dry humor, old injuries, questionable favors, and a man who keeps getting involved because once he sees the loose thread, it must get pulled.

Here’s a small taste of him.

Yard rolled the bike through the garage door of the Sailors’ Rye.

Jimbo looked over the bar. “Absolutely not.”

“The tire’s flat.”

“So?”

“So I’m bringing it in.”

“You’ve left it outside hundreds of times.”

“Not with a flat tire.”

Jimbo stared at him.

Yard leaned the bike against the wall beside the cigarette machine. Yes, they still exist.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Doesn’t have to, bud.”

Jimbo poured a beer. “Beanie called.”

Yard sat.

Jimbo pushed the beer toward him. “What does he want?”

“Didn’t say.”

Yard took a long sip. In the mirror behind Jimbo, he saw a gray pickup parked across the street.

It was there before Yard’s morning dive class. Same person behind the wheel.

Jimbo followed Yard stare, then looked at the bicycle.

“The tire isn’t flat.”

“Nope.”

“You lied to me about a bicycle tire.”

“Yep.”

Jimbo looked through the window again. “You know him?”

“Nope.”

“Does he know you?”

Yard took another sip. “Yep.”

That’s Thomas Yard.

I’ll show you more of Daggerfront soon.

As always, thank you for subscribing. I hope this little preview was worth it. Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Also, let me know if you want to be a character (a small bit) in one of the stories.