Cover Idea for ‘Showdown in Sausalito,’ My Next Novel

As some of you know, I’m directing a murder mystery play this winter at my local community theater — Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery. We completed auditions and casting in November and last week, we had our first table read-through with the actors. (Which was thrilling.) As I prepared the script to be printed and collated in binders, I realized I needed a cover sheet for the binders, so I whipped one together that turned out better than I expected. Since I’m also writing a novel, I thought I ‘d see how the same idea might work for my book cover.

Here it is. I continue to vacillate over the book title, though I decided, after so many suggestions/criticisms that I couldn’t ignore them, to use “Sausalito,” the real name of the city, in the title, instead of my fictionalized “Sausalypso,” but I’m still brainstorming about the subtitle. I have many months of writing and rewriting ahead, but I feel like I’m leaning in the right direction with the cover image, which is like a triple exposure, a composite of two photos of houseboats and one of the sunrise over Richardson Bay.

I would love to hear what you think — about the image as well as the title.