Publish America Releases Pink Carnation, a Mystery About Orange County, California.

Pink Carnation, written by Newport Beach author Casey Dorman, is a mystery set in Orange County, California and draws on county history to weave a story of intrigue and murder. Pink Carnation has just been released by Publish America. ISBN1-4137-0204-X

With a movie named after it, a T.V. series about it, and a string of novels from such writers as Lawrence T. Parker and Don Winslow, Orange County has achieved a place among Americas favorite settings for fiction. The latest fictional contribution about the OC," from Newport Beach author, Casey Dorman, weaves allusions to historical fact with a fictional murder plot to tell a story that covers over forty years of county history.

1959, Orange County, California-a young socialite and her companion are brutally murdered. 2003-the murder is reenacted in The Pink Carnation Murders, a film about the still-unsolved killings, but this time the two young actors playing the parts of the dead teenagers are themselves killed. A bizarre accident or murder? Thats the question independently wealthy Professor Phineas Routledge must answer when his student, the sister of one of the actors, asks him to help her discover the cause of her brothers death. One death leads to another as Phineas and his beautiful Vietnamese wife, Kim, unearth a conspiracy that has lasted for nearly forty-five years. It is a conspiracy that has concealed a powerful crime figure operating just below the surface in the land of sunshine and affluence, and the lives of Phineas and Kim are in danger from the moment they discover it.

The setting of Pink Carnation moves back and forth between the affluent beach communities of Newport Beach, Balboa Island, and Laguna Beach to the mostly poor, mostly Hispanic city of Santa Ana, whose most notorious street gang, in a surprise ending, helps Phineas and Kim bring the villains to justice.

Pink Carnation is rich in both setting and history. The husband and wife team of Phineas and Kim, whose interchanges are marked with humor, remind the reader of the Thin Mans, Nick and Nora Charles:

I hoped my plan didnt sound as lame to Kim as it did to me. Remember the Vietnamese saying, 'you cant catch a fish by climbing a mountain?" I asked.
"You made that up," she said.
OK, maybe I did. Havent you got an old Vietnamese saying thats appropriate?"
How about Oy Vay?"

Pink Carnation is the first in a series of Phineas Routledge novels and is published as a trade paperback by Publish America. The author is donating his royalties to the Orange County Childrens Therapeutic Art Center in Santa Ana, California. Sample copies are available to media representatives at no charge.

Ordering Pink Carnation with a publisher's special discount price of $16.95 plus $3.00 shipping, first copy, fifty cents shipping each additional copy can be through the PublishAmerica website (www.publishamerica.com), or by check or money order mailed to and made payable to PublishAmerica, P.O. Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705. Pink Carnation will soon be available at all internet book stores.

Further information about Pink Carnation can be found at the authors website: www.caseydorman.com