Best-Selling Author D. J. Herda Releases First Novel in New Series - Funny, Edgy "Solid Stiehl" Released to Bookstores Nationwide

When Yiddish Bulldog Hymie Stiehl learns that Jungle Jim Alavera of the Chicago White Sox has disappeared, he knows he has to act fast! When he begins finding bodies dropping like flies at a bad delicatessen, Stiehl calls upon the local D.A. for help-and very nearly ends up a statistic, himself."

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) March 27, 2005 -- Veteran author D. J. Herda announced today the release of the first in a series of new humor/mystery tales entitled "Solid Stiehl: The Death and Life of Hymie Stiehl". The book has already garnered glowing reviews, according to publisher ArcheBooks (http://www.archebooks.com).

When Yiddish Bulldog Hymie Stiehl, one of Chicago's most notorious raconteurs around the City of Big Shoulders, learns that pal Jungle Jim Alavera of the Chicago White Sox has disappeared, he knows what he has to do.

Realizing that Alavera is still alive but in great danger, Stiehl fakes his own death, only to reemerge underground-in drag-to try to locate his long-time friend.

After tracking Alavera to a small brownstone in New Town, Hymie and his younger, hipper college-professor sidekick decide to pay the ballplayer a surprise call. But when the two walk into an empty apartment, ransacked and with a bathtub filled with warm water, Stiehl realizes things are getting serious.

Soon bodies begin dropping around Stiehl "like flies at a bad delicatessen." When the president of Columbia College turns up dead in Stiehl's arms, Stiehl decides to call in the D.A. and the members of the Twelfth Precinct. Instead of receiving help, he receives an ultimatum: the D.A. gives Stiehl only 24 hours to turn up Alavera or turn over his colleague for the ballplayer's murder.

With little time to lose, Stiehl sends his partner to talk to the college president's mistress while he attempts to hide the body until things calm down. By the time he reunites with his sidekick, the girl has confessed to having an affair with Alavera while she was dating the college president. Hymie points out that she omitted one small detail from her confession - that she was also dating mobster Sammy the Bull Romano.

When Alavera vows to die for the woman he loves, Stiehl points out that that won't be necessary: "Bull already has a contract out on you." And not for fooling around with his woman, Stiehl adds, but for failing to throw the 1959 World Series--costing Romano a cool million in bets.

From the Dust Jacket:
"This colorful tale of Hymie Stiehls premature death and remarkable rebirth visits all corners of the Windy City, in and out of penthouse apartments and Maxwell Street dives, through the halls and secret passageways of underground collegiate society, and in and out of police stations, City Hall, and even the venerable, veritable bowels of Comiskey Park.

"Along the way, Stiehl matches wits with Jimmy the Mole, Sammy the Bull Romano, funeral director Zeke Elgars ("who carries with him the smell of death like the scent from a cheap carnation"), Jungle Jim Alavera, television broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, an anonymous but devoted blonde exhibitionist, an overzealous District Attorney, a long string of quirky supporting characters, and Monique--about whom Stiehl can only fantasize. He takes them all on in his own inimitable style...and wins."

About The Author:
While most kids growing up on the South Side of Chicago were busy playing baseball or practicing the clarinet, D. J. Herda was cranking out oil paintings. And writing Beat poetry. And sculpting. And composing. And writing stage plays. And arranging music. And finishing a novel. And...well, you get the point.

"Writing was my poetic bitch," said Herda. "If I didn't write for a day or two, I'd start climbing the walls."

The author set out to broaden his artistic experiences in order to make him a better writer. It worked.

Following his formal education at Columbia College, Herda held a string of editing positions (book, magazine, and newspaper). He went on to ghostwrite for such personalities as Art Linkletter, Sammy Davis Jr., and Lawrence Welk, while publishing more than 80 books and several hundred thousand articles, columns, and short stories of his own.

Additional
Herda is president of the American Society of Authors and Writers (http://www.amsaw.org). He may be contacted through his publisher at www.archebooks.com or through his literary agent contact, Faye Swetky.

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