Everything you thought you knew about sex, society and family is wrong and once you've stopped laughing at the 182 year old wizard who looks like a 26 year old kid, you might just realize you've learned something -- something more than whodunnit in the latest merry mystery of Thaddeus and Melda. They Call Me Merlin Sherlock is Thaddeus' lament and an attempt to convert his fellow wizards from mockery of to admiration for his application of wizard's lore to such mundane endeavors as the recovery of an English baronet's stolen tea pot valued at half a million pounds. Along the way he acquires a skeptical American assistant and they meet enough English eccentrics to fill a loony bin or a conference of wizard's, if anyone can tell the difference.

Bicentennial Day for America is going to be a long one for LarryTreegarden. There's a fifth of Southern Comfort to kill before noon. There's all the memory other people won't let the fifth kill off. The woman who's divorced him three times wants to talk. His older son wants to publish Granddad's Civil War Journal. Everyone wants to talk war history with a World War II vet. The mayor wants Larry's crane to lift the statue of a fictional hero into place in time for the fireworks. The only person not bothering him is his younger son shipped home from Viet Nam and resting for five years under a plain flat stone on the edge of town. This day will resonate with history - of one person, of one family, of one nation shaped by war- and all Larry wants is a little peace. In commemoration of Gettysburg and celebration of the release of a third book, all novels by Carl Stevens will be on sale for reduced prices during the month of July. The Canterbury Tales in Neverland and The Time Traveler's Fool are also on Amazon.

THE CANTERBURY TALES IN NEVERLAND makes a post-apocalyptic detective thriller resonate with literary history and ask what it means to be well-read . . .and to get the joke. This is a post-apocalyptic mystery wherein the detective's need for hard facts clashes with a culture's need to reinvent itself on the ever shifting sands of story telling. There are two main stories. In one, Jackson Thomas, a former mayor of a small town known as The Ville, is trying to avoid being stoned to death on false charges of conspiracy to incite riot and murder. He is hampered by being under arrest and dependent on a friend to wear out shoe leather poking into what really happened. Meanwhile Jackson's son and several of the son's friends have all talked themselves into believing that the wisest solution to Jackson's dilemma is to trek across a hostile landscape in search of angels and a miracle. Both stories work on multiple levels. They are each an adventure on their own, a detective thriller in town, a road trip through chaos in the wilds. They are also each a metaphor for the epistemological quandries of story telling. Jackson is trying to find his way through a dark woods of conflicting witness accounts. His son and fellow travellers are finding their way through a physical wilderness while sharing with each other the stories which make up their culture . . .and enough puns to choke The Bard. The Charging Bull of Terry County and The Time Traveler's Fool are also on Amazon.