Tom Vandel – författare

Based in part on personal journals, A Killer Story is a vigorous 5-day crime noir thriller with a memoir undertone. A takeoff on vintage detective fiction updated to modern media-hacking times. It's the morally strangled tale of a regular Joe (Teddy) who is coerced to take photos for a gang of vigilante New Orleans ex-cops who dispense justice and pain for profit and pleasure. He tries to skip town, is tracked down, and commanded to kill someone or his daughter will disappear, never to be found. He concocts an outlandish scheme that goes wildly off the rails and then some. It's a rollicking ride to the end.

For years, these stories have remained widely unknown. Until now.     Tales never before told have now surfaced for the first (and perhaps last) time in this inaugural album of short stories. The tales cover a vast range. Death. Survival. Family. Aging. History. Hubris. Custer. Evel. DB Cooper, and beyond. The Broken World is a record of life – from fracture to restoration. With a few laughs along the way. Because that's the way life is.   FINALIST - 2022 HIGH PLAINS BOOK AWARDS

Memories flow in waves and eventually they overcome us and we go under. In the end, we return home again, if only in our hearts and minds. The waves breaking here in this debut collection of poems and vignettes (approx. 120 pages) evoke the distant days of yore and a yearning for home. Yes, you can get there. But you can't go back the way you came. Ride the waves.

The Lost Carnival weaves together a novella and four stories that tell of lost love, life and death, and the limbo in between.    The book begins where the novel A Killer Story left off a few years ago. Teddy Murphy is back. As are his bad habits. His marriage with Kate is up in the air after his visit to a brothel in Butte.  In the title novella, we meet another Murphy: Rex. Whether related to Teddy Murphy we know not. Rex hits a tree skiing, is buried upside down in a tree well. Alone. A dead man. Until the tail of his ski is seen and he's dug up. During his rescue, he has a transcendent experience, a glorious  vision of a country fair and carnival where loved ones, ancestors, friends (dead and alive) are gathered. It's the afterlife, he's convinced. Wants to return there, is distraught he was saved.In limbo, Rex spirals down and buys a gun. He returns to the scene of the skiing incident. Along the way, he asks people if they've had a near-death experience, hears incredible accounts, takes notes for a book he may write. At Red Lodge Mountain, he locates the tree well. Takes his gun from his pack. Looking down at the town of Red Lodge he sees a hot air balloon floating over a park. He squints up at the sun. The trigger waits.Book cover design by Jessie Stenehjem.