Upchurch Watson White & Max Mediator Howard Marsee Publishes Novel

Howard Marsee, a mediator with Florida- and Alabama-based firm Upchurch Watson White & Max, has over his career worn many hats: journalism teacher, law review editor, trial attorney, county attorney, mediator, arbitrator, and special magistrate. He has now added "author" to his list of accomplishments. His first novel, "Write Sorrow on the Bosom of the Earth," was published in September and available now.

In this mystery/thriller it is 1972, and Clay Dautry, a Los Angeles criminal attorney, is returning to the coal country of Kentucky to unravel a family mystery. For months he's published a classified ad seeking to learn why his father killed a man in 1929. Even before he arrives, people have begun to die.

As he exits the train, Clay sees a mentally retarded black man in shackles. The man is Ortie, and he's shot a local businessman in a practical joke gone terribly awry. Ellen Reames, a young attorney, stands beside Ortie as an angry crowd throws eggs.

Clay and Ellen set out to solve two mysteries: how Ortie came to kill a local restaurant owner, and why Clay's father killed a competing mine operator. Someone is determined to protect secrets hidden for 40 years, and Clay and Ellen become targets of a deadly conspiracy.

According to Mr. Marsee, the novel was inspired by actual events in Southeastern Kentucky in 1910. He first developed the idea for the novel in 1965, while he was then teaching journalism, but the demands of a busy law practice for years kept him from writing the story. By the time he finished, the novel had taken on a complexity that not even he had envisioned earlier. Mystery after mystery peels away, like the layers of an onion, and each one exposes the two protagonists to greater danger.

One reviewer has labeled the book "exceptional" and called it a "truly engrossing novel that will grab and hold your interest to the very end." Another has labeled it an "excellent first novel." In describing his goal in writing the novel, Mr. Marsee quoted the poet Marianne Moore: to "create imaginary gardens with real toads in them."

The digital version of the novel is currently available for Kindle. The print edition, published by Black Hammock Press in Oviedo, can be obtained from Amazon Books. After Dec. 10, 2014, it will be available for Nook and through various other outlets.

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