Hardboiled noir mystery advances to top 183 of 14,570 contest entries
ALBUQUERQUE, NM, May 06, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ — Blood Wing, the forthcoming second novella in the Jack Morrison’s Blood & Bourbon Mystery Files series, has been selected for the longlist of the 2026 ProWritingAid Novel Beginnings contest. The longlist comprises 183 entries chosen from 14,570 submissions — approximately 1.3% of the field.
The contest, organized by ProWritingAid in partnership with Wattpad, awards a $50,000 grand prize and up to nine runner-up prizes of $5,000. Shortlisted writers also receive editorial feedback from a Commissioning Editor at First Ink. The shortlist will be announced the week of May 18, 2026.
Blood Wing is set in Long Beach, California, in January 1951, and follows ex-LAPD detective turned private investigator Jack Morrison as he investigates the death of a Black night-shift janitor at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant, a case the authorities have ruled an industrial accident. The novella is the second standalone entry in Daniel P. Douglas’s hardboiled noir series, following the 2025 release of Blood Tide: A Harbor Noir Thriller.
“The opening of Blood Wing did the work I asked it to do,” said Douglas. “Professional readers across independent passes advanced the manuscript to this stage. That’s the signal that matters.”
The Jack Morrison series is positioned as historical noir, with comparable titles drawn from the work of James Ellroy, Walter Mosley, Lou Berney, and Attica Locke. The San Pedro harbor in Blood Tide was Morrison’s old beat. Blood Wing’s Long Beach Airport belongs to other men, and they’d rather he leave.
Blood Tide is currently available on Amazon and at major booksellers. Blood Wing’s release is pending the results of the Novel Beginnings contest.
About the Author
Daniel P. Douglas is the pen name of identical twins Phil and Paul Garver. The brothers publish noir, science fiction, and adventure fiction under the shared identity, with each title written individually by one author and edited by the other. Their catalog includes Truth Insurrected, the Richter’s War series, Wild Frontier Chronicles, Six-Shooters and Starships, and Blood Tide. Daniel P. Douglas was named a 2014 Foreword Reviews IndieFab Book-of-the-Year Award Finalist in Science Fiction and is a Readers’ Favorite Award winner. Phil Garver, the writer behind Blood Wing, and Paul Garver live in the greater Albuquerque, New Mexico area.
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