I just finished reading a novel from a new publishing house. GreyCore Press is trying to make a footprint in the world of contemporary fiction. With this first novel by writer Julie Mars, they may well succeed. The name of the novel is The Secret Keepers. The publishing date is set for May of 2000.

Steve Dant works for a small literary publication in New York City. He doesn't have much of a life. He goes to work and then goes home. Steve is a loner, carrying around a whole bunch of emotional baggage. He makes a trek to the post office down the block from his office at the end of each workday.

Life is pretty boring until he starts observing another patron of the post office. There is this woman who comes in and gets letters from her post office box. She usually rips up the letters and throws them away. One day she gets excited and forgets her keys on the counter by the p.o. boxes. Steve grabs the keys and is going to try to get them back to her. Only he doesn't. Instead he finds out where she lives and then goes and has a copy made of her set of keys.

Why did Steve do this? Even Steve doesn't have an answer to this question. He is trying to reason with himself why this woman appeals to him so much. Steve begins to find out as much about the woman as he can. He finds out that her name is Christine Timberlake and that she is a bartender at a small place called Skinny's.

What Steve doesn't know is that Christine has been keeping a low profile. She has some things in her past that need to be kept hidden. She had been married to a Parker, a dangerous man. Parker tracks Christine down at Skinny's and lets her know that he's getting married again. But he wants something from Christine first.

Steve begins to stalk Christine. He even goes so far as to enter her apartment when she's at work. Steve is so enthralled with Christine that he has to find out everything about her. He even hires a homeless man to steal one of the letters that she receives from her Post Office box. That's when Steve finds out Christine's most valuable secret.

Steve isn't the only one watching Christine. Parker has hired a private investigator to find out some things about Christine. The P.I. finds out that Steve is hanging around Christine's place and figures him to be her boyfriend.

With the hiring of the homeless man to steal Christine's letter, Steve sets off a series of events that involve the police in two states and the FBI.

The Secret Keepers is more than just a human drama or crime novel. It delves into the murkiness of obsessive behavior and how detrimental the skewered observations from a person's past can be.

With writers like Julie Mars in their stable, GreyCore Press is likely to become a front-runner in the world of small press publishing.

Copyright © 2000 Bruce E. Von Stiers