Mystery
Date Published: February 18, 2026
Narrator: Greg O'Donahue
Run time: 5 hours 20 minutes.
Odyssey Pruit paints pictures of the ghosts and spirits she saw in the halls of an old hotel where she worked ten years before. GUY HOGAN doesn’t believe in ghosts. Hogan is hired to guard Odyssey’s pictures for her first art show in the same old hotel. When an early blizzard closes the roads, knocks out the power and telephone, Hogan is trapped in the hotel with Odyssey’s quirky fans. When imps and ghouls make their presence known, Hogan questions his doubts, and the answer could be murder.
Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?
Deep
inner meaning? Nope. I want to entertain. And if somewhere in the story, some elements cause the reader to pause and
think. If that happens, I’ve done my job.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Like
so many writers, I find it hard to switch from the art of storytelling to the
business of marketing. I work with Blue Cottage Agency to help with social
media and promotion, like this audiobook tour.
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
EARLY
SNOW is my sixth published novel. My favorite? I think it’s the one I’m working
on now. I plan on publishing COMMANCHE COUNTY in early fall. It is the sequel
to THE HOMEPLACE (2015 Tony Hillerman Award winner). I’ve been at work on it
for some time.
If You had the chance to cast your main character from
Since
Jimmy Stewart isn’t available, perhaps Costner? Guy Hogan is older, but life hasn’t tired him
out. Costner has the maturity to play Guy Hogan. Hogan is laconic but opens up
to those he chooses. Costner's screen personality is quietly capable. That’s
Hogan.
When did you begin writing?
I can point to
the exact moment I committed to becoming an author. I was in the airport in
Detroit, headed home after a week of work. It was shortly after 911. In the
time when we never knew if we would be in security lines for two hours or
breeze through in ten minutes. The lines were short, and I was on the concourse
waiting for a flight home. I had finished a forgettable paperback, couldn’t
find anything interesting on the bookshelf in the airport shops, so I opened my
laptop and typed out the opening lines of what I was sure would be an
international best-seller and coming blockbuster movie. I still remember the
opening line: “She was the kind of woman men noticed and he was being paid to
notice.” It got worse after that.
How long did it take to complete your first book?
That first manuscript took perhaps 18 months from
the opening line to “the end”. I learned a lot from completing a manuscript.
Writing is work. That first attempt wasn’t very good. I know. I read it.
Several times. It’s still in the file, and when I wrote the first Guy Hogan novel,
TRAILRIDGE, I went back to the old manuscript for ideas and characters.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
Wow.
I read Robert Ruark’s SOMETHING of VALUE in high school. It’s the story of
post-World War II Africa. Think: safaris
and the Mau Mau fight for liberty from the British colonizers. I got hooked on all of the James Michner
epics. The same with Leon Uris. Somewhere along the way, I read Hemingway. That
planted the desire to write. I read everything for the contemporary Western
authors like Tony Hillerman, Anne Hillerman, CJ Box, and Craig Johnson
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
Without a doubt, it's discovering the story. I’m
not an outliner. When my fingers touch the keyboard to begin a new work, I have
a good idea of where the story starts and where I want it to end. I like to
create the characters that tell my story. Put them on my imagination’s stage
and watch them act out the story.
Describe your latest book in 4 words.
EARLY SNOW is fast-paced, haunting, tense, and
entertaining.
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the future for your writing?
I’m anxious to get to work on the next Guy Hogan story. Tentative title is ABOVE TIMBERLINE. Hogan is on a backcountry fishing trip in Rocky Mountain National Park, and what could go wrong? Plenty.
EK-2
Publishing, a German publisher, will release two novels from my back list this
summer. The books will be in the German language. I’m excited about that.
Kevin Wolf is an award-winning Mystery and Western author. His books include Trailridge (2024), The Homeplace, winner of the 2015 Tony Hillerman Prize and the 2016 Strand Critics Award finalist for Best Debut Mystery. His short story Belthanger received the 2021 Spur Award for Best Short Fiction and his novel, The Bootheel was a 2024 Peacemaker Award finalist.
The legends and landscape of the West are evident in everything he writes. His newest novel, Trailridge, is set against the grandeur of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and the 1982 Lawn Lake Flood. Those who visit Rocky often or have chosen the national park for their once-in-a-lifetime destination will recognize the mountains, valleys, rivers, and the twists and turns of Trailridge as this story races to its climax.
In The Homeplace, a schoolboy hero returns after sixteen years to solve a murder in a windswept, dying town on the eastern plains of Colorado. In his short story Belthanger, readers are given a glimpse of a 1950s small town, soon to be bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System, and the drama that unfolds on the town’s darkened streets one night. The BootHeel is a coming-of-age tale of a teenage orphan and an aging gunman as they follow a treasure map into Mexico as the nineteenth century draws to its end.
Kevin Wolf is a member of Western Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and serves as Vice President of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. He facilitates a weekly critique group for other writers. The great-grandson of Colorado homesteaders, he enjoys fly fishing, old Winchesters, and almost every 1950’s Western movie. He lives in Estes Park, CO with his loving and patient wife.
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