Of Blood and Water
In 1974, a crime wave shakes a small town as children are murdered while camping with their scout troops or parents; a few were kidnapped. A young deputy, Virgil McLendon, is forced to lead an investigation into the brutal murders while a nation watches, wondering at his new techniques. 
No one has heard of profiling and few know how to read a crime scene. Eventually, these methods will shape the new Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, 
but in 1974, they are thought to be strange. 
Virgil McLendon feels he is chasing ghosts as the killers kidnap young people, torture victims, leave a trail of dead campers, and seek to shock an entire town with the bloodshed and cruelty. As the body count rises, he feels the answers are close. Maybe far too close. 
Each act is more violent the last, and the serial killers decide to go after the local law enforcement department as well. It's a battle of brains, and nothing is as it seems. 
Of Blood and Water explores "nature vs. nature", family traditions, the beginnings of a new way to track criminals that will be called behavioral analysis, and the last of the innocence, as a nation changes. The face of justice will be turned aside, and vengeance may rule the case. 
The Oklahoma campground murders, a true crime case, adds reality as McLendon pushes self-doubt away, and chases the killers. 
The first in the Virgil McLendon series, Of Blood and Water, is where the deputy begins learning how to hunt criminals...and where he gains a taste for the chase. 
*Extreme Violence and gore 
*Murder scene details

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http://www.cattd.com  now contains hints about upcoming horror novels. catt dahman continues to make the ordinary quite horrifying as she takes on time travel, Spartan history, the countryside, and family secrets in the next few months. Long awaited novel Smooth is in final editing steps and will be released soon and will chill readers as it pokes at so many phobias we all share: fear of drowning, fear of the dark, and much more. About choices, the novel strips them away and leaves the reader with a frightening emptiness that will thrill S. King fans.

As a writer, i get odd questions like....where do my ideas come from and are writers rich and is it hard....and I get asked things like..."Is that me in your book?" On one hand, I am flattered that I have written so well that someone identifies with a character! But to be honest, a character may have a few traits that real people have, but no one character had EVER been someone from real life. Why? Take Alice and Friends..... the antagonists are (sometimes cannibals) kidnapping, sadistic, inbred, brilliant men. Do you think I KNOW anyone like that??? The women in the book are generally good, strong females, but Alice, of the title is a spit fire and doesn't break no matter what she endures, DO you think I know someone  like HER? Trust me....no one is in my books....well...none are major characters. Now there may be a few very small roles that I put people I know in r/l. They always get eaten or worse. If you are someone i seriously dislike, then maybe some of you will be used for  a character, our first name, traits, the way you looks, things you've said,,,,and then i will kill you off in the most brutal ways imaginable. I have a few on my list. But If I like you, you (may) nothing to fear.

It must be very easy to write scary stories and to entertain and move on. I love those books. I like reading and having an adventure and then going on to a new book. Sometimes, I read a book and it haunts me in some ways. I can't get it out of my head. Ira Levin's novels haunt me. Robert McCammon's Swan Song haunts me. I think that it's because I know there is more to the story and yet, they don''t tell it. They leave me hanging and wondering about the characters. But Swan Song also digs into some weighty issues about how we judge others, who people are beneath the surface, love, bravery, sacrifice and the nature of jealousy and evil.
I long to write just a scary book, but I can't seem to get there. In the zombie series, Z is For Zombie, I tackled the right to die by choice, judgement, ethics,and maternal love. I went so deep into some theme that I began to wonder what my story was all about. Yes, there were zombies, but they were a vehicle for so much more I wanted to tell.  In Alice and Friends, I thought it was a book about a girl being kidnapped and her struggles, but it is about family and shades of badness and I was reminded about Dr. Frankenstein and the way his creature turned on him. In other words, the book became about  more than what was on the surface. Smooth, which is in the works now, started as a book about a creepy town changing and a few heroes trying to do the right things, but the right things became muddled and the book is evolving into something else. It is about the sheer strength of people and the sacrifices they will make and love and bravery.
I have found that each book I write become more than I planned and if asked what a book is about, when obviously it is horror, my answer is something like "It is about hope. Or Love. Or fortitude, Family. Lonliness. Isolation."  Maybe that is why we write and read horror. In the midst of fear and dread, there seems to be another message of something bigger. Is it that way in real life? I don't know, but in the wake of recent tragedies, there are heroes involved. Instead of caring about the idiots doing the killings and what is wrong with them, and instead of only honoring the victims, I would like to know the stories about the heroes. What horror did some face and then make wonderful, selfless choices and serve a higher cause?
Again, I am left to wonder.
But I feel, if we can find the hidden heroism and sacrifice, then we reach the real human spirit and who we really are as a species.

We are doing everything we can to get Alice and Friends released tomorrow for Halloween, my favorite "holiday". I think it's by far the best book I have released and I bet you agree! For one day only, it will be at a Halloween special price.

My books now go through a professional editor who has a sharp little red pen. My agent also had her fingers in the pie as well. With everyone involved, the pie sure has a lot of fingers poking at it! This benefits readers but it does tie my hands at times as I try to move fast and they slow me down. But never fear, I am a busy writer and I produce the horror. I promise, the upcoming holidays won't slow me down...tons of ideas still blaring at me.

Alice is a highly unusual novel. I somehow touched a few genres. There is a mystery here for sure, a psychological aspect (okay, it's chilling, who are we kidding), blatant horror, a cannibal or two, family ties, a nod to horror master Richard Laymon, a snicker and hint about the Z is for Zombie series (but is not part of the series at all but fans of the series will find a HUGE clue to the series mysteries embedded in this book) and it's a thriller.  I feel this is a book that once you read, you'll want to go back and read again just to see all the clues given all along as to where this was headed. It's a rollercoaster and I never, ever lie, but ummm...well, I may not tell the reader everything up front...hee hee. What is more fun than those first sharp turns and spins on a coaster? It's having them at the end...one after another...wham, wham, wham....blinding speed and plunging falls...and what's at at the end? A slam into an ice cold pool...that's what's fun!

I think you'll enjoy this one. What I wrote is terrifying, but what you will think about after you've read it? Much worse. I think you'll be haunted and have chills every time you see a dark road, a smoke house, family photos, a basement. a fair,.....(you get the idea).