Thom is going to Denmark for two weeks (May 15-30).  He received a Literary Exchange Grant from the Danish Arts Council, and will be spending most of his time in Aarhus.  There, he will stay at a brand-new cultural center called Godsbanen.  He will give a shared reading with the Danish fiction writer Brian P. Ørnbøl and a solo presentation at Den Gamle By (The Old Town).  He will also meet with the Danish poet Annemette Kure Andersen to discuss a translation project in process.

Thom’s first novel, The Stages, is available for Kindle readers at Amazon. The Danish paperback version is scheduled for a May 17, 2013 release and can be pre-ordered at many Danish bookstores by searching under the title Kierkegaard Mysteriet.

Read an excerpt.

About The Stages

When he was a teenager living in Denmark as an exchange student, Daniel Peters had a girlfriend. It was the one and only romantic relationship of his life.

Now, twenty-five years later, his former girlfriend has been brutally murdered and a priceless manuscript is missing from the Søren Kierkegaard Research Center, where Daniel works as a translator and where his former girlfriend was the Director. Suspicion falls on Daniel—he was the last person to see the deceased alive and he has no alibi for the time of the murder. Reluctantly, Daniel cooperates in the investigation, seeing his choice as either becoming a mole for the Copenhagen Police or being sent to jail.

As an adult with Asperger’s Syndrome, however, Daniel finds his assignment especially trying. All he wants is to return to his regular work schedule at the Kierkegaard Center doing the thing that interests him most—translating the work of the 19th-century philosopher and theologian whose bicentenary celebration is fast approaching.

He knows he should care about the murder and burglary (the way everyone else around him does) but finds it almost impossible to exist outside his accustomed routine. Like it or not, however, Daniel must assist the Police, and for one chilly week in January his life is completely disrupted. The clues he finds along the way take him back to that unforgettable year of young love and uncover secrets he never imagined.

The Stages is a murder mystery with an unlikely (and unwilling) detective. In the end, when Daniel Peters finally gets his life back, he finds it’s a changed life—and in some ways that even he must admit, a better one.