No Prisoners- Available September 2025

An aged embalmer discovers a new connection to life. As a husband, he promised his dying wife he’d write their story of love and grief, sweetness, sadness. Twenty-five years later, he may not have a first sentence for the story of their marriage but also the start of a loving final chapter of his own.

If sex and the dead are topics worthy of a serious mind then Doyle Shields had a very serious mind indeed. His professional work was embalming while his passion was pleasing his beloved partners. First, there was monogamous joy with Sally and then, after years of bereavement, after giving up on love and its blessings, there was Johanna, whose lovemaking almost makes Doyle believe in a life of the spirit.

But life, as Doyle often said, takes no prisoners. It comes and goes and goes on with or without our participation or approval. And to Doyle there is another meaning to the phrase that takes him back to a war and a crime that haunts him still.

Award-winning literary memoirist and poet, Thomas Lynch, has written a sprawling, enthralling first novel about the pursuit of beauty in an imperfect world. It is for any reader who believes that pursuit can be end in splendid victory. As Doyle feels God whisper, “Wait and see.”