// THE DEBUT DUKE SAVAGE NOVEL

Ghosts in the Ash

“In a city that erases people with a transposed digit, one investigator was hired to find a woman who was never meant to be found.”

Duke Savage — disgraced gonzo journalist turned analog private investigator — is hired at 3 a.m. to find a missing woman. She isn't missing by accident. She's been systematically erased by a power network that operates through bureaucracy, not violence. Nobody broke the law. The law was the mechanism.

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The Duke Savage Trilogy · Book 01 of 03

Ghosts in the Ash — A Duke Savage Novel by Simon J Cleary

FILE 001 · DUKE SAVAGE · DEBUT

// ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Irish-born. Los Angeles-set. Writing the system.

A debut novelist exploring how power learns to be invisible.

Simon J Cleary holding a copy of Ghosts in the Ash — Simon J Cleary · Author photo

Simon J. Cleary is an Irish-born writer and entrepreneur. His fascination with institutional systems, public narratives, and the hidden mechanisms that shape modern life informed the creation of GHOSTS IN THE ASH — written across twenty-seven drafts and exploring administrative power, personal responsibility, and the cost of pursuing truth when the people closest to you are paying the price.

He didn't fully understand what he'd written until the night his wife's friends went quiet listening to it and told him: “The dry, sarcastic, notices-everything cynic — that's one hundred percent you.” GHOSTS IN THE ASH is his debut novel and the first installment in the Duke Savage trilogy.

Born: Ireland
Background: Writer & entrepreneur
Debut: Ghosts in the Ash — 27 drafts
Series: The Duke Savage Trilogy
Setting: Los Angeles · Baltimore · Arlington

Twitter / X@simonjcleary Instagram@simonjcleary GoodreadsSimon J Cleary SubstackThe Savage Dispatch

// PROLOGUE · OMAHA, 1999

The prologue from Ghosts in the Ash

The origin of everything that follows. The lamp that never goes out.

The house was a rental on Fontenelle Boulevard. Two bedrooms, a yard that had given up, and the same furnace that ran three months behind the weather.

The man inside the house had a daughter. Eight years old. She slept in the back bedroom with a lamp on.

The men left. The man on the floor of his hallway got up. He would require ongoing management for the next twenty-five years.

The child went back to her room. She left the lamp on.

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// CASE FILE 001

Duke Savage

A working dossier on the investigator at the center of the trilogy. Compiled from case files, bar napkins, and the occasional 3 a.m. phone call.

Confidential

Private Investigator

Subject Profile

FILE 001 · SAVAGE

Name: Duke Savage
Age: 53
Formerly: Investigative journalist — a prodigy with a keyboard and a curse with a conscience. His exposés toppled mayors and vaporized criminal syndicates.
Now: Private investigator. A cramped office above a pawnshop, Los Angeles.
What broke him: The Heartland ring. He went deep undercover to get revenge, and the things he did to keep his cover came home as a chemical ghost. The blowback from his crusade shattered his daughter Julie's sense of safety. She survived. The light in her eyes didn't.
Kryptonite: Julie Savage. The one person who could ever make him hesitate, the one memory that can still cut him to the bone. Her absence is a wound that never closes. She still leaves a lamp on in the hall.
Motivation: He doesn't believe in justice anymore. He believes in exposure. He digs, he reveals, he wounds the beast — not because he thinks he can kill it, but because he can't stand the thought of letting it feed unchallenged. Every case is a penance.
Voice: A cocktail of Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo paranoia, James Ellroy's staccato brutality, and Chandler's weary lyricism. Dry. Sardonic. Never impressed — by power, by money, by evil. Only occasionally by honesty.
The case: Hired to find a missing woman. Discovers he wasn't hired to find her — he was selected. In a war fought with administrative cascades, Duke is the one variable the system cannot quietly resolve.

// THE DISPATCH · AUDIO

The Podcast

Conversations on craft, the system, and what the city won't say out loud. Hosted by Simon J. Cleary.

Coming soon.

Episodes will appear here as they are published. Join the dispatch below to be notified when the first one drops.

// APPEARANCES

Events

Readings, panels, and the occasional workshop. To be announced.

T.B.A.

Appearances, readings, and festival dates for the Ghosts in the Ash launch will be posted here as they are confirmed. Join the dispatch below to be the first to know.

// FREE CHAPTER

Read the opening of Ghosts in the Ash — free.

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// CONTACT

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