The Aztecs. Ya gotta love them.

I mean how can you not love a civilization that tore the hearts out of more innocent, trusting human beings than the Season 11 auditions for American Idol? Of course, the Aztecs first got their victims drunk and gave them a nice panoramic view of the kingdom from the top of an architectural marvel, so who–I ask you–are the real barbarians?

Anyway, I got to thinking…there’s been a lot of hoopla about the year 2012 because it marks the end of the Aztec/Mayan calendar. But what would the Aztecs have made of the year 2012 if their empire had survived that long? In fact, what would a 21st-century Aztec empire even look like?

And because I’m on a murder mystery kick (I and the rest of America, apparently), I further got to thinking…what if a series of murders took place just as the 21st-century Aztecs were about to close the books on their calendar and start a new one?

Which is where I got the idea for a series of mystery stories to be presented under the heading Aztlan–the name of the Aztec city where these stories take place. Not in the form of novels, because that would be almost normal, but instead in the form of e-novellas.

The plan is to publish the e-book Aztlan: The Last Sun later this  month and the e-book Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven a few months later, and then to collect them as a single, novel-length paperback in August. So all you 21st-century Aztec murder-mystery novella fans make sure to check this site for further announcements–or we may just have to get you drunk and treat you to that panoramic view of the kingdom.