TIM RYDER – protagonist
Meet Tim Ryder; he is an editorial cartoonist with equal doses of sarcasm, clairvoyance, and irreverence. He is the son of a retired cop, and he has seen a lot. Seven years ago he drew a cartoon series that earned him a Pulitzer prize but drove a presidential candidate to suicide and himself to drink and out of the cartoon business. He now resides in Orlando, a new town, a new paper, and even more trouble.
Trouble: a Palestinian takes offense to a Ryder cartoon and scuffles with Ryder in the newspaper’s lobby. Is this the beginning of an American version of a Charlie Hebdo incident, or is it something else? Orlando sends a detective to investigate.
Trouble: the detective, who is not a fan, knows about a Ryder cartoon “…ripping the Police Chief about his weight.”
Trouble: while being interviewed by the detective, Ryder’s irreverence emerges, he doodles a cartoon of the detective flattened by steamroller.
Trouble: local politicians turning up dead in murder scenes staged to resemble cartoons Tim Ryder has drawn.
Get to know Tim Ryder, he is a protagonist with an ink-filled “sword.”
