Meet the Crimson Wraith

For 80 years, Titan City, the greatest metropolitan center on the American Eastern Seaboard, has been home to a mysterious masked vigilante, the Crimson Wraith. Along with his sometimes-sidekick the Wily Wisp, the Crimson Wraith has fought against common criminals and fiendish archvillains alike.

Living in Titan City, Gracie Chapel knows of the Crimson Wraith but never expected to meet him. Tough, troubled, and street-savvy, she is a girl accustomed to rescuing herself should she need it. But when their paths cross, Gracie finds herself not only receiving the Crimson Wraith’s aid but helping to solve a murder whose roots go back through the hero’s decades-long career.

(Cover art for The Crimson Wraith: Legacy of the Hood by Cameron Kramer)

In the summer of 2017, I got an idea for what I thought would be a fun story to play around with while waiting to hear back about edits on Wouldn’t Be Fittin’, the memoir of Miss Douglas Haas-Bennet that I had worked with her on for several years.

I started typing up notes, building the world of The Crimson Wraith, and I had produced the first hundred pages of a manuscript before putting it down that November to prepare for the memoir’s publication.

Wouldn’t Be Fittin’ released in May 2018, and in February 2019, The Crimson Wraith called me back. Now, one year later, I am ready to release the completed novel, first as four e-book novellas, each one month apart, leading to the publication of the printed novel in June 2020.

This is my love letter to comic book lore, a story from the grown-up perspective of a man who, as a boy, learned the word “cowl” because that was what Adam West wore on TV.

What if over the 80-year career of a hero who first appeared during the Golden Age of comics, different figures actually fought crime under that identity, passing the role from one to the next? Older comic book fans have already seen that their favorite heroes from decades ago don’t look quite the same today. What if that were because it is actually not the same person in that suit, but a successor?

That idea has grown into a novel--The Crimson Wraith: Legacy of the Hood. And although it is the second book I have published, this is actually the first novel I have completed. I am immensely proud of this work. It was fun to write and very fun to research. As I’ve heard other authors say, I’ve fallen in love with these characters and I’m excited to share them with you in the hope that you may love them as much as I do.