As a longtime fan of criminal suspense stories, 23-year-old William Stalgaitis of Nesquehoning holed up in his room and local library for months to write his first self-published novel, "The Mimic."

According to the novice author, "The Mimic" is a story centered on a serial killer, but underneath the tragedy is exploration of relationships and teamwork.The back cover synopsis reads: "Jezebel Webb is the Chief Medical Examiner for the New Orleans Coroner's office and for her, taking a day off is as rare as snow falling upon the city of New Orleans. And on the one day she chose to put work aside, it would be ruined by Homicide detective and current boyfriend Damien Wilder, as he convinces the brilliant doctor to work on solving a murder. Once she learns the woman murdered in the park was killed using the same methods as imprisoned serial killer Scott Whiting, she realizes she might be dealing with a copycat killer. In the end, Jezebel will learn that friends aren't always what they seem to be.""It's a very serious book," Stalgaitis said.In the following chapters, Webb works tirelessly to uncover the motivations and facts of the case while helping the surviving family members of victims come to terms with the horrific events, Stalgaitis said."It's not easy to know why someone would do this, but the idea was to let people know they're not alone," he said."The characters do what they can to uncover the mystery."It shows the relationship between the detectives and medical examiner. It is a job you wake up to and experience a lot of horrific things, but they do it together. They do have disagreements, but they all pull together," he said."I know a lot of people are into superheroes right now, but I am interested in the idea that a lot of horrible tragic things happen in this world and how people come together."After graduating from Panther Valley High School, Stalgaitis went on to study sports management at Misericordia University in Dallas. He began writing the book shortly after finishing college.Stalgaitis said the complete process of writing and publishing from start to finish took him close to a year."I just started writing and wrote a couple of drafts until I felt I had a finished product," he said.From start to finish the words took six months to get on paper and two months of editing before sending the story to the self-publishing website, CreateSpace.com."My mind runs wild a lot. For me it's just very important to get the ideas down on paper. After I had the main idea for the story, I created an outline for the 24 chapters," he said."The outline changed while I was writing it. More ideas and backgrounds from the characters came out," he said."Since it's a crime/mystery novel I wanted them to catch the bad guy and show empathy and sympathy for the victims."The Panther Valley graduate said he spent tireless hours typing on a laptop in the Tamaqua Public Library during the many months of work."That's where it all started, at the Black Diamond Writers Network group in the library," he said."We would get together once a month and work on writing, editing and publishing. We're just grateful they let us have our meetings there."That's why Stalgaitis decided he would work with Amazon to arrange for $1 from the sale of each book to be donated to the Tamaqua library.Stalgaitis said he has a lot of upcoming projects."I would like to have a sequel to this book. There is so much more to their story. I want to write about the medical examiner and detective characters that I already have.""The Mimic" is available on Amazon.com for $13.