Pete Carlson
Pete Carlson’s debut novel published in December 2019 won national recognition. Ukrainian Nights won the Finalist Award in the General Fiction category of the prestigious Eric Hoffer Awards 2020 program. It is a gritty, noir novel that takes the main protagonist to the nadir of love and obsession and spits him out. The plot twists and turns until the reader is left wondering who is right and who is wrong.
Carlson's second novel Tearza was published November 2020. Tearza won the Midwest Book Finalist Award by the Midwest Independent Publishing Association and the Colorado Authors League Finalist Award 2021. The compelling story of Tearza reminds us that taking risks is often how friendships and love begins.
Carlson's third novel Deep Waters of Destiny was published May 2022 Grand Prize Short List and Finalist for the Eric Hoffer national awards program. Also won the Finalist Award for fiction by The Colorado Humanities award program. It's the late nineties and rival drug cartels are looking to collaborate in the Caribbean. At the center of this dangerous chaos, Gunner, an experienced captain, agrees to pilot a mega-yacht from Palermo to the Caribbean so the Italian and Russian mafia bosses can oversee and celebrate the arrival of the coalition's first large shipment of drugs. Undercover agent Palmer, a pretty DEA agent, is inserted as a crew member of the "Destiny." Her assignment is to stop the first shipment from Odesa, Ukraine to Aruba and put the leaders in prison. Uncertain of Gunner's motives, Palmer becomes torn between her growing love for Gunner and her duty to take him down with the cartel. During the sail from the Mediterranean to Aruba, they struggle in the grey area between good and evil where nothing is as it seems. This is riveting romantic suspense with a surprising conclusion.
Carlson has been a frequent speaker on various webinars and a guest in KFAI Write On Radio. Carlson serves on the board of the Colorado Authors League. Member—The Authors Guild and Lighthouse Writers. He also has a diverse forty-year career in commercial and multi-family real estate as an owner and developer throughout the country. Carlson moved to Denver from Minnesota in 2017 and recently developed a thirty-unit, luxury condominium project called Altus Vail in Vail Village. He is blessed with his wife, Marsha, three boys and their spouses with four beautiful grandchildren. He enjoys cooking, travel and golf.
