Eric Estrin, and just abut everyone else, was surprised and probably a tad confused when the story line in our LA Observed Script Project script turned on a murder committed with peat. Yes, peat soil. Well, this week's volunteer screenwriter, Alex Austin, has made it work. Estrin explains:

When Alex Austin’s pages showed up in my inbox last week, my natural elation was mixed with a hint of concern. Al, you may remember, is the guy who almost sent our noir drama off the rails with an early contribution that hinted at a murderous L.A.-based Scottish mafia and introduced the peat brick as their weapon of choice.

It was a brilliantly original vision, which was perhaps overzealously embraced by subsequent writers and took us nearly 80 pages to build a story around that made any sense. Now that we were starting to wrap things up neatly, we could ill afford another such flight of fancy.

This week, Al becomes only the fourth two-time contributor to “Right of Way.”

Austin, a teacher by day and former magazine editor, has published a novel, “The Red Album of Asbury Park,” and until recently had a play on stage in Studio City.

Script Project on KPCC's Off-Ramp and YouTube