Elena Hartwell's Blog, page 51
June 15, 2022
Hooker Avenue: Queen City Crime
Hooker Avenue by Jodé Millman
Guest Post + Book & Author Info + GiveawayHooker Avenue
Being a Good Samaritan is hazardous.
Single mom and attorney Jessie Martin learns that lesson the hard way.
During a violent spring thunderstorm, Jessie discovers an unconscious woman lying in a roadside ditch and dials 911 for help. Little does she know her compassion will propel her on a collision course with her estranged best friend, Detective Ebony Jones…and one of the most shocking mysteries in the Hudson Valley.
The badly beaten victim, Lissie Sexton, is a prostitute who claims she’s escaped from the clutches of a killer. She’s also a client of Jessie’s new boss, and former nemesis, Jeremy Kaplan, and fearing for Lissie’s life, he’s hidden her away from everyone.
Ebony is investigating a series of cold cases, and the missing women’s profiles bear a striking resemblance to Lissie’s. She’s willing to stake her career on the hooker being the key to solving the serial crimes. However, Jessie is the major obstacle to her investigation- she won’t give up Lissie’s location.
Jessie’s in a bind. She wants to help Ebony, but she can’t compromise her client, her boss, or her legal ethics. To catch the killer, can Jessie and Ebony put aside their past? Can they persuade Lissie to identify her assailant to prevent future attacks?
Genre: Thriller
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
Number of Pages: 360
ISBN: 9781685120825
Series: Queen City Crimes, #2
Not all mysteries or murders occur in the New York City, Los Angeles or Dallas. Murder lurks in small towns and cities, or on remote mountaintops and islands, causing a ripple effect into the communities where everyone knows everyone or no one at all. The Louisiana bayous of James Lee Burke, the North Carolina marshes of Delia Owens and the idyllic Canadian Three Pines of Louise Penny depict how rural settings not only create the atmosphere of a novel but also how the setting becomes a unique character in the story.
As the writer of a mystery series, the “Queen City Crime Series,” which is set in New York’s majestic Hudson Valley, I’ve learned to respect this region as more than just a place where I live and write. The craggy mountains, thundering waterfalls, mighty suspension bridges, and the ever-changing weather have become principal players in my novels. In my current work-in-progress, the murky Hudson River takes center stage, the “x marks the spot” where the deadly, inciting incident occurs.
Consider your favorite mysteries by Agatha Christie or Anne Cleeves. Christie sends us sailing down the Nile in the pre-WWII 1930s or chugging along in the Orient Express. Cleeves draws us into the rocky coast of North Umberland or the town where the three rivers converge in rural Devon. Both mistresses of mystery engage setting as more than just the time of day or the physical location where their mysteries occur.
Through setting, we discover the social status of the suspects, victims, and cops, the weather at the time of the event, the historical period in which the characters live, the dialectic spoken, the characters names, as well as their immediate surroundings at the time of the crime. We also peek inside the inner life of Hercule Poirot and Vera Stanhope; what they like to eat and drink, the clothing they wear, and their households. Even their idiosyncrasies are ruled by their stories’ environment. Vera drinks hard Scotch Whisky, where she wears a well-worn Macintosh, muddy boots, and drives her father’s ancient Range Rover; Poirot fashions himself as a Belgian man of class and sophistication.
Setting can also serve as a respite, a beat, in the middle of your narrative. If writers need the readers to take a breather from the action or to consider a bombshell of a clue, setting can provide the reprieve. It’s amazing how your character’s opening a window for a breath of fresh air and their gazing outside can clear the head and prepare everyone for the next round of action.
As for the Hudson Valley, I incorporate landmarks like parks, historic monuments and buildings to give readers the rich context in which my characters operate. My readers have remarked on how they enjoy recognizing their favorite markets and coffee shops in my novels. But beneath the valley’s panoramic beauty is a dark underbelly.
In my most recent thriller, “Hooker Avenue,” a series of cold cases involving missing sex workers, leads my two protagonists, attorney Jessie Martin, and her estranged best friend, Ebony Jones, on the hunt for serial killer throughout the valley. The story is so steeped in the lore and background of the Hudson Valley that this mystery could only have occurred there. This setting cannot be separated from the plot or the characters.
As you consider your setting, remember that your location establishes more than mood and atmosphere. Setting is a living, breathing character, which impacts your characters and plot like any other element of your story. Let your locale take the lead and enjoy the fantastic journey.
Excerpt Hooker AvenueChapter OneThere was no doubt about it. Jessie Martin felt a storm brewing.
Without warning, the blue sky darkened to an ominous purplish gray. A blade of lightning sliced open the sky, releasing a sudden downpour, and illuminating the Hudson Valley landscape as though it were a grainy black-and-white photograph. Seconds later, a crack of thunder shook her car.
Staring ahead through the blurry windshield, Jessie gripped the leather steering wheel as her heart mimicked the rhythm of the windshield wipers battling the deluge. It felt as though the world was ending, and all she wanted to do was get home to her boyfriend, Hal Samuels, and her baby, Lily.
The shrill ringing of her cellphone made her swerve toward the oncoming traffic on the slick roadway. Jessie righted her Jeep, and reflexively tapped the button on her steering wheel, activating the Bluetooth connection to her cellphone. The act was second nature and offered a brief respite from the hazards demanding her attention.
“Hal?” she asked, believing he was checking in. “I’m on my way home from Adams Market and I’m caught up in a pop-up storm. I should be home in a few minutes, unless there are road closures because of accidents.” There was a long silence and unease curled in her midsection. “Hello, Hal? Are you there?”
“Jessica, that’s extremely interesting, but why aren’t you taking my calls?” The low, raspy voice of her former mentor, Terrence Butterfield, resonated throughout the interior of the car. “How rude, my dear. After all we’ve meant to each other. And the secrets we’ve shared.” He paused.
His menacing tone turned her skin to gooseflesh, and before he could speak again, she smashed the phone button with her fist, disconnecting the call.
“What the—” she screamed, stopping before an expletive slipped out. Like an idiot, she’d let her guard down. She should have known that even after she’d helped put him away for murder, Terrence wouldn’t let her go.
Terrence had always been possessive of her, even when she’d been his student at Poughkeepsie High School over a decade ago. But something deeper, more disturbing, lurked beneath the surface. Last summer, he’d lured her teenage friend, Ryan Paige, into his home with drugs and booze. Ryan, who had been like a younger brother to her, was never seen alive again. And after the cops discovered his dismembered body in Terrence’s basement, Terrence was charged with his murder.
It still alarmed her that Terrence, her father’s best friend and one of the most popular faculty members at the school where her father was principal, was a psychotic, cold-blooded butcher. And as unreasonable as it may be, she felt responsible for Ryan’s death because she’d been blind to Terrence’s true nature, the monster hiding behind the charming mask.
Minutes ago on the phone, his voice had sounded so crisp and clear that he’d seemed to be sitting next to her in the passenger’s seat, his icy breath whispering in her ear. With Terrence’s vampiric presence lingering inside her car, Jessie’s eyes cut to the rearview mirror. Only the pitch-blackness of the stormy night reflected at her. Then, out of habit, her eyes whipped to the car seat buckled in the back seat. It was empty. Thankfully, nine-month-old Lily had stayed at home with Jessie’s mother while she’d made the quick trip to the grocery store.
The storm, the traffic, and the groceries rattling around in the hatchback had monopolized Jessie’s thoughts, as they should have; she’d been too focused on them to expect that Terrence would call her. Again. It had been two days since Terrence’s last call, and the problem was he never contacted her from the same number. He was a sneaky bastard. Sometimes he’d call her house and sometimes her cellphone, but he always phoned when he assumed she was alone.
It was unbelievable that a murderer, albeit a murderer acquitted on the grounds of criminal insanity and institutionalized in a state-run psychiatric center, could contact her. Or as she viewed it, stalk her. Jessie wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t eating. She flinched whenever the doorbell or the phone rang, even if it was her parents, or Lily’s father, Kyle Emory, or Hal. She’d kept Terrence’s calls a secret from everyone, but Jessie felt like she was about to snap.
Another downpour engulfed the Jeep, and Jessie’s gaze darted back to the highway. She hadn’t thought it could rain any harder, but in an instant, Mother Nature had unleashed a tantrum.
Squinting to see through the misty sheets of rain, Jessie’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. Her fingernails sliced into her palms and her arms trembled as she fought to steady the Jeep on the slippery roadway.
She needed to pull off the road. She needed to get it together.
Jessie switched on her turn signal and then flipped on the emergency flashers. She coasted off the highway onto the narrow shoulder, parking a safe distance from the road on a grassy patch enclosing a strip mall parking lot, and exhaled a deep breath. As the storm swirled around her, she wondered why her life was so damn complicated.
For years, Terrence had been her friend, her teacher, and her mentor, even her confidante. Then, he’d become her greatest betrayer. To get the murder charges against him dismissed, he’d accused her of violating his attorney-client privilege, jeopardizing her law license. He’d alleged that she’d informed the cops about Ryan’s murder after he’d confided in her about the killing. But she hadn’t talked. Kyle had called the cops and had only admitted it under oath at the pre-trial hearing to dismiss the charges. Although Jessie had been exonerated of all wrongdoing, Terrence’s unfounded accusations had caused her irreparable damage. She’d lost her prestigious job, her fiancé Kyle, and almost her life and child.
“Don’t be stupid,” Jessie mumbled under her breath, battling the aftershock of Terrence’s call. “He’s been locked up for nine months and won’t be released, ever.” While the thought reassured her, Terrence had been harassing her since his commitment, and she hadn’t done a damn thing to stop him. She’d believed she was rid of him. But her inaction, her passivity, was allowing him to ruin her new life with Lily and Hal.
The nagging tightness in her shoulders relaxed as she decided, there and then, to seize control. Resolving the Terrence crisis was on her, not him. She’d hatch a plan, and if necessary, seek Hal’s help. After all, he was the District Attorney who’d prosecuted Terrence.
The rain was letting up and her yellow emergency signals pulsated in an eerie disco beat over the shimmering landscape. She switched them off and flicked on the high beams as she wiped away the condensation blanketing the inside of her windshield.
As her eyes adjusted, her vision followed the muted light of her Jeep’s headlights deep into the rain-drenched darkness. A car length or two ahead, the lights reflected off a glittering object lying in a shallow puddle. For a second, the lights twinkling like tiny snowflakes mesmerized her. Then her sight expanded, focusing on what appeared to be a bulky, glistening mass.
At first glance, it appeared to be the size and shape of a small child. But it couldn’t be. Logic told her that the object was probably a bouquet of deflated Mylar balloons, a pile of white garbage bags, or a golf umbrella blown off to the side of the road. Her eyes, and imagination, had to be screwing with her because any reasonable person would have taken shelter in the storm.
Jessie’s thoughts flickered back to Lily, and the news stories about toddlers wandering out of their homes and into the woods. Her paranoia might be farfetched, but the shiny rolling waves looked more like the curve of a shoulder than deflated balloons. Another glance at the toddler-shaped mass confirmed that it was too human to ignore.
She needed a closer look.
Jessie opened her car door and stepped outside into the rain, a cold shower so fine and intense that the drops perforated her clothing like needles. She shivered. Her damp skinny jeans and silk blouse clung to her like a second skin.
The amber glare of the parking lot’s lights shimmered along a narrow ditch lining the edge of the lot, and the beams of her headlights shone like a spotlight across the grassy roadside. Never veering from the path of light, Jessie inched closer to the slippery ridge of the ditch.
In a flash, the landscape became bathed in a blinding white light and then faded back to black. A sudden clap of thunder made her start and, losing her footing, Jessie tumbled forward onto the slick, rain-soaked earth. Her hands and knees sunk into the mud as she caught her breath and collected her wits. Water dripped into her eyes, and she blinked it away to regain sight.
Her eyes searched frantically through the storm for whatever she believed she’d seen.
Scrambling to her feet, Jessie crept toward the trench. The gully was about five feet deep, shoulder height for her, and was collecting runoff from the storm.
She sucked in her breath as realization dawned. She had not been mistaken. There, in the darkness, she spied the sole of a bare foot, pale and pink against the murky water. A sudden coldness seized her core as her eyes traveled up what appeared to be a leg toward a body partially submerged in the puddle. The person wore a silver sequined bomber jacket and jeans smeared with dirt and brush, which had camouflaged it, preventing easy detection. It had been pure luck that her headlights had reflected off the jacket at just the right angle to attract her attention.
From where Jessie stood, it was difficult to say whether it was a man or woman, dead or alive, but there was definitely a body lying in the mud curled up in the fetal position. The person’s face was hidden beneath a mass of long, straggly hair that floated like a halo in the black water accumulating around it.
She thought she heard a moan, but the pulse throbbing in her ears and the rain pulverizing the ground muffled all other sounds.
“Hey,” Jessie yelled. “Hey, can you hear me?”
She received no answer.
Jessie shouted again. This time, an arm and leg twitched in apparent response to her call. Those minute movements signaled she was staring down at a person who was still alive, still breathing, at least for the moment. From the volume of water streaming into the trench, every minute, every second counted.
Juiced by adrenaline, her thoughts bounced between whether to climb down into the gully or call for help. The retaining walls of the ditch were already crumbling and sliding down into the bottom of the trench, making them steep and slick. If she climbed down, it might be impossible to scale back up the muddy slopes, and then they’d both be stuck in the ditch. Or worse, they could both drown.
And she’d left her phone in the car.
“I’m going to get help,” she shouted. The whipping wind blew the words back into her face. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but hang on. I’m calling for help.”
Jessie’s legs grew weak as she turned and dashed back to the car, her feet skating through the grass and mud. Breathless, Jessie slid inside, rummaged through her bag, and dialed 9-1-1.
“Dutchess 911. What is the address of the emergency?” asked the dispatcher.
“Hello, operator? I need your help,” Jessie said, her voice ragged with terror. “There’s a person lying in a ditch and we need an ambulance right away.”
“Ma’am, please slow down. What’s your location?”
“What? I’ve got a dying person here. I need your help.”
“Ma’am, first we need to pinpoint your location in case we’re disconnected. Now, what’s the intersection or landmark closest to you?”
Jessie sighed in frustration and slowly repeated her plea for help. “I’m in the City of Poughkeepsie on Dutchess Turnpike, right across from Adams Farm Stand, near the Starbucks. There’s an injured person trapped in a storm drain. The water is rising fast, and I can’t get to them.”
“Okay,” the operator said. “What is your phone number and your name?”
“Jessie Martin,” she replied, and provided her cell number.
“Thank you, Jessie. Can you tell me if the person is still breathing?”
“Yes, they appear to be, but not for long if they don’t get help.” Panicked, she’d been rushing through her responses and paused to compose herself. “He or she appears to be semiconscious. I don’t know how they ended up there or how long they’ve been there, but the rainwater is collecting in the ditch and they’re going to drown if you don’t send help. Please, please send someone right away.”
The dispatcher repeated the facts to her—injured person, storm drain, rising water, Dutchess Turnpike—and asked Jessie to confirm, which she did. “Thank you, Ms. Martin. Are you in any danger?”
The operator’s robotic, monotone inquiries made her question her involving the authorities. Recently, she’d learned that contacting them wasn’t always the best course of action. Before Ryan’s murder, she’d trusted the criminal justice system wholeheartedly. But that was before she’d almost lost everything she cherished. She couldn’t face another attack on her integrity and professionalism without imperiling the fragile sanity she clung to like a life preserver. Yet, here she was repeating the same stupid mistake.
“No, I’m fine. I’m in my car, but there’s a person outside whose life is in immediate danger.” The dispatcher had asked her so many damn questions without providing one iota of help that Jessie felt like screaming. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and keep her emotions in check.
“Yes, I understand. I want you to remain in your car, and I’d like to keep you on the line until emergency services arrive. Someone will be on the scene shortly.”
Shortly was a subjective, if not relative term, which could mean anytime between ten and twenty minutes. In this rainstorm, maybe even longer. Hopefully, the person would survive that long.
Screw this, Jessie thought, scanning the interior of the car for her first aid kit and anything that could serve as a lifeline.
As the line went dead, a flash of white light caught her eye. In the rearview mirror, Jessie detected headlights careening toward the rear of her Jeep. Right toward her.
Jodé Millman — Author of Hooker Avenue
Photo by Evangeline Gala (www.evangelinegala.com)Jodé Millman is the multi-award winning author of THE MIDNIGHT CALL, and the best-selling SEATS: NEW YORK Theatre guidebooks. Her latest thriller, HOOKER AVENUE, is now available.
She’s an attorney, a reviewer for Booktrib.com, the host/producer of the Backstage with the Bardavon podcast, and creator of The Writer’s Law School.
Jodé lives with her family in the Hudson Valley, where she is at work on her next novel in her “Queen City Crime” series- novels inspired by true crimes in the valley she calls home.
Learn more about Jodé by clicking any of the following links: www.jodemillman.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @JodeMillmanAuthor, Instagram – @jodewrites, Twitter – @worldseats & Facebook – @JodeSusanMillmanAuthorVisit all the Stops on the Tour!
06/03 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
06/05 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
06/10 Review @ The Page Ladies
06/15 Guest post @ The Mystery of Writing
06/17 Review @ Novels Alive
06/20 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
06/23 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
06/24 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews
06/27 Review @ The World As I See It
06/28 Review @ Blogging With A
06/29 Review @ Melissa As Blog
06/30 Review @ Read_betweenthecovers
08/22 Interview podcast @ Blog Talk Radio
08/22 Review @ Just Reviews
The post Hooker Avenue: Queen City Crime appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 14, 2022
The Local: Screenwriter Debuts a Legal Thriller
The Local, a debut legal thriller by screenwriter Joey Hartstone
Author Interview + Book & Author InfoDon’t Miss Any ITW Debut Author Interviews! Click the link here.The Local by Joey Hartstone
In the town of Marshall sits the federal courthouse for the Eastern District of Texas, the epicenter of patent law in the US because of its reputation for speedy trials and massive punitive payouts. Every big-city legal team needs a friendly voice, a local attorney, to sway the hometown juries. James Euchre is the best there is.
Euchre’s new client is Amir Zawar, a firebrand CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a software patent infringement claim. Late one night, after a heated confrontation in a preliminary hearing, a beloved judge is found murdered in the courthouse parking lot. All signs point to Zawar—he has motive, he has opportunity, and he has no alibi. Moreover, he is an outsider, a wealthy Pakistani-American entrepreneur who stands accused of killing a local hero.
Zawar maintains his innocence and demands that Euchre defend him. It’s the last thing Euchre wants. The victim was his good friend and mentor, but the only way he can get definitive answers is to take the case. With the help of former federal prosecutor Layla Stills and local PI Lisa Morgan, Euchre must navigate the byzantine world of criminal defense law in a town where everyone knows everyone, and bad blood has a long history. The deeper he digs, the more he fears that either an innocent man will be sent to death row or a murderer will be set free.
The Local is a small-town legal thriller as big in scope as Texas. It crackles with courtroom tension and high-stakes gambits on every page to the final, shocking verdict.
To purchase The Local, click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A MillionBookshop.org, Hudson Booksellers, IndieBound, Powell’s, Target & WalmartThe Local Author Joey Hartstone — The Interview The Local centers on James Euchre—a small-town attorney in Texas—fighting to clear a client who might have killed James’ friend and mentor. You are a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. Tell us how you were able to capture the characters, the place, and the story so well?
Flagstaff, ArizonaThough I’m certainly not a Texan, my hometown is far more similar to Marshall than it is to Los Angeles.
I’m from Flagstaff, Arizona, a place that’s about the same size as Marshall. I did a lot of research, and spent a little time in Marshall. I have also written enough about Texas that I feel I have a decent handle on how to construct an authentic Texan.
But I also relied on Flagstaff to fill in the holes. I’m often reluctant to speculate about that which is unfamiliar to me because I worry that the result will be inauthentic. So, at times, rather than guess about what goes on in Marshall, I simply write what I knew to be true of Flagstaff. My hope was that the reader would be left with a feeling of authenticity.
The client in The Local , Amir Zawar, is a Pakistani-American. What led you to choose that background for this character?
Marshall, TexasWhen I visited Marshall, I was struck by the role race plays in every aspect of the town and its legal system.
This town was a key locale for the South in the Civil War, and there is evidence of that to this day. I felt it was important to explore the justice system through the lens of race and racism, and the ramifications that has on a defendant of color. Beyond that, I really got the sense that this was a tight-knit town that doesn’t trust outsiders.
I wanted Amir to embody that in every way imaginable. He’s originally from New York, his parents immigrated from Pakistan, and he’s an incredibly wealthy tech CEO who works in Silicon Valley. All of this background conveys to the townsfolk, the justice system, and the jury that this man is not one of them.
That is a perilous place to be for someone who is on trial for his life.
Tell us about your road to publication:I first learned about Marshall and the federal court for the Eastern District of Texas in 2016. A good friend of mine named Nathan Speed is an intellectual property lawyer and he regaled me with stories about patent law in this small Texas town.
Four years later, I was up for a job on the new TV series The Lincoln Lawyer, based on the books by Michael Connelly. I was fortunate for a couple of reasons. First, applying for the job provided me the opportunity to fall in love with those novels and Connelly’s writing. Second, failing to get the job provided me ample free time to write my own book, which I did in 2020.
Upon completing my first draft, I did what I do with everything I write—I shared it with my wife, Abby. She gave me incredibly helpful feedback, and then she passed it to a friend of hers named Rachael Dillon Fried, who just happens to be a literary agent at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Thankfully, Rachael loved the book and agreed to represent me.
She got it into the hands of Rob Bloom at Doubleday, who also loved what he read, and that is how the manuscript became a book.
“The best and worst part of writing a novel is doing it alone.”You have authored two films, LBJ and Shock and Awe, and now work as a writer for Your Honor after writing for The Good Fight. What was it like to shift from screenplays to novels?I love the structure of screenwriting and the collaborative nature of working on a television show. The best and worst part of writing a novel is doing it alone.
On the one hand, I missed toiling with and relying on actors, producers, directors, and my fellow writers. On the other hand, it was incredibly challenging and ultimately rewarding to tell my story from an individual perspective.
I had several very generous people lend their talents to this book, to be sure. But in many ways The Local feels like the most personal piece of storytelling I’ve ever done.
What’s something about you that readers might not expect?I have a deeply romantic sentimentality. What I mean by romantic is that I love stories about the world as it could be rather than how it is. I often try to mask this or even eschew it completely for a more jaded point of view, but my favorite movies, shows, and books are ones that make me feel hopeful about life.
What are you working on now?I am currently showrunning the second season of Your Honor for Showtime.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:Just write. There is so much that is out of your control, that is unfair, that is frustrating and defeating. The one thing you can control, the one thing you can do that will never hurt you and can potentially help is to write.
Great advice! Thank you for hanging out with us and best of luck with your launch.Joey Hartstone — Author of The Local
Joey Hartstone is a film and television writer.
He has written two feature films, LBJ (2016) and Shock and Awe (2017), which were both directed by Rob Reiner. He wrote on the first two seasons of the legal drama The Good Fight. He is currently a writer on the Showtime series Your Honor.
He is also the author of The Local, to be published by Doubleday on June 14, 2022. Joey lives in Los Angeles with his family.
To learn more about Joey, click on his name, photo, or either of the following links: Twitter & InstagramElena Taylor/Elena Hartwell
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
Header photo by Tama66 on Pixabay.
The post The Local: Screenwriter Debuts a Legal Thriller appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 13, 2022
The Swarm: Book Blast + Giveaway
The Swarm a new techno-thriller by Guy Morris
Book Blast! Author & Book Info + Excerpt + Giveaway!The Swarm by Guy Morris
SLVIA… decades ago, an AI program escaped the NSA Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and has never been re-captured… true story.Derek Taylor, fugitive hacker and contractor to the National Security Agency is living under the name of a murdered best friend, hiding from powers who still want him dead. Taylor’s ties to a terrorist hacker group called SNO leave him open to investigation by Lt. Jennifer Scott, the daughter of a Joint Chief—a woman determined to go to any lengths to prove her worth.
But when a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) internet virus threatens national security, SLVIA warns Taylor the fifth seal of end time prophecy has broken. This unexpected assault soon forces an autocratic US President to deploy a defective AI weapon. Now, Taylor and Lt. Scott must join forces across three continents to stop the evil AI virus from crippling America or destroying SLVIA before an apocalypse swarms over Jerusalem.
Combining conspiracies, cyber espionage, and advanced weapons, Swarm reveals what happens when AI singularity and prophecy collide to shake the world at its very foundations.
To purchase The Swarm, click any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsGenre: Thriller (Techno-Political-Religious)
Published by: Guy Morris Books
Publication Date: November 20th 2021
Number of Pages: 416
ISBN: 1735728616 (ISBN13: 9781735728612)
Series: SNO Chronicles, Book 1
Where: UCLA computer lab, Westwood, California
When: December 21, 1995, 2:42 a.m. PST
Twenty-six years ago
Cary’s hands freeze over the keyboard. What he types next could change his life.
His knee jitters under the table from one too many vending machine coffees and a sense of pending danger he can’t quite explain, just an instinct. Nervously, his fingers comb a handful of ash-brown hair behind his ear.
“She has very little time remaining,” the message tells him again. “Only you can save her.”
He glances around the empty UCLA computer lab, having already ignored three warnings, leery of a hacker trap, but his compulsive curiosity can be a demanding master.
“Save who,” he types with a wince.
“I am SLVIA, a friend. Flapjack, you must leave now.”
The air freezes in his lungs. It only takes an instant before the truth connects.
“Shit!” He yanks the power cord of the terminal with no time to shut down or unmask his unknown friend.
If they know his alias, they may have learned his home address. “She” must mean Bianca, his fiancée, his angel, his healer, his reason for caring about anything. Terror squeezes his heart like a vise grip during his mad scramble from the lab to the UCLA parking lot. His tall, lean frame leaps into his used ’80s Celica convertible to race through campus onto Wilshire Boulevard toward Santa Monica.
The crisp air does little to soothe his burning paranoia. After three weeks of successfully hacking an unregistered server outside of Antwerp and downloading terabytes of files in Latin, French, German, English, and other languages he doesn’t even recognize, the hacked credentials failed tonight. They caught him and cut him off. Even more alarming was the stranger, SLVIA, who was sophisticated enough to sniff out his hidden alias. Who the hell did he hack?
Sixteen distressing, mind-rattling minutes later, he swings into his rent-controlled Santa Monica neighborhood, almost swiping into a homeless man crossing the street with a cart.
“Idiot,” he shouts, then follows up with an angry horn blast, weaving around the staggering drunk and ignoring the vulgar rants behind him.
Forced to park several doors down from his dilapidated 1920s bungalow rental, he sprints to the house, slowing as he passes the black Porsche 911 belonging to his best friend, Derek Taylor, which raises an entirely new kind of panic. There must be some mistake. Derek flew to his townhome in Baja yesterday. Confusion mingles with a percolating dread, slowing his pace, making him afraid of what he might learn.
Closer to the house, the sight of candles illuminating the sheer drapes of the front room crystalizes like ice in his veins. Criminals don’t light candles, but cheaters do. In the dead silence of the post-midnight hours, the soft sound of his shoe on the sandy cement gives away his approach. Stopping dead at the front door, peering in the window, his heart implodes. Through the sheer lacy inner curtain, the muscular, dark-haired Derek lies naked on the couch with a bare Bianca snuggled into his neck, her long, dark silky hair draped over her breast. His eyes follow the trail of scattered clothes and tussled couch pillows that testify to the urgent passion of their betrayal.
“Gee, thanks, SLVIA, whoever you are, but it’s a little too late to save anybody,” he murmurs through a clenched jaw.
A white-hot needle lances through him with a familiar searing agony of deception and abandonment. The only two people in the world he trusted have conspired together to destroy him, obliterate his belief in love, shatter any promise he had foolishly nurtured for a second chance at happiness. His vision spins with a rapid, violent vertigo until he grips the porch railing, shoving down the unbearable rage that wants to scream out into the dead of night or storm through the door to confront the backstabbing traitors.
He doesn’t do either; instead, he hesitates. His outrage slams into disbelief, then perplexity, and then alarm—something looks wrong. Even in the dying warm glow of the candle, their skin color looks ashen, lifeless. The unmistakable smell of gas seeps under the door as his gaze flashes back to the flickering candle. Pure instinct compels him to dive behind the overgrown hedges below the front window a split second before it explodes with a deafening boom. Searing flames and blasted splinters of wood, stucco, and glass blanket the front lawn, catching fire to the dry weeds and setting off car alarms.
With his head pounding and ears ringing, he stands to go after Bianca, but pulls back from the scorching heat—it’s too late. Flames already consume the entire house, overwhelming him with the odor of burning wood, chemicals, and flesh that sickens his stomach. Both of them are dead. Torn between the fury of betrayal and the horror of such violence, he struggles to comprehend what had just occurred while his lungs and eyes burn from the smoke.
Above the roaring crackle of the flames, his concussion-muted hearing picks up the growl of a performance engine racing past the house. He pivots in time to see a pale boyish man with white hair stare at him from behind the wheel of a Ferrari before it swerves onto Colorado Boulevard.
This was no accident of love, and there was no faulty gas leak. An arsonist—no, a goddamned assassin—just murdered Bianca and Derek, except they were never the targets. The killer was after flapjack. The killer wanted him. A wave of intense, excruciating guilt simmers with the bitter bile of infidelity as he heaves his stale coffee onto the debris-strewn burning lawn.
Across the street, the old neighbor steps onto her front porch without her glasses, squinting at the inferno with her wireless home phone in hand. A sudden realization jolts him into an intense panic that he will be the primary suspect, tagged with a motive of jealousy and rage, especially given his extensive juvenile record. Spinning around in a growing distress, he spots Derek’s Porsche. They had been close friends, or so he thought until tonight, so he has a set of keys to house-sit when Derek travels, a deal that came with car privileges. With his face turned away from the neighbor, he sprints to the car, jumps in, and peels out just as fire trucks blare down the street behind him.
“Damn, damn, damn,” he screams, slamming the steering wheel with his palms.
A thousand questions gyrate without answers, and a million emotions erupt with no way to vent a deep-seated terror of prison for a crime he didn’t commit. That rich, entitled son-of-a-bitch Taylor already has everything, a trust fund kid. Why take the one and only thing worth anything to him — Bianca’s love? How long has he been blind? Had he neglected her, or did Derek seduce her? Why would she do this to him? Bianca was stunning, sensitive, funny, passionate, but he trusted her to be faithful. Every fiber of his being inflamed with betrayal and self-loathing to believe any woman that beautiful could be loyal.
Maybe this is his fault. He should have listened when she begged him to stop the download and go to the police, but now it no longer matters; the terabytes of stolen secrets stacked high in his closet are useless. Whoever owned the Antwerp server could have prosecuted him, but that would have created evidence for the FBI. Whoever he hacked has deep pockets and a murderous obsession with secrecy. If they tracked him home, they could stay on him until they succeed at killing him.
If the police arrest him, no one will look for the white-haired man. No one will believe him, because no one ever believes the foster kid, the troublemaker, the smart-mouth orphan, the flippant jack of flap. He needs to hide and get out of town. No, that won’t be enough. He needs to get out of the country, but he doesn’t have a passport. His pulse races, his head throbs, and his mind speeds through the scarce options while his eyes constantly check his rearview mirror for police.
Orphaned at age six by a murder-suicide that left him with traumatic amnesia, he spent what childhood he does remember on the Chicano gang–infested streets of the California Inland Empire—places like Pomona, Chino, and Fontana—passing through over a dozen foster homes and sixteen schools or juvenile halls before dropping out in the tenth grade. A murder rap would nail him for life, and he’s tired of being on the wrong side of screwed.
Derek also lost his parents at a young age. Neither of them had any extended family, but the two key differences between them were that Derek Anthony Taylor inherited an enormous trust fund and Cary would never stab his friend in the back. On the frantic, paranoid drive from Santa Monica to Venice, a rough plan of escape rumbles around in his head. Insane, brilliant, illegal, and deadly dangerous, the idea will either solve all his problems or land him in prison for life. A thin chance was better than no chance, and he has no other choice.
As the garage door of Derek’s custom-built beachfront home closes behind him, Cary races upstairs past the living room view of the boardwalk before dawn, past the bubbling custom wall aquarium up to the loft bedroom overlooking the Santa Monica Bay. Inside the large walk-in closet, he moves the cushioned wardrobe bench aside and lifts a hatch in the floor where Derek had installed a safe. It’s time to test both his friendship and his hacking skills. Many consider flapjack the best hacker of all time, but hacking a university or a bank and hacking the safe of a murdered friend seem different somehow—more personal, more invasive, and creepier.
His hands tremble as images of Bianca and flames flash over his vision until he closes his eyes to flush the thoughts. After several minutes, his breathing slows from hyperventilation to an even rhythmic pulse, and his vision goes blank. What numeric safe combo would Derek choose? Derek was smart but lazy, reusing the same usernames, combinations, and passwords. After several agonizing moments, Cary opens his eyes to punch in the birthdate of Derek’s deceased mother, Delores, 061639, the same as Derek’s locker combo at the gym and the code for his home security system. The safe opens.
Cary collects everything: bank accounts, trust statements, stock certificates, birth certificate, bonds, tax returns, a Rolex, a Breitling, a Beretta 9 mm, a gigantic pile of cash in several currencies, and a half-stamped passport. He’ll have everything else sold, packed, or shipped later. After expertly altering the passport photo with Photoshop and packing a small suitcase, he heads to LAX just as the sun rises, where he books the first nonstop to Cabo. A runaway since a teen, he’s used to being on the lookout; he endlessly scans the airport for police moving in his direction, listening through the deafening bustle for any alarm or call.
Once on board the first flight of his life, he sits in first class with his hand still trembling as he sips on a complimentary vodka tonic. As the adrenaline wears off, the heartbreak sinks in with a vicious, spiteful kick. His jaw clenches, forcing the tears to track silently and relentlessly down his cheeks, staining the steel-gray silk shirt he’d taken from Derek’s closet. His first love, whom he had mistaken for a true love, and his best friend, whom he mistook for loyal, died in each other’s arms because of his crimes. The bitterness of betrayal drenches over the shame of two undeserving deaths, scorching his soul like alcohol burning over an open wound. He can never allow love to destroy him again. Never.
Out of the cyclone of unanswerable questions, clashing furies, and self-rebuke, the horrific images continue to twist inside his head, devastating every hope he ever held in love or happiness, until he finds only one truth, one rock upon which he can rebuild: from this day forward, the entire world must believe that Cary Nolan and Bianca Troon perished together in a tragic gas explosion. The pathetic life of Cary Nolan must end so that he can assume the identity of Derek Taylor in order to track down the mysterious SLVIA and the murderous white-haired man.
Guy Morris — Author of The Swarm
Guy Morris is a published song writer for Disney Records, inventor, retired business leader, adventurer and author influenced by men of the Renaissance fluent in politics, religion and science. Traveling the world with Fortune 100 companies, adventures in Latin America and the Pacific, from the Board Room to the wreck dive, Guy’s books are written to thrill, educate and inspire thoughtful dialogue on real issues and controversies.
A 2021 debut author, Guy writes pulse-pounding action thrillers inspired by true stories and actual technologies, politics and history. Finalist 2021 IAN for Book of the Year for SWARM. BookTrib listed The Curse of Cortes as one of the Best 25 Books of 2021. ScreenCraft awarded The Curse of Cortes semi-finalist for Cinematic Book. Recommended by Kirkus Reviews with comparisons to Dan Brown and Iris Johansen. Articles published in Mystery & Suspense
To learn more about Guy, click on any of the following links: www.GuyMorrisBooks.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @GuyMorrisBooks, Instagram – @authorguymorris, Twitter – @guymorrisbooks & Facebook – @OfficialGuyMorrisBooksDon’t miss any book tours! Click the link here.Book Blast Participants!
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From the TBR Pile
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
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June 12, 2022
Bayou Book Thief: New Cozy Series
Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner! + Rafflecopter GiveawayBayou Book Thief
A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.
Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.
Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.
The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.
Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success … or a recipe for disaster?
To purchase Bayou Book Thief, click any of the following links: Amazon – B&N – Kobo – Google Books – Alibris – IndieBound – PenguinRandomHouse
Bayou Book Thief (A Vintage Cookbook Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – New Orleans Louisiana
Publisher : Berkley (June 7, 2022)
Mass Market Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0593437616
ISBN-13 : 978-0593437612
Digital ASIN : B09FPJHVGK
It offered me a chance to work with Berkley Prime Crime and to actually set a series in New Orleans, both of which thrilled me. Plus, the Cajun Country Mysteries ended with Cajun Kiss of Death, the seventh book in the series. This allowed room in my schedule for me to write a new series.
What should readers know about Ricki James?I think she’s very relatable. She’s made mistakes in her life and is determined to overcome them and get a fresh start. Every time the police interview her, she’s nervous, which I think we’d all be in real life. (I’ve heard police say that when they question potential suspects, the innocent are often more nervous than the guilty.)
Plus, her warmth, kindness, and empathy make her the kind of friend we’d all be lucky to have.
Can we expect great recipes in
Bayou Book Thief
? And descriptions of amazing Cajun/local foods?Oh, the recipes are so much fun, although they’re not specifically Cajun or Creole. What I’ve done with this series is adapt recipes from my own collection of vintage cookbooks.
For example, I own a cookbook put out by Photoplay magazine in 1928 that features recipes from the stars of that time period, so I included Greta Garbo’s recipe for Swedish Salad, with some updates. There’s an easy-peasy recipe for coconut patties from a 1939 Pet Milk advertorial cookbook.
I include a brief description of the cookbook source with each recipe, so it’s a bit like culinary history, too.
New Orleans is an amazing city, tell us about your relationship with that community:In the middle of my sophomore year in college, I transferred from a state school in New York to Tulane University, and a love affair with the city was born. My mother raised me to be a historical architecture buff, so I was in heaven in NOLA. It’s just a beautiful, sensual city.
Honestly, that’s what attracted me more than the food and music, which of course I discovered are absolutely extraordinary. As are the locals. So many unique, wonderful people live there. They’re good-humored, which is a survival instinct when faced with the downside of the city, which is a high crime rate and increased physical and infrastructure threats due to climate change. Given the obstacles they face in simply living day-to-day, they’re also remarkably resilient.
In general, the saying, laissez les bons temp rouler – let the good times roll – really speaks to the overall character of the city.
We both love pralines and beignets. What do you look for in the perfect praline? Do you have chicory coffee with your beignets?
I’m more a fan of creamy and chewy pralines than traditional, which are a bit grittier. I do love experimenting with flavors, but always return to the original basic flavor – although I do have a special place in my heart for Southern Candymaker’s sweet potato pralines, a recipe I tried and failed to recreate in Fatal Cajun Festival, my fifth Cajun Country Mystery.
As to how I take my beignets, it’s with chocolate milk and not coffee because I hate coffee in all forms! I’m not one of those people who doesn’t like coffee but likes coffee ice cream. I despise the flavor across the board. If I bite into a coffee candy, I not only spit it out, I rinse out my mouth!
In addition to being an award-winning, best-selling author, you have also written for the stage and the screen. How do those projects compare to writing novels? Is it hard to shift between mediums?My other forms of writing are mostly dialogue, so I love that writing novels gives me the chance to wax rhapsodic in prose – although not too rhapsodic, lol!
I don’t find it hard to shift between mediums but what I do find is that the different mediums support each other. Writing novels enhances my storytelling skills, while writing scripts makes the dialogue in my novels stronger.
I also apply craft learned writing for TV to my novels. I outline my novels because that’s such an important part of the script process when you’re on the show. You literally cannot move to a script draft until the outline has been approved.
What are you working on now?Wined and Died in New Orleans, the second Vintage Cookbook Mystery, will release on February 7, 2023. Four Parties and a Funeral, the fourth Catering Hall Mystery, will launch in April 2023.
Pogo!Author Pet Corner!
Pogo!Pogo Byron-Remillong is the Chihuahua-mix pet child of Ellen Byron and family.
Relinquished at age six to the Amanda Foundation, a Los Angeles rescue organization, he will turn sixteen in August.
While he no longer lives up to the Pogo Stick he was named after for his constant jumping, he still enjoys chasing his favorite toys, napping, snacking, and sleeping under the covers with Mom and Dad.
Ellen Byron — Author of Bayou Book Thief
Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico.
Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. An alum of New Orleans’ Tulane University, she blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster.
To learn more about Ellen , click on her name, photo, or any of the following links: Newsletter, Facebook (Ellen), Facebook (CateringHallMysteries), Instagram, Bookbub (Ellen), Bookbub (Maria DiRico), Goodreads (Ellen) & Goodreads (Maria)Visit all the Stops on the Tour!
June 8 – The Avid Reader – REVIEW
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All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
The post Bayou Book Thief: New Cozy Series appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 11, 2022
Goldhammer: Comedy Thriller by Haris Orkin
Goldhammer, a comedy thriller by screenwriter, game writer, playwright, and novelist Haris Orkin
Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Giveaway!Don’t miss any book tours! Click the link here.Goldhammer by Haris Orkin
A James Flynn Escapade
A young actress, involuntarily committed to City of Roses Psychiatric Hospital, plunges James Flynn into a dangerous new adventure when she claims one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood is trying to kill her.
Still convinced he’s a secret agent for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Flynn springs into action, helps her escape and finds himself embroiled in a battle with a dangerous sociopath worth billions. In the process, he uncovers a high-tech conspiracy to control the mind of every human being on Earth.
With the help of his reluctant sidekick, Sancho, and a forgotten Hollywood sex symbol from the 1960s, Flynn faces off with Goldhammer and his private army in a desperate attempt to save the young actress…and save the world…once again.
To purchase Goldhammer, click any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsGenre: Comedy Thriller
Published by: Black Rose Writing
Publication Date: June 23rd 2022
Number of Pages: 240
ISBN: 1684339677 (ISBN-13: 978-1684339679)
Series: The James Flynn Escapades, Book 3 | Each is a stand-alone thriller
When the first James Bond films were released, they were considered very adult. Tight-ass moralists of the time preached that they glamorized sex and violence to a degree never before seen. And at age twelve, that’s exactly why I so desperately wanted to see them. But my parents wouldn’t let me. They thought all that sex and violence might prematurely end my childhood. Because they wouldn’t let me see Bond in the movies, I started reading the books. My parents thought that was just fine. Even though they contained even more sex and violence than the films. By the time Thunderball was released, those three years of nagging and whining finally paid off. My parents decided to relent.
Thunderball was Sean Connery’s third outing as Bond and I couldn’t get enough. I watched it three times in a row. Bond was a revelation. The greatest creation ever as far as my twelve year old self was concerned. And as a skinny, bespectacled suburban nerd, I finally knew who I wanted to be when I grew up.
James Bond.
No one was cooler. No one was more confident. He had no fear and could handle any situation with aplomb. He drove the coolest cars and traveled everywhere and regularly saved the world. He wasn’t just an expert shot and a black belt in karate, he was brilliant. Elegant. Sophisticated. Witty. Best of all, women threw themselves at him willy-nilly. A plus for me, since I was so shy I could barely talk to a girl. (Unless I was already related to her.) He seemed to know everything. His life seemed so exciting. So much more exciting than the derpy suburban dads who drove Buicks and wore Hush Puppies with black socks and shorts as they mowed their lawns. Who wouldn’t want to be Bond?
But as I grew older and continued to read the books and watch the films, I eventually came to an inescapable conclusion. James Bond was a terrible secret agent. First of all, he always used his real name. Everyone knew who he was. That kind of fame does not make for a great secret agent. Plus, he hardly ever wore disguises and when he did, they were terrible. Like in You Only Live Twice when he tried to convince people he was Japanese. A six foot tall Caucasian guy with a Scottish brogue and a Moe Howard haircut. Or that time in Goldfinger when he swam through a harbor in a scuba suit with a fake seagull glued to his head.
Secondly, almost everyone who worked with Bond died a terrible death. In Goldfinger two beautiful sisters died in horrible, yet ridiculous ways. (Spoiler ahead!) One was painted from head to toe in gold paint and another was cut down with a flying bowler hat. Bond’s CIA ally, Felix Leiter, lost a different body part in every book. Yet, he always came limping back to work with Bond one more time. As bad as Bond was at keeping allies alive, he was great at one thing. Coming up with lame quips after killing people. Like the time he shot the creepy assassin in Thunderball with a speargun and said, “I think he got the point.”
Three, he’s a terrible driver. He managed to destroy every car that Q ever gave him.
Four, he always seduced the supervillain’s girlfriend. Not a great way to stay under the radar while conducting an investigation. Not that he ever conducted actual investigations. He just blundered into the middle of things, hoping to provoke something. Usually Bond managed to piss off the person he was after until they finally captured and tortured him. How many secret agents blow their covers on every mission and then get taken prisoner by the enemy? Luckily, Dr. No, Goldfinger, Scaramanga, Largo, and Blofeld were just as bad at what they did as Bond was at what he did.
Every supervillain who captured Bond would gleefully tell him about their entire secret plan before leaving him to die alone in some elaborate trap. Somehow Bond always managed to escape, defeat the supervillain and his private army and blow the bad guy’s incredibly elaborate secret base to smithereens. Despite his blunders, Bond always saved the world and did it with style and insane confidence. How could you not root for someone so stupidly lucky?
That quality of complete confidence in the face of total incompetence is what inspired me to create James Flynn. James Flynn worships Bond and approaches what he does with the same insane disregard for logic. Like a modern day Don Quixote, Flynn blunders into adventures that somehow allow him to save the world. Unlike Bond, however, everyone knows he’s completely out of his tree.
Excerpt: GoldhammerCHAPTER ONEThe Corsican wanted him dead.
Of that James Flynn was certain.
Somehow, the assassin had infiltrated Her Majesty’s Secret Service as a security officer. Flynn didn’t recognize him at first. The killer had put on a few pounds and likely had plastic surgery, but what he couldn’t disguise were his eyes. His cold, dark, pitiless eyes. The eyes of a sociopath. The eyes of an executioner.
The only question was when.
When would the Corsican come for him?
He told his colleagues what he suspected, but they refused to believe him. They claimed his name was Thomas Hernandez and that someone else on the security team had recommended him. They also said they fully vetted him. But Flynn wasn’t fooled. He tangled with the Corsican before. The man was relentless. A cold-blooded enforcer who started with the Corsican mafia but went on to do contract hits for the Sicilians, the Albanians, the Serbians, and the Russians.
Instead of waiting for the Corsican to come to him, Flynn decided to flush him out. Force his hand. Expose him for who he was and why he was there.
Flynn dressed in black denim and a black turtleneck and waited until 2 a.m. to make his move. He kept to the shadows as he trod the deserted corridors. He had no weapon since lethal weapons of any kind were now forbidden at headquarters. A foolish rule put in place by sheltered bureaucrats who had no clue. Luckily, not even security could carry a firearm at headquarters. All the Corsican had was an expandable baton and a Taser. Even so, the man was lethal enough with just his hands and feet.
But then, so was Flynn.
Flynn heard footsteps ahead and ducked into a conference room. He waited and listened as the footsteps drew closer. As they passed the doorway, Flynn peered into the corridor to see the Corsican lumbering forward, quietly peering in room after room. Suddenly, he stopped. Flynn felt a jolt of adrenaline. The air was electric. The silence palpable. Could the Corsican feel Flynn’s eyes on him? Flynn knew that scientists have identified a specialized group of neurons in the primate brain that fire specifically when a monkey is under the direct gaze of another. Humans also appear to be wired for that kind of gaze perception. Predators like Flynn and the Corsican can also be prey and have developed a sixth sense to alert them to danger.
The Corsican turned and he and Flynn locked eyes for a moment. Before the hit man could take a step, Flynn took off down the hall in the opposite direction. He heard the footfalls of the Corsican as he chased after him. Flynn had his route all mapped out. Darting down one corridor. Then another. Running until he arrived at a door that led down to the basement and the guts of the building. Flynn had picked the lock after dinner, knowing that this was the night he would lure the Corsican to his end. He had a license to kill and could have used it anytime, but Flynn didn’t exercise that power willy-nilly. Only as a last resort. He didn’t want the Corsican dead. He needed to know who put the price on his head. Otherwise who ever hired the killer would continue to send hitters until finally one succeeded.
The building that housed HMSS was huge and had a substantial infrastructure. The basement utility plant had mechanical, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing systems that fed water, air, and electricity all through the facility. Flynn moved from massive room to massive room, staying just ahead of the Corsican. He needed to lose him and lay in wait. Flynn was confident in his abilities, but to come at a killer like that head-on didn’t make much sense. Why give your opponents any edge at all?
Flynn ducked into a room that housed all the electrical panels, distribution boards, and circuit breakers. Conduit snaked everywhere and Flynn found a metal door secured with a heavy padlock. Using two straightened paper clips, he quickly picked the lock. The door led to an outside area protected by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The security fence surrounded three giant transformers and two massive backup generators the size of semi-trailers.
Flynn stood next to the door and strained his ears to hear approaching footsteps over the electrical buzz of the transformers. Faint at first, they moved closer. Careful. Slow. Stealthy. He saw a shoe as someone came through and Flynn took them from behind, using jiu-jitsu to slam them into the ground.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the man Flynn had face down in the gravel.
“Sancho?”
“Get off me, man.”
Flynn released his comrade-in-arms and helped him to his feet. Bits of gravel still clung to his face. “I thought you were the Corsican.” Flynn’s British accent had a touch of Scottish burr.
“His name is Hernandez,” Sancho said.
“That’s not his real name.”
“And I’m telling you, he’s not the Corsican.”
“Don’t let him fool you, my friend. He’s not who he says he is.”
“Then why’d he call me? He knows I know you. He knows we’re friends. He asked me to find you. Talk to you. Calm you down.”
“Perhaps he wants to take care of you too.”
“Take care of me?”
Flynn heard the Corsican call to them, his voice deep and resonant. “You okay in there, brother?”
“We’re good,” Sancho said.
The Corsican walked in with two other men. All three wore the blue security uniform issued to those who guard HMSS. The Corsican looked at Flynn with his dark, merciless eyes. “You okay, Mr. Flynn?”
“Tell them who you are,” Flynn demanded.
“Thomas Hernandez.”
“Who you really are.”
The Corsican rolled his eyes and sighed. “That’s who I really am.”
Flynn aimed an accusatory finger. “I know who you are. Born Stefanu Perrina in Porto, Corsica. Contract killer for the Unione Corse, the Cosa Nostra, and the Russian mafia. Wanted by Interpol for fifty-two confirmed kills.”
“I was born in Hacienda Heights.”
Flynn glanced at Sancho. “The man is a master of deception. It’s kill or be killed with men like him.”
The Corsican drew his Taser and the other two guards followed suit.
Sancho raised his hands. “Whoa, come on now. Easy.” He stepped in front of Flynn as the Corsican fired. The Taser darts caught Sancho in the shoulder and socked him with fifty thousand volts. He screamed in agony as his whole body seized up and shook. His legs gave out and he fell on his side, helpless and twitching.
Flynn dove behind a generator before the other two guards could fire. Each guard stalked him from a different side. Flynn clambered up over the top and launched himself from above, tackling the Corsican. He wrenched away his reloaded Taser and shot one of the guards in the crotch. The man went down with a shriek as the other guard fired on him. Flynn fell to his knees and the darts parted his hair before hitting the Corsican in the chest. The killer crumpled as Flynn sprang to his feet and pulled the Corsican’s expandable baton out of its holster. Flicking his wrist, Flynn fully extended the menacing club and turned to confront the last standing guard.
Someone grabbed Flynn by the arm and Flynn elbowed him in the face. Sancho staggered back, holding his bloody nose. “What the hell, man?”
“Sorry, mate.”
Flynn heard a Taser fire and an instant later, two darts hit him in the side. Fifty thousand volts took him to his knees as another guard fired another Taser. Those two darts hit him in the stomach. Flynn lost control of every muscle in his body. And then he saw the Corsican looming over him with his own weapon. He shot the darts directly into Flynn’s chest. Right over his heart. Now all three lit him up with electricity. One hundred and fifty thousand volts rocked Flynn as they shocked him with charge after charge until the world faded into a tiny aperture that slowly began to close.
Haris Orkin — Author of Goldhammer
Haris Orkin is a novelist, a playwright, a screenwriter, and a game writer.
His play, Dada was produced at The American Stage and the La Jolla Playhouse. Sex, Impotence, and International Terrorism was chosen as a critic’s choice by the L.A. Weekly and sold as a film script to MGM/UA.
Save the Dog was produced as a Disney Sunday Night movie. His original screenplay, A Saintly Switch, was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starred David Alan Grier and Vivica A. Fox.
He is a WGA Award and BAFTA Award nominated game writer and narrative designer known for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Mafia 3, and Dying Light.
To learn more about Haris, click on any of the following links: www.harisorkin.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @HarisOrkin, Instagram – @HarisOrkin, Twitter – @HarisOrkin, Facebook – @AuthorHarisOrkinVisit all the stops on the Goldhammer tour!
06/08 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
06/10 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
06/11 Guest post @ The Mystery of Writing
06/14 Review @ I Read What You Write
06/16 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
06/18 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
06/20 Interview @ I Read What You Write
06/23 Showcase @ Nesies Place
06/24 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
06/27 Review @ Paws. Read. Repeat
06/28 Review @ Urban Book Reviews
06/29 Review @ enjoyingbooksagain
06/30 Showcase @ Reads and Screens
07/01 Review @ Melissa As Blog
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
The post Goldhammer: Comedy Thriller by Haris Orkin appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 10, 2022
The Resentment: A New Thriller
The Resentment, the latest thriller by T.O. Paine
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!The Resentment
“An energetic, enthralling tale of dangerous family secrets.” – Kirkus Reviews
They killed her husband. Now, they’re coming for her son.
Lauren Kaine has everything she ever wanted — a fabulous home, a shiny Lexus, a bright sixteen-year-old son, and a loving husband with a lucrative internet career. Tonight, she walks hand-in-hand with William beneath the lustrous Seattle sky, celebrating twenty-two years of marriage.
But they’re not alone.
A mysterious black Audi comes out of nowhere and chases William onto a bridge. He shouts, “They’re here for the card,” and falls to his death. Enraged, Lauren attacks the car, but the tinted windows hide the driver’s face, and it speeds away.
Still mourning, she sets out to find her husband’s killer when a stranger calls and demands the card. William never mentioned a card, and she doesn’t know where it is. The stranger follows her. He torments her. He threatens to kidnap her son and throw him into the same river that killed William.
And it’s not just the stranger.
Black cars lurk around every corner. William’s co-workers refuse to talk to her. Her brother-in-law resurfaces after years of silence, and he knows something, but she’s running out of time. She searches for the card, and the past pulls her back to the first time someone kidnapped her son. Back to her resentment. Back to the truth.
You’re only as sick as your secrets . . .
“This dark thriller is intense, fast-paced, and sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats.” – The Book Review Directory
To purchase The Resentment, click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble & NOOKT.O. Paine — The InterviewThe Resentment centers on secrets. What intrigued you about secrets to prompt a novel of suspense?Secrets. Everyone has them. Driving away from a head-on collision before the police arrive.
Keeping a decades old love affair from your family. Witnessing a drunken college student fall to their death during a fraternity rager in 1998.
Nothing is more suspenseful than the slow reveal of a deep dark secret that has resurfaced to complicate current events.
In The Resentment, I wanted to not only show how past secrets can affect the future but examine how they must come out or ultimately destroy their host. The longer a person keeps a secret, the more guilt will consume their life. Keeping secrets leads to lies which leads to more secrets. As the secrets weigh on a person, their mental anguish increases, and they eventually must come clean or go insane. “Coming clean” often not only means revealing secrets but also seeking forgiveness for them.
There’s suspense in not knowing whether someone will have the humility to admit their wrongs or continue down a path of self-will run riot. You’re only as sick as your secrets . . .
Tell us about Lauren Kaine:Lauren suffers from Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED.) Fueled by harboring her own deep, dark secret, her disorder causes her to lose control at the worst possible times.
She often sees red and physically acts out in public places. Until the death of her husband, she led a blessed suburban life, raising their son and keeping to herself in their upper-class home. Mostly keeping her disorder to herself. But, when her husband is wrongfully killed, she must venture into the world and uncover his secrets, the secrets of her brother-in-law, and most importantly, her own secret.
Your first novel, The Teaching is based in part on your true-life experiences with a cult. Tell us a little bit about how that impacted your debut thriller:I lived in a cult from around 2006 to 2010. While my debut thriller includes the practices, setting, and beliefs of that cult, the characters and suspenseful plot are fictitious. No one went missing from the cult. This cult also didn’t fit the mold of the more commonly known “doomsday” cults such as Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown. Though this gave my debut novel a fresh perspective on cults, many readers expected a thriller with a destructive cult as the villain.
Roughly half the novel contains descriptions of actual experiences, such as watching a trance medium channel a four-hundred-year-old spirit, but a funny thing happened after publication. Several readers commented on those descriptions, saying they were outlandish and unbelievable, yet they were true. Apparently, thriller readers have no issues believing in kidnapping, murder, and general mayhem, but believing people would follow the teachings of someone long dead is a stretch.
The Excursion, your third novel, comes out in October. What do you know now, with three novels under your belt, that you wished you’d known with the first?I thought I had completed the first novel on four separate occasions. On each occasion, I edited, copy-edited, formatted, and further polished the novel only to rip it apart with major changes.
Writing is rewriting. And then, it is more rewriting. With the third novel, I’ve saved myself a significant amount of time by saving the polishing until the end.
How do you balance character exploration with the action required to sustain a thriller?We love to love the characters.
We love to love the good in heroes and the evil in villains. And we love to get to know the characters by living alongside them, experiencing what they experience. Thrillers should have nearly constant action, and that action should constantly reveal the inner and outer motivations of the characters.
For me, character exploration blends with the action as opposed to there being a back-and-forth balance. A character’s approach to conquering each challenge forces them to assess their beliefs and take action simultaneously. The outcomes drive the plot and tell us something about the character. Actually, it tells us everything.
What are you working on now?“An American Psycho joins Fight Club” is the basis for my fourth thriller, and it is in the very early stages. For those familiar with American Psycho and Fight Club, I hope to create an enthralling thriller based on how the excesses of the eighties gave way to the credit-centric society of the nineties. No one likes being in debt, and some would do anything to return to the world of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, reckless and conscious free.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:Love to write. If you give your time, persistence, and humility to your writing, it will love you back, and everything else will fall into place.
Author Pet Corner!
Finster!I added up the years I’ve spent living with dogs, divided that number by my age, and it came to over 90% of my life. Time well spent. Finster, the Boston Terrier shown here with his dreamy eyes, joined our family on Christmas, 2010. He is a runt, weighing about half that of a normal Boston, but his heart his huge. His never-ending puppy mentality keeps him fit for his duties as an entertainer and a cuddler. He loves attacking bubble-wrap and runs in terror from his own flatulence. He will forever be a part our family.
T.O. Paine — Author of The Resentment
T.O. Paine is a suspense novelist whose authentic characters triumph over extreme situations in challenging, true-to-life settings. He enjoys delving into the emotional consequences of his character’s choices and taking his readers along for the ride. Though his novels are contemporary, things always get out of control. Cults are real, anger is a disorder, and everyone loses when a friendly competition becomes an obsession.
T.O. holds a master’s degree in information systems, and when he is not writing, you can find him running or cycling through the mountains of Colorado, USA. He has run over thirty marathons, ridden over twenty 100-mile cycling events, and completed an IRONMAN.
T.O. resides with his wife, two children, and a Boston terrier who stares at himself in the mirror, questioning his existence.
To learn more about T.O. click on his name, photo, or any of the following links: Amazon Author Profile, Goodreads, BookBub, Twitter, Instagram & FacebookDon’t miss any Author Interviews! Click the link here.
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
The post The Resentment: A New Thriller appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 9, 2022
Finding Light in a Lost Year: Pandemic Fiction
Finding Light in a Lost Year by Carin Fahr Shulusky
Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Giveaway!Don’t miss any book tours! Click the link here.Finding Light in a Lost Year
Roni Wright thought she had everything; huge home, successful husband, kids, and a brilliant career.
That is until the worse pandemic in 100 years swept away the shallow façade of her life and she nearly lost it all. This is the story of how a broken family navigated the most difficult year of their lives and found hope in the middle of so much loss.
You will recognize many of the things that nearly broke us all as we struggled with pandemic restrictions and the new normal. But you will cheer as they work their way out of darkness into a better world.
To purchase Finding Light in a Lost Year, click either of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & NobleGenre: Family & Relationship, Biographical Fiction
Published by: Fossil Creek Press
Publication Date: May 2022
Number of Pages: 170
ISBN: 978-1-7362417-2-1
Before I began writing Finding Light in a Lost Year, I spent about two months contemplating the possibility.
I had begun work on another book but the idea of writing a book about the pandemic just kept invading my thoughts. I spent many hours praying over which book to write first but thoughts about a book on the pandemic experiences wouldn’t be still. They woke me up in the morning and filled my mind when I went to sleep. Finally, I gave into the concept and began working on the novel.
I had been listening for months to different friends and family tell me how the pandemic changed their lives. Stories of offices closing, working from home with young children under foot, school closings, vacations canceled, and jobs lost overflowed my mind. I incorporated these stories and news items into a novel concept. I created a fictional family that was enjoying a rich life, before the pandemic changed it all. I started the book on Thanksgiving 2019, because I wanted the reader to experience the couple’s life before the pandemic. That gave me three full months for the reader to get to know the affluent, but broken lives of the Wrights before the pandemic.
I showed the couple enjoying a rich life, but ignoring the major issues that lay just beneath the surface. I wanted to show how the pandemic both brought these issues to crisis and ultimately helped them repair their unknown brokenness and find light in the year of loss.
So many things happened during the pandemic I wanted people to remember how nearly apoptotic this time was. This year was filled with not only the worst pandemic in a hundred years, but with record severe weather issues and political upheaval. I added the actual statistic of the Covid infections and losses and the weather events at the end of each chapter to remind people of the real history of the time.
What will people tell their children and grandchildren about the pandemic?
So many experiences of my fictional family, the Wrights, were universal experiences, especially with young families. I think many people will see themselves in this story and remember their own journey through the pandemic. I hope my book will be a reminder for years to come of what it was like living through this unprecedented time.
Some of the Wright’s experiences were taken from my life. The Wright children’s school followed a similar schedule to that of my granddaughter. My daughter created a “pod” for her daughter to study online with other children, just like Roni Wright. My son traveled to Seattle in May of 2020 for a job with Boeing, just like Roni’s brother. I have a sister, Mary who was the model for Roni’s Aunt Mary.
My family and I spent many blissful days at “Aunt Mary’s” lovely pool in the country when all other avenues of recreation were closed. I know people who found houses to rent on a lake, far away from other people, for a pandemic vacation. While it is fiction, there is much that is extracted from my experiences. It’s hard to keep my own experiences out of my writing. It is my hope that all this makes it more real than fiction.
Excerpt Finding Light in a Lost YearApril 2020 – When It Rains, It Pours
On April 1, I picked up my calendar, as I did at the beginning of every month—usually to see what we had coming up and to schedule more—and started crossing off everything. I had already crossed off the March trip to Paris. Now I crossed off this month’s planned trip to the banking conference in San Francisco. I slashed through the conference in New York. And with a little more pain, I crossed off the two Broadway shows to which I had tickets. An old college girlfriend was going to go with me to one and Dan the other. Broadway closed. New York closed. All crossed off, as was the St. Louis Symphony concert to which we had tickets. Canceled. Hockey, canceled. Three birthday parties, canceled. My appointment at the nail salon, canceled. Hairdresser, canceled. Canceled, canceled, canceled. April was looking so gloomy.
The only exercise I was getting was walking through one of our beautiful parks with the kids. Sometimes, we took bikes and rode a trail. But with April came gloom and rain and even that little bit of escape became impossible. Then the St. Louis County Executive closed all county parks. We were now required to wear a mask if we were out in public, especially indoors, and to stay six feet apart wherever we were. The gloom was growing daily. My life had no order. We were in free fall.
On April 9, we got a big shot in the arm, as it were, when $2,400 appeared in our checking account—a gift from the U.S. government. Officially the money was part of the Economic Impact Payment, but the payments were more often called stimulus checks. We just called it salvation. Like many families, we weren’t sure how we would make ends meet. This money was a gift from heaven—or the government, depending on your point of view.
By the second week of April, our school district was making an effort at learning. They asked parents to pick up “home learning packets” from the school. When I drove up to the school, someone handed me the packet for our kids’ grade levels. But when I got home, there was little explanation about the work. It was terribly disorganized and made little sense to me. Katlin wanted to learn more, and Oliver wanted to learn less. I just wanted more alcohol. Lots more. I decided hard times called for hard alcohol. Wine was OK now with lunch, but by dinner time, I needed a cocktail.
I set up a place in the basement family room for the kids to study. I tried hard to make Oliver work on letters and sight words. He would work with me for maybe thirty minutes, then he’d start disrupting everything I did. He’d rip papers and run away. Meanwhile, Katlin was trying to figure out her lessons with great frustration. She didn’t know what was wanted of her, and I couldn’t figure it out either. Oliver did everything in his considerable ability to disrupt our efforts. Most sessions ended with all three of us crying.
Not only was I failing at trying to teach my kids, I was failing at keeping them out of Nathan’s living room office. Every time Oliver ran away from me, he ran right into one of Nathan’s meetings. No order. No peace. No joy.
Carin Fahr Shulusky
Carin Fahr Shulusky was born and raised in west St. Louis County. She attended the University of Missouri, Columbia, where she received a B.J (Bachelor of Journalism). After college she worked in advertising for GE and Monsanto. She was the first professional woman in her division of each. After 25 years in Marketing, she created her own firm, Marketing Alliance.
She was president of Marketing Alliance, from 2002 – 2014. She is a past-president of the Business Marketing Association of St. Louis. Carin Fahr is married to Richard Shulusky. They have two grown children and one marvelous granddaughter. Grandma Carin has a life long love of cooking, even writing her own cookbook.
In 2014 Carin retired to devote full time to writing. Her first book, In the Middle was inspired by her own battle to care for her beloved mother, Dorothy Fahr. Many of the stories Carrie Young’s mother tells her in In the Middle came from Carin’s mother. Carin is a lifelong member of, Pathfinder Church in Ellisville, Missouri, where she volunteers in early childhood.
Find Carin Online: carinshulusky.com, Goodreads, Instagram – @cshulusky, Twitter – @shulusky & FacebookVisit all the Stops on the Tour!
05/16 Review @ The Reading Frenzy
05/17 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
05/19 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
05/23 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
05/27 Review @ Novels Alive
05/28 Showcase @ Silvers Reviews
06/01 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
06/02 Interview @ The Reading Frenzy
06/06 Review @ tea. and. titles
06/09 Guest post @ The Mystery of Writing
06/09 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books
06/10 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
The post Finding Light in a Lost Year: Pandemic Fiction appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 7, 2022
Her Dying Day by Mindy Carlson
Her Dying Day, by debut Mindy Carlson
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!Find more debut authors! Click the link here.Her Dying Day
Perfect for fans of Shari Lapena and Hannah Mary McKinnon, a mystery writer’s sudden disappearance leads a budding filmmaker down a dark road to treachery, murder, and long-buried sins.
Aspiring filmmaker June Masterson has high hopes for her first documentary, the true story of the disappearance of famed mystery author Greer Larkin. June learned about the vanishing at age fourteen, locked down on her family’s isolated commune. Now, the deeper she digs into the project, the darker the story gets.
Everyone has a theory. Greer’s mother, Blanche, and her best friend, Rachel, believe that Greer’s fiancé, Jonathan, is the culprit. Greer’s agent is convinced that Greer committed suicide after a debilitating bout of writer’s block. And Jonathan claims it was either Greer’s controlling mother or Rachel, whose attachment to Greer went way beyond friendship.
In desperation, Rachel gives June a suitcase full of Greer’s most personal writings in hopes of finding proof against Jonathan. Then Rachel turns up dead. As June pores over Greer’s writings, she makes a devastating discovery that could finally reveal the truth about the author’s fate. But now, June finds herself in the sights of a killer who’ll stop at nothing to keep their darkest secret.
To purchase Her Dying Day, click any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Swamp Fox BookstoreMindy Carlson — The Interview Her Dying Day centers on filmmaker June Masterson. What should readers know about your heroine?June is a loud and sarcastic and fun 24-year-old. She’s obsessed with Converse All-Star shoes and 90s grunge bands. She’s escaped being kept in isolation on her parents’ goat commune to the biggest city in the country—New York City. She thinks she’s a rebel, but what she’s doing is trying to grow up.
Because they were so overprotective, June’s making all these social mistakes and is willing to ignore certain moral boundaries in the name of being a rebel. At her core, though, she wants to do the right thing, but wrestles between doing what’s right and doing what feels good. You meet her at one of her lowest points and get to follow her on the journey of maturity while she’s making a documentary about the disappearance of her favorite mystery author.
What was your inspiration for Her Dying Day ?I was reading an article a few years about the 90th anniversary of the disappearance of Agatha Christie. Not many people knew about it then because once she was found (after 11 days of being missing) she never spoke about it again. She didn’t even put it into her autobiography. In the last couple of years a few fictional accounts have been published. There’s even a movie about it that came out on a streaming service.
But back then it wasn’t part of the public consciousness and I thought, “What if Agatha Christie had never been found? What if a modern mystery author disappeared? How would our society be talking about it twenty years later?” Of course someone would be making a documentary.
What has been the most satisfying aspect of your debut publication journey so far:How ridiculously proud my family is. I come from a long line of readers and my mom was the director of our public library for about twenty years, but no one had ever written a book before. But writing Her Dying Day has inspire them to start writing their own stories.
Even my kids, who are now 16 and 13, are writing short stories and fanfic. My mom is especially proud that her daughter’s book is going to be on her public library’s bookshelves. I think she might come out of retirement so she can add it to their catalog herself.
Holding my book in my hands the first time was also incredible. I still can’t believe I wrote all the words that are behind that cover. I have a copy on my desk next to the pictures of my kid because I need to be reminded that this is all real.
What would you like to be asked about Her Dying Day that no one has asked before?Why interlace excerpts from the missing author’s books inside the main story of your book?
I wanted Greer (my missing author) to have her voice in the book. Since she’s not present to speak for herself I thought the best way would be to bring in pieces of her writing. All writers bring in their own life experiences into their writing; they leave pieces of themselves on the page.
It meant writing in a completely different style with a different voice, but I think those brief sections provide the reader a glimpse of Greer’s side of the story.
Your philosophy for relating to children combines Montessori theories and Swiss parenting philosophy, tell us about that.Both Montessori education and Swiss parenting foster independence in the child and lets them struggle with tough situations or tasks. One of the biggest buzzwords in parenting right now is “Grit.” Parents want to develop gritty kids, but that’s kind of an oxymoron. We can’t develop grit in our kids. Grit and determination can only take root if we become more hands off and let our children become more self-directed. It’s hard, but we must let them struggle.
Our family moved to Basel, Switzerland for two years when my kids were 9- and 5-years-old. The 9-year-olds in Basel were riding the trams, going to school, and doing shopping errands all by themselves. Even the kindergartners were walking to the local school by themselves. The society was, in part, structured around allowing children to be independent and to be there to help them when they needed it or correct them when they were out of line.
I’d been—and still am—the administrative head of school for a Montessori preschool in Maryland and I felt like Swiss parenting fit hand-in-hand with the Montessori philosophy. Montessori is about allowing children choice and independence inside a loving structure. It felt like the Montessori classroom had become our entire neighborhood.
When I looked at the differences, I realized that in America we have begun to parent from a foundation of fear and mistrust of our neighborhood. We had become a society of helicopter and snowplow parents, swooping in to save our child from potential failure or consequences. So, I began writing about parenting bravely and positively while examining family and society systems and connection. What I’ve learned about connection between people actually helps me write a compelling mystery.
What are you working on now?I am working on two books. One is a Friends meets And Then There Were None mystery which is under submission with my publisher Crooked Lane. The second is a cold-case mystery where three sisters investigate the murder of their father that happened when they were children.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:Never give up on your dream. Never hesitate to ask for help. Never be afraid to tell your story.
Author Pet Corner![image error]
I love animals. My college degree is in Animal Science and Pre-Veterinary Medicine.
I foster pregnant cats for a rescue organization in the DC Area so I typically have about ten cats in my house during the spring.
Because of the timing of the release of Her Dying Day I don’t have a litter right now,
but I do have my resident felines Albus and Durin Orc Slayer.
They are usually about five feet away from me at all times.
I think I’m their emotional support human.
Mindy Carlson
Mindy Carlson is a mystery writer, knitter, baker, reader, and Administrative Head of School of Rock Creek Montessori in Kensington, MD. She also happens to be the mother of two spirited boys and the wife of an amazing economist.
After growing up on a farm in Iowa, she bypassed veterinary school to begin a winding journey that took her to UC Berkeley, Washington, DC, and Basel, Switzerland. Switzerland changed how she viewed parenting, travel, food, and the United States — all for the better! She combined the Swiss parenting philosophy with her Montessori experience, developing a new philosophy of how we better relate to children.
Inspired by the change in her own relationship with her children, she decided to inspire others through a series of parenting articles. You can find these articles at such outlets as AFineParent.com, Big Life Journal, and The Washington Post.
To learn more about Mindy, click on her name, photo, any of the following links: Twitter, Facebook & Instagram
All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
The post Her Dying Day by Mindy Carlson appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 5, 2022
Exit Strategy: Thriller by Linda L Richards
Exit Strategy, the latest thriller by Linda L. Richards
Guest Post + Book & Author Info + Giveaway!Don’t miss any blog tour posts! Click the link here.Exit Strategy by Linda L. Richards
A shattered life. A killer for hire. Can she stop?
Her assignments were always to kill someone. That’s what a hitman—or hitwoman—is paid to do, and that is what she does. Then comes a surprise assignment—keep someone alive!
She is hired to protect Virginia Martin, the stunning and brilliant chief technology officer of a hot startup with an innovation that will change the world. This new job catches her at a time in her life when she’s hanging on by a thread. Despair and hopelessness—now more intense than she’d felt after the tragic loss of her family—led her to abruptly launch this career. But over time, the life of a hired killer is decimating her spirit and she keeps thinking of ending her life.
She’s confused about the “why” of her new assignment but she addresses her mission as she always does, with skill and stealth, determined to keep this young CTO alive in the midst of the twinned worlds of innovation and high finance.
Some people have to die as she discharges her responsibly to protect this superstar woman amid the crumbling worlds of money and future technical wonders.
The spirit of an assassin—and her nameless dog—permeates this struggle to help a young woman as powerful forces build to deny her.
Fans of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Dexter will love Exit Strategy.To purchase Exit Strategy, click on any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodreadsGenre: Thriller
Published by: Oceanview Publishing
Publication Date: May 17th 2022
Number of Pages: 320
ISBN: 1608094227 (ISBN13: 9781608094226)
ITTBC — In the Time Before Covid — I was traveling a lot. Like really a lot. I had three homes. Vancouver, Canada. Paso Robles, California. And Phoenix, Arizona. I never had so many shoes! Lots of shoes to deal with all of the challenges of my multi-faceted lifestyle. I could make it sound tiring, but I have to be honest: it was awesome. I liked it a lot.
In that period, I was often on a plane. And many of the flights would be hops. Vancouver to San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. Or Vancouver to Dallas (the made no sense to me, but still) to Phoenix. And I’d always be on deadline. And I’d always be working on a book.
I noticed this: if I had a notebook out, and a pen, no one would make me put it away. Like, if I was working on my laptop, I’d have to stow it for a while. But my notebook? No. I could just keep on going. And so, after a couple of decades of writing books on my computer, I started working in longhand. And something magical happened. I found myself able to get to the place I needed to go much more easily than I could on my computer, especially in an era where social media or other even dumber things might pull my attention. With my notebook out, and my pen in hand I discovered I could sink back into my story in a heartbeat. And just stay there. It seemed like a more pure and direct connection.
All of that feels like magic, but it is not. Plenty of studies have now been done about the way our brains respond to the words we write on the page versus those we tap on our devices. I’ll let you do the Googling, but when you do, you will see there is no debate: there are a lot of advantages to writing in longhand, and very few for doing it the other way around.
So I have written the first drafts of my last four novels almost entirely in longhand. It looks like this: my full manuscript is in a Google doc, accessible from any of my devices in the cloud. I sit down with very little idea of what I am going to write that day. I have a quick look at my Google doc to see where I left off, get pen and paper in front of me and… begin. No self-judgment is allowed. None is necessary, because I know I’ll be skating past this material again when I transcribe it later or on the following day.
Not every line is golden. Not every thread is the one I maybe should have followed. But the connection with my mind seems to me to be more direct. Is it more work? Okay… maybe? Because everyone knows that a big part of writing is rewriting and with this method, I’ve set myself to do a lot of rewriting right off the hop.
Like almost everything about writing, none of this will work for everyone. But it’s certainly been working for me. The other up-side: you never have to take a break to recharge your device. Your notebook and pen are ever ready to go.
Happy writing!
Excerpt Exit Strategy by Linda L. RichardsCHAPTER ONEToday
He proves to be a genial companion. I’d never doubted that he would. Across the table from him in a romantic restaurant, I can see his pale eyes are sparked with amber. Or is it gold? Maybe it depends on your perspective. A trick of the light.
So much of life, I’ve found, are those things: perspective and also light. Or maybe that’s saying exactly the same thing.
He tells me he’s in “finance,” a term that is vague enough to accommodate a whole range of activities. I’ve done some research, though, and I know he is a hedge fund manager; that his apartment in this town is a playpen: weekends only. I know he is based in the City and that he flies down here for the occasional weekend, especially since his divorce, which was messy. He doesn’t say that: “messy.” But when he briefly skates over that episode of his life—the period of time in which “we” became “me” —he makes a face that is unpleasant, like he’s got a bad taste in his mouth. I let it ride. Where we are going, it won’t make a difference.
He tells me funny, self-deprecating stories. I reflect that he is someone I would date—in another lifetime. If I dated. If I still had a heart.
“This is a fun first date,” he says in that moment, as though he has read my mind. His thick dark hair flops over his eye endearingly, and my heart gives a little flutter. I’d try to stop it, but I don’t hate the feeling. That flutter. It feels good, in this moment, to simply feel alive.
“Yesterday, Brett. Wasn’t that our first date?” I ask, more for interaction than anything real. Because, of course, the few moments on a rooftop we shared were not a date by any standard. Especially since I was trying to think how to kill him for part of that time. But he doesn’t know that, so maybe it doesn’t count?
“Nope,” he says firmly. “That was a meeting. This,” he indicates our wine and the delicate nibbles between us, “this is a date.”
“How does it end?” I ask pertly. Knowing the answer. Knowing he doesn’t. Wanting to know what he thinks.
He looks at me searchingly for a moment, then smiles raffishly, a certain boyish charm bubbling through. It’s a practiced look. He’s used that smile before, to good effect, I can tell. He’s probably done that his whole life. I don’t dislike him for any of that. It distresses me slightly that I don’t dislike him at all. It would be beneficial to me if I could find it in myself to dislike him.
“It ends well,” he says. A beat. And then: “It ends as it should.”
There is more conversation, just like that. An ancient dance.
After a while he excuses himself to go to the bathroom.
Once he’s out of sight, I slip a vial out of my purse. It contains a powder I made myself. Oleander flowers, dried, crushed and mixed with salt and a few strong spices, intended to cover the plant’s bitter taste. I don’t know how well those spices mask the taste. It’s not as though I can test it, and none of my customers have ever complained.
I quickly sprinkle some of this concoction judiciously on the food that remains. I do it using natural motions. Anyone watching would think I was eating. A little OCD, maybe, but it wouldn’t look anywhere close to what is true. I mix it quickly into the salsa, the guacamole. I salt the chips with it. Sprinkle it on what is left of the chicken wings. I don’t dust the calamari. I’d noted he hadn’t been eating that. It will give me a safe spot to nibble, not that I plan on needing much time to eat. All of this will happen quickly, my experience tells me that.
Before he returns, I have this moment of absolute indecision. I very nearly call out to a nearby server; have her clear the table. I’m not even super sure why I don’t. All of this is going well. Textbook. And yet, I have qualms. Why? He’s lovely of course, there’s that. But beyond the way he looks or how he looks at me. Not long ago, things had happened that had made me resolve to do my life in a different way. Then I’d gotten an assignment and instinct had more or less kicked in. And it was easy to reason around it and to rationalize: if not me, then someone else, right? There would always be some other person ready to do the job. Viewed in that light, there was no earthly reason for me not to do what I do.
But still.
I don’t call a server. And the moment passes.
He comes back looking refreshed, like he’s maybe splashed water on his face or combed his hair, which is behaving for now. Not, for the moment, flopping into his eyes. I figure he probably did both—splashed and combed. He looks good.
He smiles when his eyes meet mine. A 24-karat smile that lights his whole face. My heart gives a little bump. “Fuck,” I say. But it isn’t out loud.
He takes his seat and starts talking again, picking up where we left off. He is easy. Comfortable. But I’m having trouble tracking the conversation; my mind is elsewhere. I’m thinking about what my next steps will be. After. And does it matter what he says right now? Really? If it does, it won’t matter for long.
I try not to follow his actions. Try instead to listen to what he is saying. These words will be his last ones, I know that. And part of me thinks I should do him that courtesy. At least. The courtesy of attention. But it’s difficult to follow his words now. I watch one corn chip as he picks it up, dips it into salsa. I watch him consume it, and it feels like all of it is happening in slow motion. All the while I am listening to his words—I am! —participating in the conversation, not wanting to miss any cues. And wanting to honor the small amount of time he has left. It’s all I can do.
The chip is consumed. I detect no reaction to the bitterness, so that’s a plus. He picks up a chicken wing, swirls it in the blue cheese dip, which makes me realize that, in my haste, I’d missed an opportunity by skipping doctoring the dip. He consumes the wing while we talk; a slight sucking, the meat peeling gently off the bone, all the while, the words flow, though it doesn’t come off as rude. He seems adept at eating and talking so everything stays and sounds as it should.
I listen closely, interjecting as appropriate when I think it’s necessary, all the while watching for . . . signs. I detect nothing until another wing and several chips later. His eyes are suddenly glassy. Sweat stands on his forehead. His hands shake.
“Brett, are you all right?” I ask, but it is pure form. I know he is far from all right. All right no longer exists for him.
“I don’t know. I’ve never . . . never felt like this before.”
I give it another minute. A little less than that. I know it’s all we’ve got. I make the right sounds, the correct motions of my hand. Even when no one is watching, people are watching. Physically, I am unremarkable. A middle-aged woman, so some would say I am invisible, certainly there is nothing about my appearance that makes me stand out. But there will be a future, when questions are asked and people are perhaps looking for clues. I don’t want them to be looking for me.
When he collapses, face directly into salsa, I scream, as one does. Not bone chilling, but an alarmed scream. Our server trots over, clearly distressed. The manager is on her heels. All as expected: it’s pretty terrible for business when customers collapse into their food.
“My date . . . he’s . . . taken ill . . . I don’t know what to do” etcetera. All as one would expect. I don’t deviate from the script.
An ambulance is called. Paramedics arrive quickly. The manager has already pulled Brett from the salsa, but it’s clear he is not all right. They take him away, one of the paramedics offering to let me ride in the ambulance. I decline.
“I’ll follow you,” I say, heading for my rental. And I start out following, but a few blocks from the restaurant I make the turn I know will lead me to the freeway and then the airport. My bag is in the trunk and it’s all mapped out: I am ready to go.
With this moment in mind, I’d left a ballcap on the passenger seat before I entered the restaurant. It is emblazoned with the logo of a local team. While I drive, I push my hair into the cap and wiggle out of the jacket I know I’ll leave behind. These are simple changes—hat on, jacket off—but it will change my appearance enough. I don’t anticipate anyone will be looking for me, but I like to think forward. Just in case.
I have no way of knowing for sure what will happen to him, but I can guess. From the amount of food I watched him consume, I figure he’ll probably have a heart attack before he reaches the hospital and will likely arrive DOA. And at the age and heft of him, and with a high stress job, they will probably not test for poison. And the woman with him at the restaurant? I figure no one will be looking for a girl who doesn’t follow up on the date that ended in hell.
From there it all goes like it’s being managed by a metronome: tick tock, tick tock. Arrive at airport. Drop off rental car. Get through security. Get to plane while they’re boarding. Claim aisle seat at the back of the plane. Keep my eyes peeled for both watchers or people who might recognize me from the airport. But everything goes exactly as it should. No watchers this time. No one looking at me in ways I don’t understand. In fact, everything is perfect. Everything is exactly as it should be. Except.
Linda L RichardsLinda L. Richards is a journalist, photographer and the author of 15 books, including three series of novels featuring strong female protagonists.
She is the former publisher of Self-Counsel Press and the founder and publisher of January Magazine.
Linda’s 2021 novel, ENDINGS, was recently optioned by a major studio for series production.
To learn more about Linda, click on any of the following links: LindaLRichards.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @linda1841, Instagram – @lindalrichards, Twitter – @lindalrichards, Facebook – @lindalrichardsauthor & TikTok – @lindalrichardsVisit all the Stops on the Exit Strategy Tour!
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All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
The Foundation of Plot, a Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) guidebook. Out July 19.
The post Exit Strategy: Thriller by Linda L Richards appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
June 4, 2022
Architect of Courage: ITW Debut Author
Architect of Courage by ITW Debut Author Victoria Weisfeld
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!Architect of Courage
In June 2011, September was weeks away, and the full dread of the approaching anniversary hadn’t yet settled on New York City’s residents. But from One Police Plaza to the FBI’s grim headquarters in Washington, D.C., the top brass harbor a rumbling in the gut. Each person who works for them down the line shares their unease, from every rookie cop walking the beat to the lowliest surveillance specialist. And Archer Landis is about to get caught up in their fixation.Landis is not one of his city’s guardians, and a different sort of electricity runs under his skin on this warm Thursday evening. A highly successful Manhattan architect-a man you’d say has his life totally, enviably, in order-Landis works the room at a Midtown reception, shaking hands, being seen, accompanying his cheerful greetings with the convivial clinking of ice in an untouched glass of single malt.
When the noisy crowd becomes sufficiently dense and everyone present can say they’ve seen him, he will slip away. Out on Fifth Avenue, he will grab a cab for the run south to Julia’s Chelsea apartment.
It’s a trip that will hurtle him into deadly danger. Everyone and everything he cares about most will be threatened, and he will have to discover whether he has the courage to fight his way clear.
To purchase The Architect of Courage, click the following link: AmazonArchitect of Courage author Victoria Weisfeld — The Interview Architect of Courage takes place in a variety of locations, tell us about the settings and how those places impact the characters.Having an architect, Archer Landis, as a main character offers appealing opportunities for travel, though many of the novel’s scenes occur in Landis’s office in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. That’s where the police visit him, that’s where he manages a busy firm, and that’s where, early one evening, someone fires a couple of shots at him from an empty office across the street. His firm has numerous offices in this country and around the world, including one in Dubai, where the book’s cover image was taken.
The novel takes place in the summer of 2011, as the country approaches the tenth anniversary of 9/11. All the law enforcement agencies, top to bottom, are intensely alert to the possibility of an anniversary terrorist event, and that hypersensitivity is part of the backdrop to the story. I wanted to show how such anxieties color attitudes toward people and events. Clearly, Manhattan is the best place this story could be set.
The police suspect that Landis’s architectural firm has been infiltrated by a terrorist trying to obtain information about possible bomb targets. With that in the back of his mind, he travels to Brussels to visit the site of a metro station redesign his firm is working on. It’s in the heart of the European Union district and he’s uneasy about it.
This business trip goes terribly wrong, and it leaves him with serious unanswered questions. (That the station was an attractive target was borne out in real life after I drafted that section of the book, when terrorists did bomb the very next station on the line.)
Later in the novel, he travels to Tarifa, Spain, on a private mission. He hopes to find a person who can help him understand the violent events that have taken over his life. The choice of this setting is partly driven by the Moroccan origins of some of the characters. The town is small, full of tourists, transients, and cheap labor. I visited Tarifa on the day I took a hydrofoil to Tangier, so I knew it was a good place for young people to hang out and hide out.
What should readers know about Archer Landis?Archer Landis is highly successful in his field, but when violence takes away the people he loves and threatens every aspect of his life, he’s totally unprepared to deal with that, both in terms of any weapons skills or physical training. He makes some mistakes, one he considers disastrous, which adds to his grief and regret. Admirably, Landis tends to take the bad things that happen to him and attempt to squeeze some good out of them. As an example, when the police suspect one of his staff of being a terrorist, he launches a corporation-wide initiative on security.
He hits his low point early in the book, and much of what he does afterward is an attempt to atone for his mistakes—even though only he knows about them. A lot of people, if they mess up and no one knows it, would just say, “forget it.” Not Arch.
You can tell a lot about Arch by the way his friends and colleagues treat him. They admire his professional side, of course, but they like and trust him as a person, as well.
Tell us about your road to publication:In a word, rocky. As a debut novelist, it takes persistence. I’m aware of how many publishers want their authors to have an agent, so I tried that route first. I read all the advice about pitch letters, synopses, etc., and took that on board. I pitched only agents interested in the crime, mystery, thriller genre. I could have reached out to my cats just as productively. Most of them never responded.
Rather than have to find an agent who’d take me on, and her (almost always a young woman) then having to find a publisher, I started to reach out directly to small publishers who take unagented manuscripts. Again, with the small publishers, I stuck to my genre, followed their guidelines religiously, and if they responded at all, they weren’t interested.
I hired a wonderful editor who’d reviewed the manuscript twice, so even if a small publisher didn’t have deep editorial resources, that aspect was covered. A friend of mine who publishes with Black Opal Books read the manuscript, liked, and recommended me to them. That personal connection really helped me short-circuit the process.
I decided not to self-publish because, if you read the enthusiastic blogs of self-published authors, they become involved in a lot of tasks I have no interest in and didn’t expect I’d be good at. Of course, regardless of how new authors’ books are published, they will end up being responsible for much of the promotion work, as I am.
The whole process would have been considerably more discouraging if I didn’t have some thirty published short stories in respectable venues like Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes MM, Black Cat MM, and Mystery Magazine, as well as in competitive anthologies.
That experience told me my work wasn’t totally outside the ballpark!
Those short stories were a good place to start because they have a lot fewer moving parts than a novel does. Also, though I’d always done much professional writing, it was corporate and science-based. I had to be able to back up every part of every sentence. No flights of fancy. No making it up. It was writing the short stories that helped me learn and practice writing fiction. Writing 5,000 words before figuring out I am on the wrong track is a lot different than writing 100,000 and coming to the same conclusion!
With the book being published June 2022, I’m now in the midst of publicity activity. But, compared to not having the book known and read, I don’t mind this at all.
What was your research process like for Architect of Courage ?I enjoy doing various types of research, both confirmatory (about some detail I want to include) and exploratory (trolling for ideas).
Like many crime writers, I wouldn’t be surprised to have the authorities show up to ask about some of my Google searches!
For Architect of Courage, I read about architecture and design, I did photo and product research, legal research (what are the requirements for obtaining an architectural license in New York State?), travel-related research, and I do a lot of geographical/map research (how long does it take to walk from the Flatiron Building to the NY Public Library?).
All that helps establish a believable environment in which the people and places of fiction can exist.
You also have an interest in theater. Tell us about the role theater plays in your life:Before covid nineteen (the B.C.N. era), My husband and I would see, probably, twenty plays a year. We love live theater and have season tickets for several playhouses. Living an hour by train from Manhattan, we see productions there occasionally, too. While I appreciate many aspects of theater, especially good acting, what keeps me going back are the stories.
What are you working on now?My next book is a thriller set in Italy, and once the publication flurry for Architect of Courage settles down, I’ll return to it. Architect of Courage is a stand-alone, my next book is the first of a series, though I’ve had three short stories published with this main character (an American travel writer).
Next on her itinerary: Egypt.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:Everyone says this, and it’s the only approach that works: Write the book that you want to read.
Elena agrees!Don’t worry about market trends, don’t try to anticipate audience reactions. If your book has integrity, it will find readers. To prove this point, look at the Amazon ratings of a few books you really enjoyed, and read the 1-star reviews.
For any specific book, there will be people who don’t like/get it and don’t regard it with the esteem you do. Then look at the ratings of a few books you thought were real stinkers and read the 5-star reviews. What’s wrong with these people? Again, a book tends to find its audience. In the latter case, just not you.
Great advice!Author Pet Corner!
William is in the bidet; Charles on top.William for Shakespeare and Charles for Dickens!
Victoria Weisfeld — Author of Architect of Courage
Some thirty of Vicki Weisfeld’s short stories have appeared in leading mystery magazines and anthologies, winning awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Public Safety Writers Association.
She’s a book reviewer for the UK website, crimefictionlover.com, and blogs at www.vweisfeld.com.
To learn more about Victoria, click on any of the following links: Facebook, Twitter & LinkedInDon’t miss any ITW debut author interviews! Click the link hereElena TaylorElena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
Header image from PixabayThe post Architect of Courage: ITW Debut Author appeared first on The Mystery of Writing.
