SUFFOLK MYSTERY AUTHORS FESTIVAL - August 4

Hello Friends and Followers

On Saturday, August 4, 2018 I will be attending the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival in Suffolk, Virginia. I attended last year and it was loads of fun for authors, readers and attendees alike. You are welcome to browse the tables of 30 authors. Buy our books and we will sign them for you. 

I will be autographing American Nights, the 6th in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series, and the 7th, the newly-released Wolf's Clothing. Please stop by and say  hello. 

I will also be on a panel with the title: My Job's Trying to Kill Me: How A Sleuth's Profession Impacts The Story. Moriah Dru is a PI child finder and Richard Lake is an Atlanta PD detective. Many have tried to kill this duo. So far they've dispatched the bad guys.

We'd love to see you August 4th.

A Synopsis of Wolf's Clothing

The 7th in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series begins when Atlanta's famous police dog, Buddy, is stolen from his handler's SUV.  The community is anguished over the German Shepherd's disappearance. Buddy and black Lab, Jed, work with Child Trace's Moriah Dru when she's hired by the courts to find missing children. Atlanta's citizens thrilled when the two canines found children slated for the sex trade overseas and those secreted in the outbuildings of a cathedral. Dru, a former police officer, is aided in her investigations by her lover, Lieutenant Richard Lake of the Atlanta Police Department. 

wolfs-clothing

But why did two men pull into one of Atlanta's toniest malls and steal a police dog, and how did they get away with it? The trail to Buddy's abductors leads to a training facility where that day the canines underwent yearly trials; to an investment scam, dubbed by the media The Wolves of Atlanta; and to a mega-church's financial chicanery. As Dru and Lake dig deeper, the bodies of the good and the bad pile up while Dru crosses her fingers one will not be Buddy. 

For more of my books

As always, Happy Reading!

Gerrie Ferris Finger

  

Happy Birthday Dame Agatha!

Agatha Christie is the undisputed goddess of mystery for all mystery genre writers and readers the world over.

The Guinness Book of World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books,behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. (From Wiki)

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, was born into a wealthy family on September 15, 1890 and died on January 12, 1976.

She was the consummate English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections that she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigative work of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Parker Pyne, Harley Quin/Mr Satterthwaite and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. She wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap. In 1971 she was made a Dame for her contribution to literature.

Christie served in a hospital during the First World War before marrying Archibald Christie and starting a family in London. She was initially unsuccessful at getting her work published, but in 1920 The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Hercule Poirot.

A REAL GONE GIRL

In late 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele. In December of 1926, the Christies quarrelled, and Archie left their house, Styles, to spend the weekend with his mistress. That same evening Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her car was later found above a chalk quarry, with an expired driving licence and clothes.

Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public. A newspaper offered a £100 reward. Over a thousand police officers and 15,000 volunteers scoured the land. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find the missing woman. Dorothy L. Sayers visited the house in Surrey, later using the scene in her book Unnatural Death.

 On December 14, 1926, she was found at the Swan Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele (the surname of her husband's lover) from Cape Town.

Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from amnesia. Why did she disappear? She's never said. She was known to be in a depressed state from overwork, her mother's death earlier that year, and her husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or attempt to frame her husband for murder.

Christie makes no mention of the event in her autobiography, but it is now largely believed that she disappeared to embarrass her husband. They divorced and he went on to marry Neele. Agatha married her second husband, Max Mallowan. She had met the archeologist at an archeology dig.

So, Agatha, the great mystery writer, remains shrouded in, quite naturally, a mystery.

I lay my love for mystery reading and writing at her clever feet. She was, and still is, the best.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD
MURMURS OF INSANITY
THE DEVIL LAUGHED
THE LAST TEMPTATION
THE END GAME

COMING: May 18, 2016 AMERICAN NIGHTS

Happy Reading, and
Trust you are resting in peace, Dame Agatha.

OMGs - Oh My God, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs!

As I suspected when I've done radio spots for RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD, I would be questioned about the plot and the characters. You see Wild Blood is an outlaw motorcycle gang that is under suspicion in the novel for taking part in, or knowing who, killed Juliet Trapp, a 16-year-old student at Winter's Farm Academy. My heroes, Moriah Dru and Richard Lake, delve into the cold case and come to some surprising conclusions and doubts that Wild Blood members did the evil deed. So, they convince the club to allow them to ride in their ranks to a Bike Week charity event in Florida to help solve the crime and perhaps clear their club and its members. There's plenty of distrust on the part of the bikers -- after all Lake's a cop and Dru's a PI. The tension from all sides, plus rival clubs they meet along the way, lends violence to the mystery.

While I admitted to the radio hosts that I romanticized what many call thugs, I also shared my research on biker clubs in general.

First Harley Prototype - Wiki

Biker clubs have been a part of American culture as long as the motorcycle itself. Harley Davidson considered by many as the premier bike had its beginnings in 1901. Although not the first motorcycle invented -- the Indian brand bicycle company invented the motorized bike in 1900 -- it was one of the first when 20 year-old William S. Harley drew up plans for a small engine and four-inch flywheels. For the next two years, Harley and his childhood friend Arthur Davidson worked on their motor-bicycle in a Milwaukee machine shop. By 1907 they were selling their first bikes.

The first motorcycle club was formed in 1904 when the Yonkers Bicycle Club morphed into the Yonkers Motorcycle Club -- some 23 years before the founding of the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) in 1927. In San Francisco the very first SFMC meeting, attended by 12 charter members, took place in November 1904 at A. Freed’s Thor Motorcycle Shop near famous Fulton Street.

When bikers wore coat and tie

Outlaw "gang" clubs

One of the first was The Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a one-percenter club that was formed in McCook, Illinois in 1935.

Probably the most well known American biker gang, The Hell’s Angels, have a long and thorough history on American highways. Much information concerning their origins is hazy due to their long-standing code of secrecy. Sometime in the 1940’s in California Hell’s Angels MC was formed. Their insignia is the “death’s head” logo which is copied from the insignia of the 85th Fighter Squadron and the 552nd Medium Bomber Squadron.

Many of the members of outlaw gangs (as well as non-outlaw clubs) gravitate to the motorcycle culture when they leave the military. According to sociologists -- who purport to know these things -- men grow used to the company of men and the culture of war. After service, especially during war time, they find life mundane. The thrills, the wild and free, "don't tread on me," lifestyle has drawn at least 44,000 men to what the Justice Department calls OMGs - Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.

From a riot in Hollister, California to this week's shootout at Waco's Twin Peaks, OMG's have left a history of violence in their wake.

On of the first and most famous is the American Motorcyclist Association's rallies in Hollister, California. The influx of bikers was good for business at first, but after World War II, the rally was bigger than ever with a flood of veterans drawn to the excitement and freedom associated with motorcycles. Beer bottles littered the streets, and people were sleeping everywhere. Bikers did what bikers do. They raced around and popped wheelies. The state police were called in to clear the town.

The event got big play in Life magazine and inspired the 1953 film "The Wild One," starring Marlon Brando. His leather jacket and brooding demeanor gave a face to the bad-boy biker image.

The Hells Angels added to the lore. Hired to provide security at a Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California, a gang member killed Meredith Hunter, a man who rushed the stage with a gun after an earlier confrontation with Hells Angels. The stabbing was captured on film. Witnesses reported several gang members stomping on Hunter. Promoters had paid the gang in beer, and members had numerous scuffles with concertgoers throughout the day of the concert.

The Bandidos Motorcycle Club goes down in infamy after two brothers ripped them off in a drug deal, selling them baking powder instead of meth.The gang kidnapped Ray and Mel Tarver, drove them into the Texas desert and forced them to dig their own graves before shooting and killing them.

My Wild Blood does not practice the devilry of other one-percenters, but are people who love their culture, avoid harming "civilians" or killing cops -- and save Moriah Dru's life.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

Inspiration on the Highway from Hell

A motorcycle mama I am not. My son will attest to that -- and my grumbling fear every time he fired up his bike. He's had a fixation with motorcycles since my father bought his only grandson a motor scooter. My generous father also bought him a pony but that's for another post.

My son's last bike was a huge Harley Davidson. While I am not a rider, I, too, have been fascinated with motorcycles and the culture created by generations of hard core bikers -- and not all clubs (never gangs) are of the outlaw bent, also called 1%er's.

From Pinterest

A couple of years ago, we were on the highway from hell -- I-95 from Georgia to Florida -- and a string of bikes flew past us. (My husband is no slouch when it comes to speed.) That's when the idea of writing a Moriah Dru/Richard Lake thriller/mystery that would feature a biker club came to me.

I know, it's so easy to connect murder with an outlaw club, which is what I made Wild Blood. But, more than that, in Running With Wild Blood  I was able to explore the mystique and romance of the culture itself. I learned many arcane things from my sources, which were given to me by those who know all kinds of bikers, including outlaws.

In my reporter days I met several scruffy-looking bikers at Bike Week in Myrtle Beach, S. C. They were the spokesmen (no women) -- the front men or hail-fellows of the clubs. In the last few decades, the big national clubs have campaigned to clean up their image by holding charitable bike events in places where they are welcome. In winter, Florida seems to be a magnet for Bike Weeks. Who doesn't want to get the cold north wind out of their faces?

While Running with Wild Blood reflects biker practices and traditions, and bikers with hearts-of-gold, it's really about heinous murder, misunderstood people, judgmental society and those in august positions misbehaving. Center stage are Dru and Lake riding with the club to solve the mystery of it all.

Sons of Anarchy it is not.

My best to readers and riders alike!

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

MURMURS OF INSANITY

“The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible.”—Allan Kaprow

Murmurs of Insanity—crossing the lines.

 

This fourth novel featuring Moriah Dru and Richard Lake dramatizes two separate cases. Running in the background is a case about a young would-be gang banger who witnesses a murder between drug lords and afterward disappears. In the second (primary) case Lake asks Dru to look into a missing art student at the University of Georgia. Lake is an Atlanta police detective and Moriah Dru is a private investigator specializing in tracing missing children.

Throughout my life I’ve had a keen interest in art—I’ve an easel somewhere in the attic to prove it. My interest extends to Performance art, too. Some think of it as avant-garde; and it certainly plays a role in anarchic art such as Futurism and Dada. Some see it as nihilistic, but all agree it’s a hop-step from genres like painting and sculpting. Kaprow, known as the father of “happenings”, was very clear that Performance art is not theater, but, to me, it certainly involves theatrics.

As action art, the artist or artists feel the need to challenge the conventions of traditional art and of society. Doctrine is tested. Brainwashed concepts mocked. In the case of the artists in Murmurs, the trail of Performance clues are meant to shake up a complacent community. What could go wrong?

I’ve tried to show in these divergent cases that societal insanity compels the thuggish and vile in the real world, while in the artist community of a college town, insanity shows up as contrived and annoying. Be that as it may seem, in the end Murmurs of Insanity is a murder mystery.

Oh, and about the cover—dolls give me the creeps. They look like the dead.

 

A Review:

This is an outstanding, complicated, complex, emotionally fraught, novel of murder, and manipulation. It requires careful and thoughtful attention to the details of the crimes, the motivations of the characters and the movement of the plot. The rewards for readers are substantial. Yes, character development and explication is important. Yes, the relationships among the main characters, and there are many, are vital, but, unlike many modern crime novels, in this story the plot is an important and sturdy factor. – Carl Brookins

 

Available online, in book stores and libraries. Ask your bookseller or librarian if it is not stocked yet.

Also in the Dru/Lake series:

The End Game

The Last Temptation

The Devil Laughed.

Running with Wild Blood – Jan. 2015

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How can someone be so HEARTLESS

FREE On Kindle May 2nd and 3rd.

Get to know Gemma Summers and the citizens of Roscommon in this novella series that features those with "less" sympathy, guts, fear, faith, sense or clues than we have.

HEARTLESS is the second in the Gemma Summers Series. MERCILESS introduced Gemma when she got promoted and headed to the north Georgia mountains and the Chattooga River to raft and celebrate her goal of becoming a Major Crime Case detective.

Her town Roscommon, a fictional place smack in the middle of Georgia close to the Oconee River, has to deal with the same problems that big cities like Atlanta do, but citizens are proud to say that cold, callous murder is rare.

But when it happens, it can happen to the best of Roscommon citizens.









Coming in August: THE LAST TEMPTATION, second in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Series. THE END GAME, a national award-winning novel, debuted the series.

Other Books:

THE GHOST SHIP
WHISPERING
WHEN SERPENTS DIE
HONORED DAUGHTERS
WAGON DOGS

Check them out at: http://amzn.to/nASzI0