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

  

What it's like to be Dru and Running with Wild Blood?

I had been retired from journalism and writing another series for a few years when I read a Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child. Now let’s just say Reacher is so much larger than life, he’s on a physical plane all by himself. That caused me to search my brain for a woman in a series that was like Reacher. There may be a few, but lacking female Reachers in my library, I created Moriah Dru.

Dru, a tall good-looking woman, began her career as a policewoman on the fast track at the Atlanta Police Department. She was approved for a slot at the FBI’s National Academy and takes the Yellow Brick Road challenge. Her prowess under the harshest conditions earned her a coveted Marine Corps’ yellow brick.

Back in Atlanta, she was partnered with Lieutenant Richard Lake. He was divorced, and they become lovers. When he was promoted, she got stuck with some unlovely partners who thought they should she share her bed, too. Not going to happen. Her good friend, a juvenile judge, urged her to leave the force and start Child Trace, a specialty child-finding private detective agency. In The End Game she is challenged to find two abducted sisters bound for the sex slave trade in Central America. With Lake’s help, they succeed. That book won the St. Martin’s Minotaur Best First Novel.

As her story progressed in the now five-book published series, Dru’s self-defense skills, including expertise in martial arts, shooting, and out-thinking the bad guys, increased. My editor figured out which fictional character she is most like: Emma Peel of the original British “The Avengers” series on television.

That brings us to RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD

One time I rode on a Harley Davidson. Just that once. At eighty m.p.h. I like to be enclosed. But I have to admit I have been fascinated with motorcycles and a culture created by generations of men hungering for the unencumbered wild life. Not all clubs (never gangs) are of the outlaw bent, but Wild Blood is.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I 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.

It’s so easy to connect murder with an outlaw club, but more than that, in Running With Wild Blood I was able to explore the mystique and romance of the culture. I learned many arcane things from my sources—shared by those who knew 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 sponsoring 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 face?

While Running with Wild Blood reflects biker practices and traditions (including those with hearts-of-gold), the book centers on the heinous murder of an adventurous teenage girl and her missing friend. The Wild Blood Club is accused. After looking into the cold case, Dru has doubts about the club’s involvement. To clear them, if they can be cleared, Dru and Lake ride Lake’s Harley to a Florida Bike Week with Wild Blood. To be sure, the culture of cop and biker creates a lot of tension. Who would bet that hell wouldn’t break loose when another murder occurs?

My best to readers and riders alike!

Running with Wild Blood

http://amzn.to/1MoJw9P

"There is something at the end which makes me want to keep reading this series." RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD (Hardcover: http://amzn.to/1MoJw9P) All book stores and online stores. Great holiday or birthday gift.

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.

A Great Mystery Mistress Leaves Us

From Wikipedia

 

 

Ruth Rendell, creator of the sensitive Inspector Reginald Wexford, was a novel mentor of mine, as was PD. James and Ngaio Marsh. That excellent trio came after Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith and Dorothy Sayers. So, sad to say, I learned that Ruth Rendell succumbed to an illness earlier this week. One of the most prolific authors in the mystery genre -- more than 60 novels -- she died at age 85 following a stroke. The family of Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, announced that she passed away in London on May 2. 

There will never be another Wexford, and for that the mystery world has lost a very human policeman. Inspector Reginald Wexford was a flawed man, and so related to the flawed villains he pursued.  His wife is the placid Dora. His daughters are Sheila and Sylvia. He has a good relationship with Sheila (his favourite) but a difficult relationship with Sylvia (who feels slighted though he has never actually intended to slight her).

The first Wexford book was published in 1964. It was several years later that I read From Doon with Death, and that started me on a Rendell addiction. The talented Baroness never feared tackling such psychological subjects as racism or physical domestic abuse. She and the late PD James are credited with pioneering the psychological thriller.

Baroness Rendell wrote a darker series as Barbara Vine, plus many stand-alone novels, short stories and novellas. Many thought her writings were cutting-edge literature. Labels aside, I thought they were brilliant.

Rest in Peace, Baroness.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD - 2015

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

What is your book about?

I do a lot of radio and radio/TV (where a static photo of me appears on the screen while I'm interviewed from my desk at home speaking into the phone while wearing pajamas). I go to fairs, festivals, signings and in all these venues I'm asked, "What is your book about?"

I try not to crack wise and say, "Oh, just about everything: life, love, hate, death, fear, triumph, tragedy -- you name it, it's in my writing." Which is true, but that's too throwaway. Better to say, "It's a murder mystery, with thriller elements like when the vengeful bad guy is revealed and gets in a gun battle with Dru and Lake, my heroine and hero." Not too illuminating, either, you say?

If I don't come up with a better answer, the questioner (host) will come up with a more pointed question. "Tell us the story, the plot."

"Ah," I say, but don't explain that the plot is a device that tells what the book is about: life, love, hate, death, fear, triumph, tragedy. It's the backbone that supports the characters motivations. So I launch into the plot of my latest, Running with Wild Blood. "It's about an outlaw biker club that is accused of murdering a young girl. The case goes cold when the cops don't solve it right away, but then a few years later a witness regains his memory of that night, and ..."

What the book is about is a young teen, Juliet Trapp, coming into the fullness of life, thinking it's a thrill-a-minute and she's immortal, juxtaposed against her friend, Bunny Raddison. who learns too soon that life is full of grief born of her own desires and fears.

We learn along the way, in this fifth book in the series, more about Moriah Dru and Richard Lake, and who the other characters are, their visions, why they've taken the path in life that they have. Even how some look death in the face and triumph.
g Gerrie Ferris Finger

DO YOU TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHODUNNIT?

In most reviews of my books, one of the important aspects is figuring  out whodunnit as the reviewer reads the book.

"I figured out who did it early in the beginning," seems to rate a negative point. 

"I didn't figure it out until the middle when such and such clue was revealed." That's gets an okay, but means I need to be more obscure with clues next time.

"I was totally surprised at who did it. Never would have guessed." This is a definite thumbs up.

And that is my goal. It's a mystery, after all. It should stay mysterious until the end.


But I understand the need to know. I was a journalist before I became a novelist. As a reader, I cast about for the villain even though I don't want to know.  (I think it's my earliest mystery reading. Agatha Christie, of course. How she could lead me away from the true killer is still a mystery.)

Does it spoil the ending when I guess right? Sometimes it does, but then, like all readers I hope for a surprise. That begs a question: do I really want to be wrong?

I've been hosted by many book clubs and the members vary in their desire to unmask the bad guys, or girls. Some just enjoy the read. One woman said, "I don't want to know." Another woman said, "I almost always figure out whodunit in the first pages." She says it's because the villain has to appear in the first pages and so it becomes a process of elimination. Well, that's her way, but in today's mysteries the villain often does not come into the story in the first pages. In some not until the last half.

Today it's all about character and character-building. If I can spot a cardboard villain in the first part of the book, I'm likely going to lose interest. Most mysteries are set in the here and now, and so to unmask a villain early is poor writing, or an overlooked clue by the author. 

For my reading pleasure, the bad guy needs to keep his killer self under wraps until he no longer can - and that's at the end.

Go enjoy a book today. It's always World Book Day.

Best to all, 

Gerrie Ferris Finger

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

###

 

Decatur Book Festival - a Southern city goes book crazy

Dear Readers, Fans and Fellow Writers,

I will be on an Atlanta Writers Club panel on Sunday, August 31 at 5 p.m. at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA., discussing my book MURMURS OF INSANITY. A moderator and three fellow panelists will also be discussing their latest releases and experiences in the writing life.

Please come visit us and have a wonderful experience connecting with us and other book nuts across the Southeast. After the program, at around 6 p.m., I (we) will be signing books.

I invite you to read a review by Carl Brookins, an excellent reviewer of all things book.

Murmurs of Insanity
A Moriah Dru / Richard Lake Mystery
Gerrie Ferris Finger
Five Star, July 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2858-5
Hardcover

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.

Since pictographs were scratched into cave walls in the pre-modern era seven thousand years ago, art movements have been subjects for pity, scorn, adulation and ignorance. A modern phenomenon, performance art, plays an important part in this novel, which is set between Atlanta and Athens, Georgia. Some characters, Baxter, Moira Dru, Richard Lake among them, are the principal players. Each is a finely drawn, complex character whose motivations and background influence their attitudes and their actions. One of the interesting elements of the novel is the depth to which the author probes the decisions of the detectives and the way they are influenced by their training, experience and their personal backgrounds.

The other characters, some important to the development of the plot, are less well developed which might be a deficiency, but the pace of the story is at the least adequate and at times, exhilarating. The essence of the plot is the semi-automatic assumptions—several of them—made by police, family, and others about a series of circumstances. In this case, a missing student, tenuously linked to a wealthy restaurateur, is the original incident. The student’s girl friend is accusing the wealthy restaurateur who has a history of tangles with young women. Moira Dru, with aid from her lover, Atlanta detective Lake, drills down to get at the truth of the matter and discovers many surprises, some of which threaten Dru’s existence. A fine, thoughtful novel, well-written and packing plenty of action and surprise.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, June 2014.
Author of Red Sky, Devils Island, Hard Cheese, Reunion

 

THE DEVIL LAUGHED - Third in the Award-winning Moriah Dru Series

Judge Portia Devon invites Moriah Dru, Richard Lake and his daughter to Lake Lanier, north of Atlanta, for the Fourth of July weekend. There Dru spots the stern of a missing sailboat. It went down in a storm when the lake was full pool. Four years later, the area is suffering one of the worst droughts in its history, thus revealing the large boat.

Four passengers were aboard the sailboat, last seen docked with the drunken boaters raising hell at the marina's restaurant. Johnny Brown's body was found the next day floating in the no-wake zone; the other three disappeared with the sailboat.  Because of their lecherous behavior and wealthy status they had been the topic of gossip ever since. When the sailboat was raised there were no bodies aboard, reinforcing the rumor that Laurant Cocineau and Candice Brown, Johnny's wife, also got rid of Janet Cocineau, Laurant's wife, and fled to Rio, a place they'd clandestinely visited before.

Evangeline, Candace's daughter by her first husband, believes her mother is alive and wants to hire Dru to find her. Dru is a child finder, and Evangeline is a precocious, demanding twelve-year-old, but Dru acquiesces because, by spotting the boat, she feels invested in the case. She'll have help from Lake, an Atlanta police detective.

This twisted tale of jealousy, greed and downright evil takes us from the North Georgia mountains to the wine country of Cape Fear, N. C. where the grapes become part of the wrath.

Happy reading,

Gerrie

At Amazon:  http://amzn.to/14cExnt
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/16SKAPT

Welcome William S. Shepard to my blog

  Let me introduce my guest for the next few days, William S. Shepard, a prize-winning author of the new mystery genre the diplomatic thriller.

  Now residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore, the Shepards enjoy visits from their daughters and granddaughters, fine and moderate weather, ocean swims at Assateague, Chesapeake Bay crabs, and the company of Rajah and Rani, their two rescued cats.

  Shepard's diplomatic mysteries are set in American Embassies overseas. That mirrors Shepard’s own career in the Foreign Service of the United States, during which he served in Singapore, Saigon, Budapest, Athens and Bordeaux, in addition to five Washington tours of duty.

  His diplomatic mystery books explore this rich, insider background into the world of high stakes diplomacy and government. His main character is a young career diplomat, Robbie Cutler. The first four books in the series are available as Ebooks. Shepard evokes his last Foreign Service post, Consul General in Bordeaux, in Vintage Murder, the first of the series of five “diplomatic mysteries.” The second, Murder On The Danube, mines his knowledge of Hungary and the 1956 Revolution. In Murder In Dordogne Robbie Cutler and his bride Sylvie are just married, but their honeymoon in the scenic southwest of France is interrupted by murders.

  The Saladin Affair, next in the series, has Robbie Cutler transferred to work for the Secretary of State. Like the author once did, Cutler arranges trips on Air Force Two – now enlivened by serial Al Qaeda attempts to assassinate the Secretary of State, as they travel to Dublin, London, Paris, Vienna, Riga and Moscow! And who killed the American Ambassador in Dublin?

  The Great Game Murders is the most recent of the series. There is another trip by the Secretary of State, this time to Southeast Asia, India, China and Afghanistan. The duel between Al Qaeda and the United States continues, this time with Al Qaeda seeking to expand its reach with the help of a regional great power nation. And Robbie Cutler’s temporary duty (TDY) assignment to Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, carries its own perils. Fortunately, Uncle Seth helps unravel his perilous Taliban captivity in time!

***

                        

Now we'll hear from William on:

Treating Real And Real Time Events In Fiction

  My series of diplomatic mysteries now has five novels. All are, to some extent, based on fact. The first, “Vintage Murder,” concerns the Basque extremist organization ETA. Then “Murder On The Danube” takes as its background the heroic Hungarian Revolution of 1956. “Murder In Dordogne,” interrupts the honeymoon of my two main characters in an idyllic French rural landscape with murders past and present, as remnants from the Occupation still have present consequences. Then “The Saladin Affair Murders” has Al Qaeda tracking the Secretary of State on his first official trip to London, Dublin, Paris, Vienna, Riga and Moscow. Lastly, the latest novel, “The Great Game Murders,” explores real time events including the war in Afghanistan, and cyber warfare.

  I’ve found that exploring actual events, sometimes in real time, while undergirding the story with a realistic background, presents both opportunities and pitfalls, which may be of interest to readers and fellow authors. First, of course, is to get the actual events right. In “Murder On The Danube,” for example, survivors of the twelve days of street fighting know what was going on every day, in each quarter of Budapest. The problem I thought was to make sure that this material was accurately presented, without the detail overwhelming the story. But I wanted to present a modern story as well, and therein lay the problem. The political scene kept changing with every election, and I wrote at least three different drafts of that evolving situation, trying to get it just right. I finally realized that no words of mine were ever going to fix a changing political situation, and so I settled for a realistic, somewhat broad brush background that let the main story emerge. That was lesson number one – a background is going to continue to evolve, and the writer cannot fix it like a bug preserved in amber. The balance is to have just enough background for realism, while letting the main story proceed.

  How is it possible to balance a terrorist subplot with a murder mystery? This new diplomatic mystery genre is still evolving, and I surely don’t have all of the answers yet. But in “The Saladin Affair Murders,” the murder of the American Ambassador to Dublin seemed to fit well into the overall plot. And I found that Al Qaeda’s plans to assassinate the Secretary of State in three different locations were best foiled by good police and intelligence work, not dissimilar to detection of a nonpolitical crime, such as murder.

  In “The Great Game Murders,” there is a duel between Al Qaeda and the United States, as the Secretary of State visits Southeast Asia, India, Afghanistan and China. Here I incorporate what is known of Al Qaeda’s methods, with the addition of a further nightmare – a possible link between that terrorist group, and a Great Power. Since that is fanciful I am free to speculate on how such a link might develop. You’ll see the consequences in the chapter on the Secretary of State’s secret visit to Beijing!

As part of the plot line, Robbie Cutler becomes suspicious that private email communications may have been intercepted or compromised in some way. He learns about cyber warfare, and uses what he learns to thwart a plot against the Secretary of State during their visit to Goa, on the Indian Ocean coast. This was rewarding to research and to write, and the lessons may be more broadly applicable than this fictional account!

  Afghanistan is of course presented in real time. Here I use the conflict as background for Robbie Cutler’s temporary duty (TDY) assignment to Kandahar Province. Together with official military and USAID colleagues, he builds a well in a small forsaken village, which had no clean water supply. It is an almost biblical undertaking, and several readers have said that they liked this segment best. The needs of the people continue due to and in spite of the conflict, and there seems to be a timeless quality about the well digging. I rather like that in a novel set against actual news events.

  And so, against this background of five novels, I think it is possible to draw a few conclusions. First, get your history right. (The background of the Basque terrorist group ETA and its emergence as a dangerous group was established in “Vintage Murder.” “Murder In Dordogne” contains a number of London radio message to the French Underground, set in exactly the style of the time.) But don’t let your story become the prisoner of its historical setting, no matter how fascinating that may be. Next, the fact that you may be writing against a real time background has its own perils. Don’t let your story become prisoner of tomorrow’s headlines. Don’t be afraid to use new technology, such as cyber warfare, in your story. But always remember that the story is the important thing, not the background against which it is set. For we all love to read an interesting, well paced story, with evolving characters, now don’t we?

***

Note:

I can't wait to read this latest in the series. I loved "Murder on the Danube."

Links to Robbie Cutler books:

Amazon.com: The Great Game Murders (Robbie Cutler Diplomatic Mysteries) eBook: William S. Shepard: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: The Saladin Affair Murders (Robbie Cutler Diplomatic Mysteries) eBook: William S. Shepard: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: Murder On The Danube (Robbie Cutler Diplomatic Mysteries) eBook: William S. Shepard: Kindle Store

***

Thanks so much William for creating Robbie and sharing your thoughts.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
Author of:

THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION
THE DEVIL LAUGHED
MURMURS OF INSANITY - July 2014

Drawing for THE DEVIL LAUGHED

I am giving away three copies of the third in my award-winning series (beginning with The End Game - Malice Domestic, St. Martin's First Traditional Novel in 2010). The contest ends Dec. 13 so I'll have time to get the books to the winners before Christmas.

Enter to win the third in the award-winning series. THE DEVIL LAUGHED

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/71741-the-devil-laughed

Check out my other books at 

https://www.gerrrieferrisfinger.com

Gerrie

THE END GAME

THE LAST TEMPTATION

THE DEVIL LAUGHED.

A Wild Party and a Wild Ride when The Devil Laughed

The Browne and Cocineau families who were partying on the sailboat when it disappeared had been at odds over a vineyard in Cape Fear, N.C. When Dru follows the trail there, her visit leads to another death and uncovers money laundering and other criminal doings. When all is said and done, however, it is the closemouthed, closely knit mountain community that holds the answers. Dru's third (The Last Temptation, 2012, etc.) provides plenty of quirky characters and surprising revelations. -- Kirkus Reviews.

Post a comment for a chance to win an autographed hard copy.

Judge Portia Devon invites Moriah Dru, Richard Lake and his daughter to Lake Lanier, north of Atlanta, for the Fourth of July weekend. There Dru spots the stern of a missing sailboat. It went down in a storm when the lake was full pool. Four years later, the area is suffering one of the worst droughts in its history, thus revealing the large boat.

Four passengers were aboard the sailboat, last seen docked with the drunken boaters raising hell at the marina's restaurant. Johnny Brown's body was found the next day floating in the no-wake zone; the other three disappeared with the sailboat.  Because of their lecherous behavior and wealthy status they had been the topic of gossip ever since. When the sailboat was raised there were no bodies aboard, reinforcing the rumor that Laurant Cocineau and Candice Brown, Johnny's wife, also got rid of Janet Cocineau, Laurant's wife, and fled to Rio, a place they'd clandestinely visited before.

Evangeline, Candace's daughter by her first husband, believes her mother is alive and wants to hire Dru to find her. Dru is a child finder, and Evangeline is a precocious, demanding twelve-year-old, but Dru acquiesces because, by spotting the boat, she feels invested in the case. She'll have help from Lake, an Atlanta police detective.

This twisted tale of jealousy, greed and downright evil takes us from the North Georgia mountains to the wine country of Cape Fear, N. C. where the grapes become part of the wrath.

Happy reading,

Gerrie

At Amazon:  http://amzn.to/14cExnt
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/16SKAPT

Marilyn Meredith explains Why We Do It.

(Comment for a chance to be a book character.)

Welcome, Marilyn. Happy to have you visit.

 

Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series. She borrows a lot from where she lives in the Southern Sierra for the town of Bear Creek and the surrounding area, including the nearby Tule River Indian Reservation. She does like to remind everyone that she is writing fiction. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and follow her blog at http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Marilyn's latest in the award-winning series:

 

Blurb for Spirit Shapes: Ghost hunters stumble upon a murdered teen in a haunted house. Deputy Tempe Crabtree's investigation pulls her into a whirlwind of restless spirits, good and evil, intertwined with the past and the present, and demons and angels at war.

 

To buy directly from the publisher in all formats:

 http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Spirit+Shapes Also available directly from Amazon.

 

And now a few thoughts from Marilyn:

 

Why Do We Do It?

  

Why do writers keep on writing? Of course I can’t answer to every author, but I’ll give you my reasons.

First, I’ll give you the reasons why someone might ask that question if your name isn’t one that people recognize right off.

You spend hours sitting at a computer writing—or sometimes just thinking. Writing is hard work—sometimes even painful.

You spend hours sitting at a computer doing promotion. Promotion is hard work and you never quite know if the time you spent paid off.

 

You don’t have time to go out to lunch with friends on a whim. In fact, you probably schedule your social outings.

You don’t have time to belong to social or service groups—or if you do, you miss a lot of meetings.

Sometimes your husband and family members feel neglected because you spend so much time on your writing.

You don’t have time to watch TV all day, or do some of the chores you ought to be doing, because writing is more important.

You don’t make much money for all the work you do. (And if you’re not published yet, you haven’t made a dime for all that work.)

Here is why I keep on writing.

 

The main reason is because I can’t stop. Writing is such a part of my life, I can’t imagine not spending most days doing at least some writing.

How will I know what is going to happen to Deputy Tempe Crabtree and her husband, Pastor Hutch, or the men and women on the Rocky Bluff P.D. if I don’t write the next book?

Despite the lack of monetary reward, there’s nothing better than having someone tell me how much they liked my book.

I am writing for the readers as much as I’m writing for me. Hopefully, they want to find out what is happening with my characters too.

 

Maybe it’s not enough for some folks, but those are the reasons I keep writing.

Contest:

The person who comments on the most blogs on this blog tour will have the opportunity to have a character named after him or her in the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery.

 

Thank you, Marilyn for an excellent post.
P.S. Comment folks. It's fun to be a character in a mystery book.

 

Who is Moriah Dru?

I am often asked, "Who is Moriah Dru?"

 

I do a lot of radio and the question is important, as important as describing the plot of the latest Moriah Dru/Richard Lake release. (This year "The Devil Laughed" was released September 1.) Since I've "lived" with Dru for years now (I'm on my sixth in the series), I know her pretty well.

 

 

 

I have to admit Dru was inspired by Emma Peel of the old TV series, "The Avengers." Like Mrs. Peel, she'll have nothing to do with a damsel in distress life. While she's as bold as that suave British spy, she's as American as Angela Gennaro -- Dennis Lehane's rugged yet compassionate heroine. 

 

Dru grew into who she is at the Atlanta Police Department where she excelled as an officer and consequently was awarded a spot at the FBI National Academy.  When she and Richard Lake became lovers, she left the APD and started Child Trace. As a child finder she is hired by private citizens and the Juvenile Justice System.

 

She’s intuitive in investigations and unafraid to pursue her investigative theories. She hones her shooting skills on a gun range and is proficient in martial arts. She isn’t the first to start a battle, but she’s capable of winning it. She has killed to save Lake's life.

Dru is what every woman thinks she is deep within herself. Inside we’re all heros. Think of the air guitar craze. Everyone can play one; not everyone can play a real guitar. Unlike the reality of most air guitarists playing a mean Gibson, Dru can defend herself and those she protects in her character's reality.

She’s no wonder woman. She has human vulnerabilities. She can assess herself with sarcastic barbs. She and Lake get into dark humorous conversations which reveal her vulnerabilities. We see Lake, her lover and former partner at the Atlanta Police Department, through Dru’s point of view. He’s handsome to the point Moriah is always on the lookout for women’s attraction to him. Jealousy is but one of her vulnerabilities.    

Happy Reading,

Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION
THE GHOST SHIP