I am a proud mom of two, who loves to read, write and just enjoy life. Watching my kids - 9 year old daughter and 5 year old son, grow is my greatest enjoyment. Blogging has also become something that I am having a blast with - it has been wonderful meeting so many people who share so many of the same interests. I am also pursuing writing in different areas and love working with authors on promoting and touring their great works!
I wanted to close out the month of short story love with a delightful story by a very talented and delightful man, J.W. Nicklaus. I thank him for his time and participation.
I also want to extend the invitation to anyone who would like to submit a short story and/or poem to Cafe of Dreams. I will continue to publish them here for everyone to read and enjoy. Any genre is wonderful - no erotica please. Also, it does not have to be a "first-time" printing of your work, you're the boss of it, I am just the sharer, lol.
Okay, now it is time to sit back, relax and enjoy this little peek at Mr. Nicklaus' talent with his short, All She Said!
All She Said
By: J.W. Nicklaus
Something wasn't right. Like watching the Cheshire Cat float his toothy grin in front of you then disappear—not offensive but truly unsettling. Her voice was distant and gray, disconnected and occupied. Mentally he groped for something, anything to bring her around. He pressed the phone tighter to his ear, hoping to hear her thoughts.
"You okay?" He let the question evanesce like a fine mist on a hot day.
"Yeah, I think you—" she paused.
"It's in your voice. I can hear it."
"I think you're hearing stress. Been one of those days," she sighed. His mind tumbled and clicked like the combination of a padlock. Abruptly, the mental shackle popped open.
"Remember the other day, when we were in the restaurant parking lot?"
"Of course. Sure," she replied. "What about it?"
"Do you remember the last few words I said before we went our separate ways?" He could practically hear the very corner of her mouth tip upward the slightest bit. "I remember what happened before that" she hinted.
"Uh huh." He could feel it dance upon his lips.
"You kissed me . . . and then kissed me again."
"Well, yes," he grinned. "But what did I say?"
"I don't know. I remember you said something but I didn't hear it all," she told him, clearly stalling.
"Come on," he chided. "Five words," he said as he silently counted them off, one finger at a time.
"Something about beautiful, or creatures, or something."
"You're close."
"Gorgeous something or other."
His voice warmed. "Very, very close. I said, in a close whisper, "You are a gorgeous creature." He thought he could hear her lips curl into a divine smile.
"And I smiled all the way home."
"Like you're doing right now, huh?" he smirked. The slightest shard of a laugh confirmed it.
"Yes" was all she said.
About J.W. Nicklaus:
J.W. Nicklaus maintains his own personal space between the soul and soft machine in the arid southwest amongst the snowbirds and the Arizona Diamondbacks. After graduating with an Associate of Arts in Journalism and Photography and a B.S. in Telecommunications he's spent the better part of twenty years experiencing life and working in trades as varied as a small advertising firm to a litigation service bureau. An Arizona native, he's lived in the Valley, Tucson, and Flagstaff. He is also a proud father who shares his love of the word and appreciation of baseball with his teenage son.
If continuous action is what you are seeking, T-Rex Virus is definitely the book for you!
Tom Forest does an excellent job making T-Rex Virus come alive in a very real way. I could definitely tell that Mr. Forest knew his background information and had done extensive research - whether from real-life incidents and knowledge, or simply performing a wide-range of research.
T-Rex Virus focuses on a huge "what if" question of "What if whatever killed the dinosaurs so long ago, was awakened and happened again today?" A highly intriguing premise and one that captured my attention right away. However, I do have to mention that I was disappointed in the fact the actual story, itself, focused more on "get the bad guy before he gets away with the key that could mean the end of the world". I was expecting more of a story focusing on the epidemic itself and the people it was effecting. In actuality, T-Rex Virus is a story of extreme action and chase. While perfect for those seeking that avenue of reading, it was different than I anticipated. Is that good or bad? Well, I did enjoy the story, though would have liked to know beforehand exactly the type of story to expect. As I said, there is an extreme amount of action and, honestly, for me, it was a bit much. A perfect story for a movie on the big screen. As I read, I could completely picture watching the scenes play out in a movie. So, in my opinion, perfect for that, but a bit much for a book.
As for the characters, I really enjoyed them. Agent Dale Fox is excellent, as is his partner Sullivan Casse and his brother Sean Fox. These are the characters that the story centralizes on and they are an awesome team. Together they work to solve a couple of separate crimes, which actually end up playing off of one another and tying the entire story together.
I do want to mention that in the beginning of the book, the author lists the cast of characters, as well as a glossary telling what the different acronyms stand for, that are used throughout the book. This was an excellent idea, on Mr. Forest's part, as it does come in handy to reference back to. As I said, there is a lot going on in the story, so once in a while I would get a bit lost, so it was great to go back to see exactly who a character was.
T-Rex Virus does cover a vast amount of ground, and mostly is done so in a very good way with smooth transactions. Though, I must admit that there were a couple of times that I had to go back and re-read because of the scene switches. These switches would take place within the same stream of story-telling, without warning or a separation of some kind. Most of the time, there was a division between scenes, but occasionally there was not. I would have liked to have seen this dealt with in a different way. Perhaps, it was just my brain not keeping up, however. It is hard to tell.
All in all? T-Rex Virus was a very entertaining read. For someone looking for an action packed story, this is perfect! For someone looking for a story focusing more on the people and the epidemic itself, such as I was, this will not be exactly what you are expecting. I do plan on reading more by this author, as he does have great talent.
About T-Rex Virus:
In this gripping book, T-Rex Virus, by Tom Forest, brave Americans face all types of danger as they race against time and circumstances to keep the country safe. A deadly seed is planted as a wandering meteor finds a home on Earth and ends the time of the mighty dinosaurs. It sleeps, undisturbed for 65 million years until unearthed by a beautiful young paleontologist. The dormant disease surges to new life in a minor accident in a university lab. Killing the infected in a matter of days, the virus spreads like nothing ever experienced before by mankind.
As panic rises in the medical field along with the number of casualties, a military force prepares secretly to transport the meteor and its virus to Fort Detrick for intense study. The rock and the team disappear. Now, an offshore megalomaniac pharmaceutical giant possesses the virus and with it the surest chance for a cure. Driven by his insatiable greed, he plans to withhold the cure until the virus has spread worldwide.
FBI Special Agent Dale Fox hits the ground running as he races to recover the geode and the hope of humanity. Battling against time, he tracks and fights an elite team of killers from the pharmaceutical company. Will he succeed before it’s too late? Having contracted the disease himself, the race to find a cure takes on a whole new meaning for our Special Agent.
Excerpt:
The third diver remained back thirty-five feet from the cabin cruiser as cover for the other two. He had his high-tech spear gun at the ready.
“Roll up on the tail board when the swell drops it back into the water. I’ll follow you on the next rise,” one man said to the other.
The two black suited divers quietly shimmied up on the transom’s teak platform just above the boat’s water line. They removed the small pony bottles they had been breathing from, along with their fins. They velcro’d the dive gear to the stainless steel ring on the back of the transom.
From special water proof bags came two semi-auto firearms with silencers screwed on to the barrels. Their hip holsters held shiny stainless steel U.S. Diver fighting knives, authentic right down to the individual serial numbers on the base of the blades. They crept silently over the back of the cabin cruiser and along the aft deck.
One of the passengers exited a moment later from the enclosed cabin for a smoke.
The lead diver clamped his hand over the man’s mouth like a vise, as the sharp pointed edge of the knife sank up to the serrated cuts on the top of the blade. The limp body was dumped quietly onto the deck where blood ran freely from the fatal wound. The other two occupants of the boat were not as lucky to die so easily.
The retired FBI agent put up the greatest resistance when he pulled out his forty caliber pistol. A bullet to the head ended his life immediately, but only after he got off two shots that went wild and missed his attacker.
The engineer smacked one of the divers in the head with a beer bottle which broke over his polyurethane hooded dive suit. Moments later the grizzled engineer was in the open, up on deck. The third diver, who was floating in the water twenty feet from the boat, took aim and fired.
The barbed alloy spear shot through the engineer’s right shoulder and lodged firmly in the fiberglass bulkhead behind. Seized by excruciating pain, he could only watch as blood pulsed out of his upper chest. He glanced down to see his friend Donnie already dead.
The lead diver stepped out on the open deck, “I’m gonna’ do you a favor,” he said to the impaled engineer. He grabbed the man’s arm and slashed through the brachial artery with the razor sharp dive knife. Rich red blood shot out of the engineer’s arm with every beat of his heart.
“With any luck maybe you’ll bleed to death before you drown.”
Two minutes passed, and the divers quietly stepped back over the deck that was now awash with blood to the rear transom where they donned their equipment. As they slid into the water, the small stains of blood on their Henderson dive suits dissipated into the salty ocean.
The cabin cruiser rapidly took on water from the hole that had been punched through to the bottom of the fiberglass hull. In a few minutes it would disappear beneath the waves and drop five hundred feet to the bottom of the bay.
The engineer was still alive, pinned to the bulkhead of the little pleasure craft as it sank lower into the water. His future was measured in mere seconds.
The gurgling air escaping from the sinking sport boat was evident aboard the sub in the sonar operator’s headset.
“She’s going down sir,” the sonar man reported.
“Radio, where are the divers?” he asked.
“The divers are on the surface, flashing us now sir,”
Once in the water, one diver keyed a tiny, waterproof, three-watt, ELF – extremely low frequency – radio to signal the sub that they were on the way back. His radio emitted a weak signal that was designed for close in work. The low radio frequency would not penetrate the seawater beyond a few hundred yards.
In response, the sub flashed a faint UV light from the extended periscope for a halfsecond so the three divers could obtain their bearings and swim in the direction of the submerged ship. When they reached the black, parkerized buoy floating in the water above the sub, they dove down.
Six minutes later the aft deck chamber housing began to drain as the three divers removed their gear.
“Chamber, report!” the captain said into the intercom.
“ Three down, one to go skipper.
About Tom Forest:
Tom Forest draws on his knowledge as a former US Marine and a Supervisor of Rescue Operations in the civilian world. With an action-filled life, he has many personal experiences to share with his characters. Weaving real life with the “what ifs,” Tom has created a modern action story that enthralls those who read. A new hero has been born in this story, one who doesn’t hesitate to do what’s needed to get the job done.
Tom was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in California. He comes from a family of dedicated law enforcement officers. One evening while out dancing, he met a woman that he knew instinctively was the one. They married five months later
.
Tom is a retired senior fire department officer from a city in Northern Utah. He’s a former instructor with the Utah State Fire and Rescue Academy, and a former Nascar racetrack rescue team member. He is also a former financial advice columnist with a Utah newspaper, and presently serves on the financial board of a major charity. His second book Cold Hard Knock will be out late 2010. His third book tentatively titled “Flash Burn” will follow in 2011. He is working on his 4th book right now.
Who's ready to win their very own copy of this book? Thanks to MediaGuests, I am able to offer one copy to one very lucky winner! Entering is simple: please just leave a comment along with your email address, where you can be contacted if you are the winner.
Contest open to U.S. and Canadian addresses only, please. Contest closes March 11th at midnight. Winner will be chosen by randomizer and book will be sent to the winner from MediaGuest.
In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weeklyBOOKPARTYis an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING!
The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, come back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event! And stop back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added!We get over 200 links every week!!
RULES:
Your blog should have content related to books, including, but not limited to book reviews.
"Do you ever wish you would have named your blog something different?"
Nope, Cafe of Dreams is a bit of an embodiment of what is important to me. The fact that all your dreams are on the menu and available, you just have to decide and make them come true. What does that have to do with books? Books have always been important and one of my dreams is to someday have my name in print.
Every Friday I will be spotlighting a new blog, letting readers get to know the person behind that blog and hope to bring attention to these wonderful blogs. If you would be interested in having your blog in the spotlight, please send me an email at cafeofdreamsbookreviews@yahoo.com If your blog is not specifically book and/or writing oriented, that is fine. I am going to go beyond that niche to expand out to different blog genres.
This week I am thrilled to introduce readers to Marilyn Meredith and her fabulous blog Marilyn's Musings! Those who are not familiar with Ms. Meredith are truly missing out. Not only is she a delightful and wonderful person, but an incredible author. If you haven't yet, please be sure to check out her books - penned under both Marilyn Meredith and F. M. Meredith!
Please tell us a bit about your blog, including the blog address. When did you begin your blog, what can readers expect to find/discover when they visit your blog?
I really don’t remember when I began blogging, but back when it became a popular thing to do for writers.
I give writing advice, talk about what I’m working on, what’s going on in my life, sometimes I reminisce, do book reviews and have guest bloggers, usually other authors.
Do you have any specific goals for your blog this year? If so, would you mind sharing those goals with readers?
My goal is the same as I had last year, to have something new on my blog every day because I want to make new friends who might be interested in a writer’s life
or one of my books.
What are your favorite things about blogging?
Besides my family, first and foremost, I’m a writer. I enjoy writing. I love sharing writing tips and sometimes just the things in my life that make me happy—or sad.
I enjoy giving other authors the opportunity to tell others about their books.
Approximately how often do you blog a week?
I blog whenever I don’t have a guest so it could be 7 times a week.
What advice do you have for other bloggers? What is the best blogging advice you have received?
You need to blog regularly. If you don’t, you lose your followers. The best blogging advice I’ve received is don’t get too long-winded.
Other than blogging, what are some things that you enjoy doing?
I enjoy being with my family. If you read my blog you’ll learn I have a really big family. Besides being a writer, I love to read, especially mysteries.
And I like to go to the movies with my husband. Meeting people who’ve read and enjoy my books is right up there at the top of the list.
Is there anything that you would like to add about yourself and/or blogging?
I write the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series under my own name, and the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series under the name F. M. Meredith.
Nearly all my books are available for Kindle and other e-book readers as well as in the usual places.
Do you have other blogs that you would like to share with readers? What about twitter/facebook pages where readers can find you?
Marilyn Meredith, also known as F.M. Meredith, is the author of nearly thirty published novels. Her latest in the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, from Oak Tree Press, is Angel Lost. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Internet chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America.
Pump Up Your Book will be hosting the February 2011 Authors on Tour on Friday February 25, 2011 at 9 - 11 p.m. (eastern time - adjust to your time zone). Tell your book friends that not only will this give them an opportunity to chat with their favorite authors BUT...
WE'RE GIVING AWAY PRIZES!!!!
The participating authors and their giveaways include:
Rose Valenta is giving away a paperback copy of her humor book, Sitting on Cold Porcelain.
Allan Leverone is giving away an e-copy of his thriller, Final Vector, and 6 e-copies of Postcards from the Apocalypse.
Frank Edwards is giving away a paperback copy of his medical thriller, Final Mercy and a paperback copy of his poetry and short story book, It'll Ease the Pain.
Pamela Samuels Young will be giving away a paperback copy of her legal thriller, Murder on the Down Low, and a copy of her audio CD, How to Write a Novel Despite Your Day Job.
Sheila Hendrix will be giving away both a paperback copy and e-book copy of her YA paranormal, The Betrayal.
Cynthia Kocialski will be giving away a paperback copy of her startup business book, Startup from the Ground Up.
C.W. Gortner will be giving away a paperback copy of his historical mystery, The Tudor Secret.
Vincent Zandri will be giving away 2 autographed copies of his thriller, Moonlight Falls & 2 autographed copies of his thriller, The Remains!
Jeanne C. Davis will be giving away a paperback copy of her psychological mystery, Sheetrock Angel!
Frank Scully will be giving away an e-copy of his mystery novel, Resurrection Garden!
Pump Up Your Book will be giving away a $25 Amazon gift certificate!!!!
To find out the details, visit our Facebook Party page here!
I am absolutely horrible about fulfilling award duties, so rarely have the chance to partake fully in the honor of receiving and passing them along (though I truly truly appreciate each and every one of them). However, this one is a bit different, as it is tied in with a contest and has a deadline (Feb. 28th) What is a better motivation than the word "deadline"?! The award being given here today came to me from the awesome GMR (Gina) over at the fabulous blog: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers. She has one of my very favorite blogs - not only is it adorably fun to look at, but her comments/posts always bring a giggle and/or smile to my face. Also an excellent bookish source!
Okay, on to the award. Drum roll please....
...Worth Your Weight in a 'Gator Battle Award!
What this awards means...
Congratulations, you’ve won the honor of being Worth Your Weight in a ‘Gator Battle!
The award was created in honor of (at least according to them) the real stars from “Alien Tango”. No, not Katherine “Kitty” Katt or Jeff Martini. Alliflash and Gigantagator, Alligators Extraordinaire! The “Worth Your Weight in a ‘Gator Battle Award” is only given to the wily, the brave, and the cheeky, so get down with your bad self, you’re deemed worthy to run with the A-C’s! Now you get to spread the awesome by nominating other bloggers who would also be worth their weight in a ‘gator battle. Battling ‘gators is not for sissies or wimps -- only the strong survive -- so choose wisely!
--------------------------------------
Your mission details:
1. Slap the graphic on your blog post.
2. Give link props to the person who gave you the award (don’t rile a ‘gator fighter -- it’s dangerous).
3. Spread the awesome and nominate five (5) other bloggers who you think will be worth their weight in a ‘gator battle.
4. Let the recipients know they’ve won this honor on their blogs.
5. Last but not least, shoot Gini Koch an email at gini@ginikoch.com and let her know you’re worthy of running with the A-C’s (put “Worth My Weight” in the subject line!) by sharing that you’ve been nominated and telling her which other bloggers you nominated, and she’ll enter you into the “Worth Your Weight” Contest. Keep reading to find out more details and what the loot is below.
Of course, you can choose to ignore your awesomeness, but then you’ll never have a chance to nab your own A-C or win the loot. And you know you want both.
Contest runs from Wednesday, February 1, 2011 through Monday, February 28, 2011.
More details can be found HERE, on Gina Koch's blog.
I am thrilled to pass this award on to the following righteous blogs:
Born Under a Lucky Moon is a book that pretty much covers all that can be covered within life: love, marriage, careers, humor, crazy family life, insecurities and, oh yeah - murder. I have to first off say that this author truly amazes me. Her writing voice and technique are insanely engaging and "real". Ms. Precious brings to life the story of one woman who has had an anything but normal life, since the day she was conceived. I was very quickly and easily absorbed within the story of Jeannie Thompson and her many trials and tribulations from youth through adulthood.
Born Under a Lucky Moon is told in an alternating time frame between Jeannie's youth and her present-time adulthood. These transitions are smooth and incredible. The way in which Ms. Precious leaves the reader hanging right before making the transitions are painful - but in a way that left me not wanting to stop reading to see what the next thing that was going to happen was. The author's witty dialog is ingenious and left me laughing out loud several times. Just to give you a taste, here is a small piece from page 198:
Grandma tipped her head down and looked at me over her bifocals. "Oh, yes," she said, "the fifth one. What in the world were your parents thinking?"
They probably weren't thinking, I thought. I was conceived a few years after the Pill hit the market. Mom had said she was too busy with the three little kids to get to the doctor for the prescription. That's when Lucy was born. Then Mom said that she got the birth control prescription but couldn't find the time to get to the pharmacy. That's when I was born. Dad got a vasectomy after that.
Yes, Jeannie has a crazy family, but don't we all? I found each and every family member to be lovable and wonderful. I just wanted to wrap them each up in a giant hug - well, except for the grandmother. Not so much feeling the love there.
This is a story that delves into a family who is loving, caring and always there for one another. Things don't always go smoothly - okay, hardly ever go smoothly - but they are such an amazingly close family. Jeannie is scared to introduce her long-time boyfriend (who just recently popped the question to her) to her family, however, for fear that their zest for life will scare him off. This presents some major conflict and when her job begins to spiral out of control, Jeannie feels herself unraveling.
Though I liked the character of Jeannie, there were times that I wanted to grab a hold of her and give her a good shake. She does everything imaginable to keep her boyfriend, Aidan, from any and all contact with any of her family members. Jeannie comes across as very ashamed of her family - though I don't think this is truly the case, she just harbors a ton of fear and is unable to trust in love completely. It probably doesn't help that she spent her entire life with people constantly commenting on her and her family's goings on. Family dynamics galore and a nosy town - complete with a very "interesting" minister, amazing love and support and true laugh-out-loud hilarity as well as touching moments that will warm the heart. Born Under a Lucky Moon is, simply put, an amazing and not-to-be-missed novel. Other than my irksomeness of Jeannie at times, there truly is nothing that I can say against this book. Even that has an important role within the story, so I can't complain about her, if she was all cheery, this would definitely be a different story.
Do I recommend Born Under a Lucky Moon?! You are darned right I do!! This is the perfect story to lighten one's day and engage the reader from beginning to end. My personal experience with the ending of the story? A huge smile, as I closed the book after reading the final words.
About Born Under a Lucky Moon:
Born Under a Lucky Moon is the tale of two very important (but distant) years in the lives of Jeannie Thompson and her (embarrassing, crazy) colorful family members to whom "things" just seem to happen. From the Great Lakes of Michigan to Los Angeles and back again, it is a story of surprise marriages, a renegade granny, a sprinkler system cursed by the gods, and myriad other factors Jeannie blames for her full-tilt, out-of-control existence. But it's also about good surprises—like an unexpected proposal that might just open Jeannie's eyes to her real place among the people she loves most in the world . . . the same ones she ran far away from to begin with.
About Dana Precious:
Dana Precious lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son. She has two dogs: a small border terrier named Thompson (as in Hunter—long story) and Bella, a very large bullmastiff whose activity of choice is sleeping on the couch and watching Oprah. Prior to writing, Dana worked for several major film studios.
*Be sure to visit the Born Under a Lucky Moon page on Facebook for great pictures and so much more! As well as the website!
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
This week's teaser come from page 50 of T-Rex Virus by Tom Forest!
"Richard's Point... some folks on a yacht just found a body in the water. Nice way to start the day, huh. Just glad I didn't have scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. I hate yankin' someone else's overripe pork out of the drink."
A small hunk of ferrous rock from an ancient asteroid which has roamed the cosmos for eons falls to earth. Discovered by a univerisity paleontologist, a long dormant enzyme impregnated within the galactic stone is revitalized by accident in a university laboratory. A deadly virus erupts from the small boulder, taking the lives of the laboratory team within days. Member of the U.S. Army biological warfare operations staff from Fort Detrick, Maryland seize the extra-terrestrial ore. During transportation to a U.S. Government weapons research facility, the rock and its escorts disappear. Now, an off shore megalomanic pharmaceutical giant, possess the deadly diseased rock, and the only know antidote. Driven by greed of billions in profit, he won't give up the cure until the virus becomes widespread. FBI agent Dale Fox hits the ground running in pursuit to recover the geode, and the medicinal remedy for the viral infection that now affects hundreds of thousands of people. Battling an elite team of killers within the pharmaceutical company, he has very little time to succeed, since he too has contracted the terminal virus!
I am a huge Vincent Zandri fan and am thrilled to death to bring you an interview that he was kind enough to take the time to do with me! If you have not yet read Mr. Zandri's works, you must!!
Without further ado, here's Vincent....
First of all, Vincent, I have to do a bit of gushing and tell you how much I love your writing style and the ability that you have to really bring a story and it’s characters to life. Jack Marconi is simply awesome and so easy to empathize with - an incredibly vivid character.
Okay, enough of that, lol. Can you tell readers a bit about The Innocent? Where did the idea for this story stem from?
I was working on ghosting the memoirs of New York State’s First Black Maximum Security Prison Warden, when I got the idea of a warden who’s blamed for the escape of an convicted cop killer. What would happen if everyone he knew and trusted inside the corrections system turned out to be his enemy? What if they were co-conspirators in the prison corruption trade which can run into the 100s of millions of dollars per year? What if that warden had no choice but to go on the run and find a way to clear his name and save his life while he was at it?
What kind of research did you do for The Innocent? I had read somewhere that you actually spent time in prison as part of your research. Can you tell us what that was like? How a day was spent?
I hung out in the Honor Block of Sing Sing Prison. I was holed up in a narrow cell with an iron door. It had a beautiful view of the Hudson River. The block smelled like dirty socks and worms. Lots of inmates were shouting at me, and laughing. I had no way of seeing their faces. It was surreal and a lot like being inside a German film noir.
I know there is a sequel to The Innocent titled Godchild. How many books do you have slated for this series featuring Jack Marconi?
Right now The Innocent and Godchild complete the Jack Marconi series. Godchild is a true sequel in that it picks up where The Innocent left off, and even answers a few questions raised by The Innocent you might not realized were posed in the initial reading. It’s a puzzle-and-pieces game reminiscent of Hitchcock. I’m thinking doing more Marconi novels, perhaps a triad, or three interconnected novels. He’s older now, in his late fifties, and wiser, but strong and noble.
What is it like to get inside your character’s heads? Particularly those of the killers?
Everyone has two parts to themselves. The part that says, “I want to do right.” Then there’s the part that raises its head (or horns) now and again, and whispers, “I could totally kill that guy right now.” So, it’s not hard to imagine what a killers do, where their passions lie, their fetishes, their beliefs, habits, and wants. They are human after all. Misguided, sick in some instances, emotionally disturbed even, but in many instances, perfectly functioning human beings. John Wayne Gacy was a Scout Troop leader and a respected member of society. Jeffery Dahmer lived with his little old grandmother for years while in his closet he stored one of his victim’s skulls. Albany area axe murderer, Christopher Porco, the model for the killer in my upcoming novel from the "Moonlight" series, Death by Moonlight, was a college student, an Eagle Scout, and he worked in a vet clinic on his summer vacations. Yet he took an axe to his parents while they slept.
I guess my point here is it’s not hard for me as an author to imagine the good and the bad. The human condition is a forever fascinating topic for me. People aren’t just good on one side and bad on the other. We possess good and evil. We are heaven and we are hell.
Did any of the characters in The Innocent give you a difficult time when you tried to write them? If so, which ones and why.
They all gave me a hard time in that it was my very first attempt at a full length novel. I never intended it to be a genre book. But just a book. And I wanted it to have all the complexity of a mailer novel, for instance. But I also wanted that noir aspect. The character of Cassandra was particularly difficult it that it was hard getting inside her head. A beautiful young woman who’s worked as a stripper does not exactly come naturally to me. But I’ve visited enough strip clubs and talked to enough pro dancers to really get the gist of it. Many of these girls are simply putting themselves through college. I knew one who worked in Albany who was in law school. Another who studied French at a Canadian University.
The Innocent was previously released as As Catch Can. First of all, why that title? Secondly, what made you decide to re-release this novel and were there other changes made to the story itself?
The Innocent has always been the original title of the novel. Delacorte made me change it because of Harlan’s book of the same name or some shit like that. The name given (that I stupidly approved), caused many people to perk their eyebrows up upon first hearing it. “What’s the name of your book?” someone would ask. “As Catch Can,” I would answer. “What?” they’d say, confused. “As Catch what?” I’d repeat the title and eventually they would memorize it as “Catch as Catch Can.” Can’t find that title on the shelf. Delacorte did first-rate disastrous job on the novel, then held onto the rights for almost ten years. My agent was finally able to re-acquire the rights and StoneGate Ink (StoneHouse Ink) immediately picked up the rights to republish. The novel was completely re-edited, entire passages cleaned up, some areas tightened, and a new forward by noted noir critic and novelist Heath Lowrance was added. Plus a new cover that rocks (the old one was terrible. You couldn’t even see my name), and of course, we went back to the original title. It’s since hit at least three Amazon bestseller lists. It will eventually make the number 1 spot in Hard-Boiled Kindles and Books. A trade paperback version will be released this summer.
You have had incredible success with Kindle sales. What gave you the boost to pursue that avenue of sales? Do you see digital, e-formats taking over print sales in the future?
E-Books found me, rather than the other way around. Less than six months ago if someone stopped me on the street and said, in half a year you will be on your way to making your living from Kindle and E-Sales of your books alone, I would have said, “Take another sip!” But that seems to be the way things are falling into place. It suits me fine because, yes, E-Books are not only here to stay, they are the absolute future while paper will become more of a POD enterprise. Like record stores, most if not all brick and mortar book stores will close down eventually. E-Books work for me because I’ve never been thrilled about doing book signings, for instance. It’s too much like forcing people to buy your book. Guilting them into it, as it were. With E-Books it’s different. You can do some social networking, some blogging, and so long as you have a great book behind you, people are going to take notice and buy you.
Who would you love to collaborate with one day? What kind of a book would you love to come up with together?
Funny you should ask that. Aaron Patterson, my publisher, is also a bestselling thriller writer. He and I have become fast friends and are now in the process of pairing up some of our bestsellers into Kindle/E-Book Only special editions. The first to arrive on the scene one month ago was “Sweet Dreams/The Remains.” Both books are Amazon No. 1 bestsellers in hard-boiled books and Kindles. Since the combo came out the books has been in the top 20 Amazon Hardboiled Bestselling Releases. Next up, will be Aaron’s Dream On paired with The Innocent. Interestingly enough, these combos don’t take away from the sales of your individual titles. In fact, they compliment them.
Who do you think is one of the most understated authors today?
David Zeltserman, author of some pretty incredible noir novels, including, The Killer. Talk about getting inside a professional killer’s head. It was recently optioned for a major motion picture I believe. He recently joined up with my agent, Chip MacGregor, and it looks like StoneGate will be publishing some of his novels. StoneGate will make him a bestseller.
What is the last book you read and what are you reading now?
Just completed Sleepless by Charlie Huston, and now I’m reading Berlin Noir by Phillip Kerr. The latter was a gift from the guy who lives in the apartment upstairs. He’s a Zandri fan and a noir fanatic, and he’s always giving me these great books and movies.
Who are some of your favorite authors?
Mailer, Hemingway, Huston, Hempel, Carver, Harrison, Zeltserman, oh man…too many to mention.
In closing, can you tell readers something that very few people know about you and would be surprised to find out? Come on, dish some dirt!
I’m the consummate New York bachelor… I repeat, bachelor!…That’s all I have to say!
Thanks so much for your time, Vincent! I absolutely cannot wait to see where the future takes you!! Just please remember us little peons when you are raging in the big time!
About Vincent Zandri:
Vincent Zandri is an essayist and freelance photojournalist, and the author of the recent bestsellers, The Remains, MoonlightFallsand The Innocent . His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Other novels include Godchild(Bantam/Dell) and Permanence (NPI). Translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Presently he is the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for Russia Today TV (RT).
He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia and Globalspec. Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.
For Green Haven Prison Warden, Jack Marconi, Getting caught is simply not an option.
It’s been a year since his wife was killed. Ever since, he’s been slipping up at his job as warden at an upstate New York prison. It makes him the perfect patsy when a cop-killer breaks out–with the help of someone on the inside. Throwing himself into the hunt for the fleeing con, Jack doesn’t see what’s coming.
Suddenly the walls are closing in. And in the next twenty-four hours, Jack will defy direct orders, tamper with evidence, kidnap the con’s girlfriend–and run from the law with a .45 hidden beneath his sports coat. Because Jack Marconi, keeper of laws, men, secrets, and memories, has been set up–by a conspiracy that has turned everyone he ever trusted into an enemy. And everything he ever believed in into the worst kind of lie.
Excerpt:
BOOK ONE
GREEN HAVEN PRISON
Statement given by Robert Logan, the senior corrections officer in charge of the transportation of convicted cop-killer Eduard Vasquez at the time of his escape:
You wanna know about Vasquez, well I’ll tell you about Vasquez. He looked like death twisted inside out. That dentist did a real job on him, or so I thought at the time. What I didn’t know was that Vasquez was one hell of a faker, one hell of an actor. You should have seen him sitting in the backseat of that station wagon all bound up in shackles and cuffs—skin white, lips swelled, gauze stuffed inside his cheeks. Blood and spit were running down his chin. His eyes were glazed and puffed up. That toothache must have been a real headache now that A. J. Royale, the butcher of Newburgh, had gotten to him. No way could Vasquez escape. But then how could I make any sense out of the feeling I’d had since we’d started out? The feeling that told me he was going to make the break?
But here’s how it really happened:
My partner, Bernie Mastriano, he drove the station wagon while I adjusted the rearview mirror to just the right angle so I could get a better look at Vasquez in the backseat without turning every ten seconds. He was sucking air like there’s no tomorrow. His feet and hands were bound up and he was locked up in that cage and you could see the pain all over his face. He just put his head back on the seat, opened his mouth wide, let his tongue hang out like a sick puppy. He didn’t seem so tough then. Seemed kind of stupid and pathetic, not at all like the crazy psycho who pumped three caps into the back of that rookie cop’s head back in ‘88. Vasquez kept suckin’ up that air like it somehow relieved the pain from the hole Royale left in his mouth. Then out of nowhere he doubled over, threw his head between his legs, started heaving blood all over the floor.
Mastriano screamed, “I think he’s having a freakin’ heart attack.”
I told him to shut up, stop the car.
“Heart. Attack!” he screamed.
“Damn it, Bernie,” I said, “pull the car over before somebody gets hurt.” Sometimes you gotta pound things into Mastriano’s head. He pulled the wagon onto the shoulder of Route 84, killed the engine. Then he pulled Vasquez out of the car and laid him out on the field next to the road.
I was right behind him.
When I got down on my knees to see if Vasquez had swallowed his tongue, the black van pulled up behind the station wagon. The back doors of the van swung open. There they were. Three of the hugest dudes you ever saw in black ski masks, packing sawed-off shotguns.
Mastriano went for his sidearm. But he took a shot in the head with the butt end of a shotgun, hit the ground cold. I got up and went after the son-of-a-bitch. I guess I didn’t see it coming either. I went down, right next to Vasquez. They kicked me in the face, in the forehead. See that purple-and-black welt above my eye?
One of those masked bastards knelt down, reached into my pockets, felt around for the keys to Vasquez s handcuffs and ankle shackles. But here’s what really got to me: When Vasquez was free, he jumped up. When those shackles were off, he spun around to his knees, got up, spit out that bloody gauze, let out a laugh. “Hey boss,” he said, you fell for the whole thing, hook, line, and fucking sinker. Just like that, boss.”
I rolled over onto my side in the high grass, jammed my knees into my chest. I couldn’t work up the air to talk. But my ears were still good.
“Lock ‘em up,” Vasquez said.
They cuffed Mastriano and me together with my own handcuffs, shoved us into the front seat of the wagon. Vasquez ordered one of his men to take the wheel. But before we pulled away, he leaned his head inside the open window.
“No hard feelings, boss. Hope this don’t screw up the promotion.”
The last thing I remembered before waking up at the gravel pit was Mastriano’s piece coming down hard on my head.
CHAPTER ONE
1997 was the year Green Haven Prison went insane. The winter hadn’t produced a single snowstorm that lasted for more than an hour before turning to rain and slush, and what should have been covered with a velvety-smooth blanket of white went on being gray and lifeless and pitiful, as if God Himself saw to it that the twenty-five hundred inmates and corrections officers living and working inside nine concrete cell blocks never once forgot where they were and why they were put there in the first place.
But for a man living and working inside an iron house, you didn’t take snow for granted. A fresh dose of snow al-ways broke the endless monotony, pumping good vibrations throughout the facility so that even the hardest inmates showed wide ear-to-ear smiles on their scarred faces. And happy faces meant that, for maybe a day or so, you wouldn’t have a prisoner shivved square in the chest with a homemade blade or a psyche case tossing a handful of human waste at an unsuspecting officer or an HIV-positive lifer spitting a mouthful of blood at his cheating honey or a nineteen year old scared-out-of-his-wits man/boy wrapping a sheet around his neck and tying it to the overhead light fixture. What you might get instead was two thousand men joining in song, the gentle hum radiating against the concrete walls like music by moonlight while flakes of white snow drifted slowly down to earth.
What we got that winter instead of snow was rain and slush and bone-hard, damp cold. From New Year’s to Easter alone, we had six shivvings that resulted in four deaths and two badly rearranged faces. We had seventeen beatings that resulted in one death, and one inmate who (mysteriously) fell from the third-floor gallery in F-Block and who would now do life inside an infirmary, taking his meals through a feeding tube.
That winter we had two ODs, one death by hanging, an inmate who somehow got his wife pregnant during visiting hours, and another who acquired a good old-fashioned dose of the clap. To make a dismal matter even worse, we also had a group of twelve corrections officers who attracted national attention with their own arrests after a bachelor party turned ugly. The short of it was that my COs thought it would be funny to pelt unsuspecting passersby with raw eggs from the open windows of the school bus they’d rented for the occasion. One elderly citizen, who stood outside his car on a side street in Newburgh and protested, was given a special dose of humiliation. (As of this writing, his suit against Green Haven Prison and the State of New York is pending.)
But these were not the most serious things that happened during that winter.
We also had an increase in the inner-prison drug and contraband trade, in the form of pot, crack, heroin, liquid hormones, and assorted pharmaceuticals. I was personally forced to retire a record number of COs, not because I wanted them gone (I didn’t have enough support staff to run the prison as it was), but because the Commissioner of Corrections for the State of New York had sent down his official mandate. And what’s more, the winter of 1997 was the first I had spent without my wife, Fran, in more than twenty-five years—although by then nothing more could be done for her.
To add insult to an otherwise uncauterized injury, we had been cheated of our spring. Even the anticipation of spring rains and fresh muddy yards and good sleeping weather (there is no climate control inside a concrete prison cell) had been taken from the men who occupied the walls of Green Haven Prison. The heat of summer took over early with all the force of martial law, and what was supposed to be a “green haven” turned into a broiler oven. What little green vegetation there was within the concrete and razor-wire barriers turned brown and died. Even the baseball diamond cracked and heaved, like the blood that thickens and cakes on the upper lip after it oozes from the nostrils of a man’s nose when his body writhes and convulses during an execution by lethal injection. (For anyone believing lethal injection is the humanitarian way out, think again. I’ve witnessed three, and during all three, the men convulsed, choked, snapped their own ribs, and bled from the nose and mouth.)
In May of the year 1997, my prison smelled only of low morale, treason, and pity. And it tasted of sweat, concrete, and human decay. And my God, it was hot. But as for me, Jack Marconi, the keeper . . . the warden … the superintendent in charge of all things living and dying inside the iron house?
I did the only thing I could do under circumstances best left in God’s hands.
I blamed the weather.
CHAPTER TWO
Green Haven reached the boiling point on a sweltering afternoon in May with the escape of convicted cop-killer Eduard Vasquez. Since I couldn’t very well blame the weather on a notorious killer who had practically been handed the keys to the front door, I found myself sitting on the edge of the desk in my office on the second floor of our administration building, holding my head in my hands. I had managed to take control of the situation as best I could so that it had been only twenty minutes since I’d ordered a general lockdown of the nine blocks. Now, instead of holding my head in my hands, I had to take the steps necessary to get my head together.
I’d just seen Robert Logan, one of the two COs held at gunpoint when Vasquez had escaped from their custody four hours before. Dan Sloat, my First Deputy Superintendent for Security and my second in command, was on his way downstairs to meet up with a detective from the Stormville PD. Stormville, along with the New York State police, were making preparations to head up the pursuit for Vasquez, at least to the outer fringes of their jurisdiction.
In the meantime, I had more pressing matters to attend to.
I turned to my secretary, Val Antonelli. “Whadaya mean the file’s missing?”
“I mean Vasquez’s file is gone, outta here,” she said.
“Jeeze. Stormville’s gonna want information. Photos, rap sheets, next of kin. All of it.”
“Maybe Vasquez signed it out before he left this morning.”
“I don’t need jokes, Val,” I said. “I need that file!”
“Raising your voice does not change the fact that it’s hot in here or that the bacon cheeseburger I had for lunch is coming up on me or that Vasquez’s file is missing.”
Val sat in my swivel-back chair in the middle of the room with her legs crossed tight at the knees, making last-minute corrections to her freehand transcription of Robert Logan’s statement. “I’ll see if a folder was signed out this morning,” she offered. “For all I know it’s in the filing bin downstairs.”
“Try to get it before you leave tonight,” I said. “I’m asking, not telling.”
“We’ve got copies on microfilm anyway, boss,” she said. “So it really doesn’t matter if the file’s missing or not.”
I took a hot, sour breath and stared up at the cracks in the plaster ceiling of my fifty-five-year-old office—a square-shaped room inside a maximum security prison that had housed German POWs during World War II. Now it housed close to twenty-five hundred permanent inmates and transients on their way upstate to Attica or further downstate to Sing Sing.
Most of my prisoners were black and Latino. Kids mostly, with rap sheets so long they’d wear you out just getting past the list of youthful offences. Murderers and gangland killers and torture experts and organized professional killers. Some men with nothing on the outside but poverty and death, but some with beautiful cars and houses and beautiful women in furs who came to visit every day and bank accounts that would make the governor look like
a pauper. Evil, mean-spirited killers, but likable killers, too. Tough killers and not-so-tough killers and killers who gave up being men altogether to take hormone injections, as if spending the rest of their God-given days inside five air-plane-hangar-size buildings were enough to eradicate the man, give birth to something distorted and freakish.
Inside the sweat-covered concrete walls and razor-wire fences you’d find weight lifters, junkies, drunks, health-food addicts, junk-food junkies, thin men, fat men, small and tall men, Muslims, Catholics, Five-Percenters, Buddhists, Jews, serial killers, man-eaters, motherfuckers, child fuckers, and animal fuckers. You’d find bankers, accountants, lawyers, professors, teachers, architects, welfare cases, preachers, pimps, and you’d find high school graduates and college graduates and illiterate men who’d skipped school altogether and inmates so out of it they couldn’t tell you what month it was. Not far down the gallery from them you’d find the queers and steers and crybabies with long French braids, false eyelashes, thick red lips, and tattoos of broken hearts on their freshly shaved ass cheeks. Men with names like Black Jack, Lizard Leonard, and Ricky Too-Sweet. Butchers with baby-blue teardrops tattooed on the soft skin below their left eyeballs (one for each of their victims); men who’d arrived in the 1940s with all the piss and spunk of youth and who now, in their old age, would never consider leaving the comforting walls behind. There were cons and jokesters and pranksters and chronic masturbators and victims of circumstance, and men who did nothing wrong at all except to hire the wrong lawyer, and kids who suffered so much for their mistakes that at night you could hear the echoes of their sobs as they called out for their mamas and you’d gladly wrench your broken heart out of your chest if only it would get them a fair shake in life.
But by 1997 a new breed of inmate had infected Green Haven Prison, a new generation of criminal born of the sewers of New York and raised in the streets. Teenage men who never really had a mother or a father or a home or the chance for an education. Men, not boys, who seemed almost happy to go to prison because, for the first time in their lives, they felt safe and protected by the thirty-foot-high concrete walls. Men who enjoyed the prison life for the free sex, booze, food, drugs, and medical attention. Tough young men who freaked at the sight of a dentist’s drill because they’d never seen one before. Young men whose life expectancy shot up dramatically from twenty-one to the ripe old age of forty because they now had iron bars and concrete walls to separate them from the killers they’d dissed along the way.
I was their warden.
I was their keeper, their mother and their father.
Which is why, for me, the matter of Eduard Vasquez’s escape was such a serious offense. I had signed the release form allowing him to visit a dentist on the outside. As the keeper of Green Haven, I was directly responsible. It was my decision and my decision only. What I mean is, I could have said no. But then, I couldn’t just deny a prisoner his right to proper dental care if that’s what he wanted. That was the rule in New York State. As the keeper, my job was not rehabilitation. My job was to see that society was protected from its prisoners. But get this: It was also my job to see that a man who’d shot a New York City cop at point-blank range maintained a pearly-white smile.
I was well aware that Vasquez knew his rights. All the sharp inmates did. Fact is, they knew their rights better than did the men and women who incarcerated them. It was simply a matter of the prisoners knowing more about their civil liberties than did the guards who locked them down every night. At Green Haven Prison in the spring of 1997 ignorance ruled, and ignorance was never bliss.
And when it came to making an executive decision based on an inmate’s civil liberties, there was never any right or wrong. There was only wrong and more wrong. But then, Vasquez had been a good prisoner. That is, he didn’t go around stabbing or raping anybody. And I’d had no reason to believe he would escape. Anyway, I didn’t make the rules in the first place, I only competed with them.
The hot sun poured into my office through the old double-hung windows. Even though Wash Pelton, the Commissioner of Corrections, had declared it a general cost-saving rule to leave the air conditioners dormant until June, I turned mine on and breathed in the cool, stale air.
I turned back to Val, watched her push up the sleeves of her cream-colored cashmere V-neck sweater.
“Okay, give it to me straight. You think Logan’s statement legit?”
Val straightened her legs and spread her arms to catch the cool breeze from the air conditioner. She stood up from the leather chair and stretched her short solid body by reaching for the stars. A habit of hers I never got tired of admiring. “In my opinion,” she said, “Logan is one lying son of a bitch … if you’ll excuse my French.”
I slid off the desk, stuffed my hands into my pockets. “My thoughts exactly,” I said. I was relying on my gut. I’d never had an escape before. I’d never had any choice but to accept the word of my officers as gospel, no matter what I suspected otherwise. Besides the missing file, I thought, the only thing to go on was Logan’s unmarked face.
“You notice any marks on Logan’s mug?”
“For a man who got smacked over the head with a gun,” Val said, stuffing her notepad under her left arm, “he seemed in pretty good shape.”
“Perfect shape. Other than that small bruise on his forehead.”
We said nothing for a second or two while the cold air filled the room like the invisible vapors in a gas chamber.
The phone rang.
Val took it at my desk. “Superintendent’s office,” she said, looking directly at me with the wide eyes that told me someone I didn’t want to talk to was on the line. “Pelton,” she said cupping her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Crap,” I whispered. “He wanted two more men cut from the staff by Friday. Two more men when I don’t have enough officers now.” I removed my charcoal suit jacket from off the hanger in the closet, held it by the lapel.
“What do I tell him?”
“Tell him I’m not here. Something is definitely not right. I’ve got a missing prisoner, a missing file, and a possibly phony statement. I might even have a quack for a dentist. What I definitely have is a real problem when Pelton gets word I signed the release for Vasquez to walk.”
“What’ll I tell Pelton about the escape?” Val begged, her palm pressed flat over the mouthpiece. “He’s gonna want something. An explanation at least.”
I slipped on my jacket, pulling the cuffs to make the shirtsleeves taut. I looked into the small mirror on the back of the closet door, ran my hands through my black hair, pressed my fingers down over my mustache and goatee. “Tell him I had a dentist’s appointment,” I said, looking into my own brown eyes but quickly looking away. “Then try to find Vasquez’s file, even if you have to get it off the microfilm.”
”I can’t tell him you went to the dentist.”
“Why not? I have teeth.”
“He’ll know it’s a lie. You know I hate it when I have to lie for you.”
“Okay, then tell him the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That I don’t want to talk with him right now because I don’t feel like firing anyone.”
Val pressed her lips together, stared me down. She knew she had to lie for me whether she liked it or not. She
took a quick breath, composed herself, and took her hand off the mouthpiece. She brought the phone to her face, spoke slowly, barely moving her thick, red lips. “Mr. Marconi just left for the dentist, Mr. Pelton. Is there a message?”
As I opened the door to the office, she stuck her tongue out at me.
“You mad at me?” I whispered.
She raised her middle finger high, as if the tongue hadn’t been enough.
Please be sure to visit these other great blogs also on tour!
Congratulations Mr. Zandri! For readers, if you have not yet read one or both of these fabulous authors, now is the perfect time! You can purchase a 2 in 1 special edition of Sweet Dreams by Aaron Patterson and The Remains by Vincent Zandri for the rockin price of $4.99!!! Also, be sure to check out both authors' works! There will also be another 2 in 1 special with works by both authors the first part of March, so keep your eyes out!
Voting is open until Feb 28th! Please vote in the upper left sidebar. Also if you have any authors that you would love to see paired up, just let me know in the comments! Thanks and Happy Voting!
About J.W. Nicklaus:
T-Rex Virus
Born Under a Lucky Moon
. Talk about getting inside a professional killer’s head. It was recently optioned for a major motion picture I believe. He recently joined up with my agent, Chip MacGregor, and it looks like StoneGate will be publishing some of his novels. StoneGate will make him a bestseller. 
by Charlie Huston, and now I’m reading
by Phillip Kerr. The latter was a gift from the guy who lives in the apartment upstairs. He’s a Zandri fan and a noir fanatic, and he’s always giving me these great books and movies. 
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) 17 votes (70%)
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) 7 votes (29%)
!!! Also, be sure to check out both authors' works! There will also be another 2 in 1 special with works by both authors the first part of March, so keep your eyes out!
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