MURDER UNSCRIPTED - a Carl Brookins Review

Murder Unscripted

by Clive Rosengren

ISBN: 9781935797197

a 2012 release from

Perfect Crime Books

111 pages, Trade Paper

Eddie Collins is a sometime Hollywood actor and a part-time investigator. He’s cast in the old style; a loner, divorced, he views the world through plain, cracked lenses. Nothing rose-colored here. He’s an authentic character, one you’d be likely to encounter on Sunset Boulevard. If you made the connection and bought him a drink, Eddie might tell you a story. Like this one.

When the scene opens, Eddie Collins is costumed as a cowboy, perched on a fake rock, chewing on yet another piece of chicken. He’s doing a TV commercial for an enterprise called Chubby’s Chicken. A telephone call to his office sends him, on behalf of his client, a bonding company, to the set of a murder. It turns out the deceased actress is Eddie’s former wife.

The novel benefits hugely from the author’s background. He’s a former theater, film and television actor who has appeared in numerous theatrical films and television dramas. Rosengren uses his considerable experience to infuse the novel with authenticity, but he never slides into the bitterness or the whining of too many journey-actors who made a living but never reached starring level. Eddie Collins has come to terms with his career and that’s why he’s become more of an investigator than an actor.

“Murder Unscripted,” is a short, fast, read, well-plotted and intrinsically solid. The characters are enjoyable to follow and the final emotional twists are logical and just right for the character and the tone of the story. I hope to see much more of Eddie Collins in the near future.

--
Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com, Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

THE GHOST SHIP, an Outer Banks romantic thriller

My beloved Hatteras Island has been cutoff from the rest of the Outer Banks because the sea breached Highway 12 when Hurricane Irene hit the cape. The same thing happened some years ago. I was reporting from the region for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and the road had just been rebuilt then.

In the wake of Irene, it appears the long skinny islands will recover and rebuild as the residents have done for centuries. Seafaring people are tough as I came to witness.

I wanted to share with you the genesis of my novel THE GHOST SHIP. A couple of years ago, it wasn't a hurricane, but a severe storm that uncovered the hulk of an early 20th century coastal schooner near Cape Hatteras Light House. Honestly, it gave me the creeps. It's no wonder this part of the Atlantic Ocean is called The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

At that time, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum at Cape Hatteras was under construction. The director told me that these wrecks were often uncovered from the sands in storms, and that in time another storm would bury my ominous ship skeleton.

While going through the artifacts and photographs at the museum, I came across the The Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals. The Carroll A. Deering was a five-masted schooner. Returning from her maiden voyage to Rio and Barbados, and still in full sail, she somehow ran aground and her hull and keel buried on Diamond Shoal. This was in January, 1921. When the Coast Guard boarded her, they found no officers, crew, anchors or lifeboats. Only a six-toed cat. Six government agencies investigated the wreck, worldwide, but came to no conclusion. Was it pirates? mutiny? storms? Bermuda Triangle woo-woo?

So, my little gray cells (thank you, Hercule) conceived the idea of my own fictional solution to the mystery. I published THE GHOST SHIP at the end of June. It's not exactly a romance (which has strictures) nor a classic murder mystery. In other words, publishers loved the idea and the writing, but couldn't put it in a category. So, I had Kimberly Hitchens edit and format it for me and it's on Kindle and Nook.

I spent a lot of time on the Outer Banks reporting on the building of the museum and the controversial move of the Cape Hatteras Light House by the Park Service. I have a special affection for the mystery of the Outer Banks. It has lore galore, ghosts, legends, myths and houses made from the timbers of shipwrecks. Go into one of those, and you can sure get the spooks.

The Outer Banks survived another onslaught, as it always will. It seems the wind and sea gods also have a reverence for the The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Gerrie
THE GHOST SHIP
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

Review from GoodReads:"A ghost story mixed with a mystery and a love story told by an author who weaves a wonderful tale. A look into a piece of nautical history as well makes this a great read! I don't believe in ghosts but this book....has me changing my mind."

Buy: http://amzn.to/r3imp5

WHEN SERPENTS DIE - Book One in the Laura Kate O'Connell Plantation Series

Laura Kate O'Connell left her life of excitement as an overseas news correspondent to return to her Georgia hometown to raise her two young cousins.

When Royce Lee, Laura Kate's attorney, supposedly commits suicide, too many pieces of evidence tell a different story. Her instincts as an investigative reporting are tingling, and she just can't leave it alone. She meets Jack Rhodes, Royce's business partner. Sparks fly, but can she really trust a man she knows nothing about? And why is it that every time something new develops in the case, he seems to be there?

Warnings to back off escalate to an attempt on her life. Now, for Laura Kate, it's more than just a mystery.

Depending on Jack might be a mistake, but if Laura Kate can get past his southern charms and the nervous way Jack makes her feel, she may get the facts, solve the case, and even save her own life.

THE GHOST SHIP - a Reader's Review

I just finished reading The Ghost Ship. What a great read! I couldn't put it down! Would have easily finished it in one day if I didn't have a 3-year-old (it took me two). I love to read books that make me feel like I'm lost in the story. With The Ghost Ship I felt like I could smell the ocean! And the premise of the story was so different from other books I've read lately, so refreshing. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves mysteries, romances, seafaring stories, or just good old fashioned storytelling! Lisa Smith, Aurora IL Thank you Lisa. I'm delighted you read the book and that you took the time to send me a personal review. It means as much, or more, to me than a professional review Gerrie http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com Read an Excerpt: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11914490-the-ghost-ship  Available: http://tiny.cc/bqteu

WHAT'S YOUR CHARACTER'S CHARACTER?

I'm happy to welcome Mark Terry. Mark is a full-time freelance writer, editor and novelist. He is the author of numerous novels including the bestselling DANCING IN THE DARK, THE FALLEN, THE  DEVIL'S PITCHFORK, THE SERPENT'S KISS and others. He lives in Michigan with his wife, two sons, dog named Frodo, and a bunch of  guitars mostly named after Greek gods: Athena, Poseidon, Ares, and Larry. His favorite guitar's name is Layla. His latest novel to feature Homeland Security troubleshooter Dr. Derek Stillwater, is THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS. When not writing, Mark runs, bikes, lifts weights and teaches Sanchin-Ryu karate, where he is training a Midget Ninja Army with plans for world domination. Of his writing The Lansing State Journal said, "Terry writes like Lee Child on steroids."
 http://www.markterrybooks.com/

By Mark Terry


I’ve been thinking a lot about characters -what makes them memorable, what doesn’t. I honestly don’t have an answer about why one character will stay in your mind and others don’t. I’m also not 100% sure why some readers – often critics – will complain about a lack of character development when readers rave about how much they like the character.

My oldest son, Ian, who is 17, sometimes seems to have a better grip on the theory of characterization, maybe because he’s still taking high school language arts courses. He’ll babble on about an anti-hero and I confess to being someone fuzzy on the definition. So I looked it up. Wikipedia says, “an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis.”

I find that so broad, practically speaking, as to be useless.

For those few of you who watched Stargate Universe (SGU), Dr. Nicholas Rush, played by Robert Carlyle, has been described as an antihero. Which is interesting and sort of helps me understand the concept, but during one of the episodes the military leader of the ship, Colonel Everett Young, kicked the crap out of Rush and stranded him on a planet, presumably to die. As a viewer of the show, I knew he wouldn’t stay down, but I did imagine that if I had been Colonel Young I would have jettisoned Rush out of an airlock or shot him in the head long before Young did. He might have been a genius and the person on board the ship who knew the most about the ship and spoke the language of the Ancients best, but I viewed him as a liability we probably would have muddled along without.

And he was fascinating. Arrogant, brilliant, complicated, rude – a total prick, actually – selfish, self-centered, wandering off on his own agenda, seemingly putting the human beings’ survival onboard the ship completely secondary to his own intellectual interests.

Wandering away from SGU, I think any character we think of as “memorable” probably has to be flawed. Maybe a LOT flawed. In my own thriller series featuring Homeland Security troubleshooter Derek Stillwater, I understand that on the basis of society’s standards, Derek is kind of a menace – a little bit of a vigilante, he doesn’t follow the chain of command, he often breaks the law to accomplish his ends… hell, in The Devil’s Pitchfork he tortured a woman to death (accidentally) to get information he needed. That’s not heroic or noble behavior, and prior to writing that scene I had a huge argument with myself. And my conclusion was that in that situation that’s what Derek would do. Not happily, but extremely reluctantly, with terrible consequences (that come back to haunt him in subsequent books).

That sort of thing’s a balancing act for the writer. And my way of dealing with Derek’s flaws is not to think of them as flaws or even character traits. I just figure out what Derek stands for, what it is his goals and reason for being is, and then put him in situations that test those goals. The character’s there, now let’s see how he reacts.

Put it another way, borrowing from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, Captain Jack Sparrow, rather tired of Will Turner’s complaints and criticisms, puts him out on the yardarm (I guess, maybe it’s the boom) and says, “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t.”

And as the writer of your flawed character – perhaps very, very flawed character – you need to decide what you can or cannot accept.


Thoughts?

Cheers,
Mark

HONORED DAUGHTERS

Honored Daughters

Laura Kate Plantation Series Book 2

Author: Gerrie Ferris
Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full / 183 pgs
Heat: Spicy
Rating: 4 Books
Reviewed by Snapdragon

Laura Kate O’Connell is a super-star of a clever southern bell with quick wit and a nice way with horses.
Honored Daughters is truly more mystery than romance, but the romance matters and readers will really enjoy Jack Rhodes when they finally meet him. It won’t be a painful wait though, as from the first moments, interest and intrigue build.
Overall, the quality of the story is excellent. Epic-like adventures – and love – befall our heroine, who seems pulled in several directions most of the time. Her personal life, her decisions and future plans are complicated; Jack Rhodes is her distant, if still true love. He seems to envision an ordinary, predictable sort of future for the two of them, a future Laura Kate isn’t enthused about at all. (Although after meeting him, we do realze he’s more insightful than Laura Kate gives him credit for.)
Before we even get to questions of romance; Agent Nyan Hill complicates her life, with his desperate effort to see the murder of his niece Dari solved. Nyan & Laura Kate’s antagonistic relationship, and occasional sharp dialogue, really make reader’s admire our heroine. She’s nobody’s fool, but is at heart a caring, almost driven person.
Ferris has a distinctive voice, giving Honored Daughters a continuous, rather evocative aura. She creates a time, a place, and a series of characters that seem utterly original, yet also familiar and appealing. There are some seriously suspenseful moments, as well as more tender times; and the mystery is a real mystery, both intriguing and heart-wrenching from the start.
I don’t give it top drawer on rating, only because sentence fragments and frequent odd turns of phrase slow this story one too many a time. It may be a stylistic thing, but it’s annoying and often grammatically incorrect (one example: Moving away from the window, she dressed in riding breeches and … one can't do both things at once, yet this is what this sentence implied).
Although this is contemporary, there is a certain historic feel to it. The horses, the hunt club, the southern-bell comments, and Honored Daughters School itself. Although contemporary, it all has an old, old feel to it. Fans of any southern-style epic will really love this story; perfect reading by a cozy fire.
Finally, Kudos to the artist that got this cover so perfect for the story.

HONORED DAUGHTERS REVIEW

I write a series of romantic suspense novels featuring Laura Kate O'Connell. I use only two of my three names in these stories: Gerrie Ferris. Here is a review from Long and Short Reviews for the second in the Laura Kate Plantation Series, HONORED DAUGHTERS. If you like romantic suspense, order HD from Amazon in the Kindle format or from Desert Breeze Publishing in several ebook formats.

And now the review:

Laura Kate O’Connell is a super-star of a clever southern bell with quick wit and a nice way with horses. Honored Daughters is truly more mystery than romance, but the romance matters and readers will really enjoy Jack Rhodes when they finally meet him. It won’t be a painful wait though, as from the first moments, interest and intrigue build.Overall, the quality of the story is excellent. Epic-like adventures – and love – befall our heroine, who seems pulled in several directions most of the time.

Her personal life, her decisions and future plans are complicated; Jack Rhodes is her distant, if still true love. He seems to envision an ordinary, predictable sort of future for the two of them, a future Laura Kate isn’t enthused about at all. (Although after meeting him, we do realze he’s more insightful than Laura Kate gives him credit for.)

Before we even get to questions of romance; Agent Nyan Hill complicates her life, with his desperate effort to see the murder of his niece Dari solved. Nyan & Laura Kate’s antagonistic relationship, and occasional sharp dialogue, really make reader’s admire our heroine. She’s nobody’s fool, but is at heart a caring, almost driven person.

Ferris has a distinctive voice, giving Honored Daughters a continuous, rather evocative aura. She creates a time, a place, and a series of characters that seem utterly original, yet also familiar and appealing. There are some seriously suspenseful moments, as well as more tender times; and the mystery is a real mystery, both intriguing and heart-wrenching from the start.

Read about it.

http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/2010/03/honored-daughters-by-gerrrie-ferris.html