Dan Baldwin's new thriller, Sparky and the King, is now available in paperback and as an e-book. It's 1960. Elvis Presley is just out of the Army and planning a comeback concert where he got his first big break—The Louisiana Hayride. The local Klan has hired a professional hit man to assassinate "the King" in the hopes of killing the "race music" called rock Ôn' roll. The Mob sees big money in rock Ôn' roll and orders the best-connected associate on the Gulf Coast to prevent the killing—a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby. Who will get to Elvis first—the sophisticated assassin or the frightened and embittered gunman? Follow their parallel courses in Sparky and the King at
Amazon.com & smashwords.com.
More news from Dan: Bruce Willis sponsored a fund raising event at Cipriani's in New York City in November 2014 for Find Me, a group of psychics, retired and active law enforcement personnel, and search and rescue teams dedicated to finding missing persons and solving crimes. Dan's "as told to" book Find Me is available online as an e-book and in paperback. Dan is a founding member of Find Me and current president of the board of directors.
Jim Cox was featured in an article "Aerospace + Physics + Poetry = A Perfect Blend" in the Fall 2014 issue of Westminster Review. You can red it at https://www.westminstercollege.edu/review/
Jim graduated from Westminster in 1965 with a degree in physics.
Melissa Crytzer Fry's literary novel, The Quickness of Life, was named a semi-finalist in the 2014 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Writing Competition for the novel. Under the previous title, Bedside, it also was named a top-10 finalist for the Columbus Creative Cooperative's Great Novel Contest 2014.
J.E. Gurley had two new novels published in the last month: Occam's Razor, a science fiction novel through Create Space and Kaiju: Deadfall, a giant monster novel published through Severed press.
In Occam's Razor, Jazon Lightsinger's desire to return to Earth may have gotten him into trouble. Dastoran High Lord Hromhada uses beautiful Amissa, a sixth-generation clone, to lure Jazon into accepting a mission to seek out a new life form in the Battle Zone, scene of decades of Alliance-Cha'aita conflict. The enemy isn't the only thing he has to worry about. Aboard Occam's Razor, the new interstitial skip drive ship, are three Dastoran Drones eager to protect Amissa and the ship, and a Trilock Ambassador eager to end the mission. The Phyein, the newly evolving inorganic race they seek out, need Amissa badly enough to insist that Lord Hromhada give Jazon control of the mission. Jazon has to discover why before they all die.
In Kaiju: Deadfall, there is death from space. The first meteor landed in the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco, causing an earthquake and a tsunami. The second wiped out a small Indiana city. The third struck the deserts of Nevada. When gigantic monsters—Ishom, Girra, and Nusku—emerge from the impact craters, the world faces a threat unlike any it had ever known—Kaiju. NASA catastrophist Gate Rutherford and Special Ops Captain Aiden Walker must find a way to stop the creatures before they destroy every major city in America.
Kindle editions are available at Amazon.com. For his other books, visit www.jamesgurley.com.
Duke Southard's novel, Agent for Justice, is a finalist in two fiction categories in the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. Winners will be announced at the annual banquet on November 21 in Albuquerque.
Last year, A Favor Returned was a finalist (didn't win ☹) in the general fiction category.
"Hope I'm not being too obnoxious to share this but it is exciting as I expect Live Free or Die (working title) to come out in the spring and it is a sequel to Agent for Justice."
Check out www.dukesouthard.com
Betty Webb's new Lena Jones novel, Desert Rage, debuted Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale Arizona. Ferociously ambitious U.S. Senatorial candidate Juliana Thorsson has been keeping a secret. The horrific slaughter of a prominent doctor, his wife, and their ten-year-old son inside their Scottsdale home brings the politician to private investigator Lena Jones. The slain family's 14-year-old daughter, Alison, and her boyfriend, Kyle, have confessed to the murders. Thorsson wants to hire Lena to discover if Alison is telling the truth, but before accepting the job, Lena demands to know why a rising political star wants to involve herself with the fate of a girl she's never met.
Desperate for Lena's help, Thorsson reveals her explosive secret—that Alison is the candidate's biological daughter, a fact she's kept hidden for years. But that's not all. Thorsson then confides something even more unusual than a mere hidden pregnancy, something that could ruin her political plans forever.
Suspecting that Alison's parents had secrets of their own that could have led to the murders, Lena accepts the assignment. But interviewing those who knew the family well soon puts Lena—now a strong defender of the two teens—in danger of her life.
The critics say: "Fast paced, probing, and filled with the trademark twists of the Lena Jones series, Betty Webb is unsparing of her characters, yet writes their stories with wit and compassion." "Strong. Moving." "Webb's best book yet."
To read the first chapter of Desert Rage, log onto Betty's web site at bettywebb-mystery.com
And to find out if she'll be at an event near you, log onto bettywebbssignings.blogspot.com
Ron Wick's new mystery thriller Killer Disc, the action-packed mystery thriller Book Three of the Santiago Mystery Series, is now available in print from Amazon.com and E-book from Amazon.com and Smashwords.com.
An industrial accident triggers a deadly sequence of events. Michelle "Mitch" Santiago and the woman she is protecting, Shari Stiletto, are threatened with torture and death when the only backup file of research data is stolen from Virus Detect Laboratories and then stolen again as part of a simple looting. Industrial espionage, fraud and murder result as three groups fight each other in their pursuit of the stolen property and the only woman who can link all of the pieces together. Killer Disc begins with an electrocution, ends with the sting of a scorpion, and Santiago is caught in the middle.
Lance Norwood calls Killer Disc "A spine tingling thriller of white collar crime gone bad."
Darin Chase wrote, "The simple theft of a backup file takes Santiago from cyber theft to its underside of fear, murder and revenge."
Debora Lewis, Publisher, calls Wick "A great writer."
This year, we are asking all attendees, guests and friends, to bring unwrapped new or lightly used children's books (for grades 1 through 5) to donate to Literacy Connects. Literacy Connects is a non-profit organization focused on getting books to local children, many of whom have reading difficulties, who would love to experience the joy of reading. You may bring as many unwrapped books as you wish. If you are unable to attend but have books, please call Joanne Adams (296-8043) or Penny Porter (296-5299) and they can transport them for you. We'd love to see, meet and welcome all of you at our holiday forum or at any of our monthly forums.
