This month, we’re celebrating mysteries, thrillers, and true crime.
Afterstrike (An Unforgettable Thriller)
L.J. Sellers
ASIN B0BW3F2F8Y
Author statement: “What if, without warning, you had to run for your life and leave everything behind? Remi Bartell faces that terrifying moment and takes only the dog who saved her. But as she settles into a new place, lightning strikes! Remi loses her memory and struggles to figure out who she is, why her life is so secretive, and who she can trust. Then she makes a small mistake—that costs her everything. The crime family patriarch she’s hiding from kidnaps her and plunges her into a revenge nightmare. The trauma triggers buried memories from her old life that will either save her or destroy her.
The plot is based on real news events. First, I read an article about a crime family patriarch who had committed insurance fraud. The details about how he staged phony car accidents with family members who got sucked into his schemes were fascinating. Then I read a feature story about a lightning strike survivor and, soon after, met a man who’d suffered a high-voltage electrical shock. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those people—and I knew I had to tell their stories.”
Barnaby Shea
J.E. Delehanty
ISBN 979-8-5398-5574-1
Author statement: “Meet Barnaby Shea, an ex-priest, now married, who loves classical music, who never uses contractions, and who is facing accusations of child abuse—accusations that first surfaced in the 1950s when a young boy was found hanging from a tree in the cemetery of a small farming town. The small community blamed their young parish priest for the boy’s suicide. Some 30 years later the accusations return in the form of a class action suit against the archdiocese and a threatened civil allegation against that same man.
In 2016 I published my first novel, ’Tis More Than Luck. One character in particular intrigued me enough that I always hoped I might find a way to develop him further. When the fledgling idea for a second novel began nagging at me I knew I wanted a different
kind of mystery and a theme that was both important and current. The mystery became the death of a young boy found hanging in
a country cemetery and the main character, a former priest,
desperate to clear his name.”
Deep Fake Double Down
Debbie Burke
ASIN B0BZQRHXTT
Author statement: “Video captures a daring prison break by a young Native American inmate and a biracial female guard who’s his lover. The videos go viral on social media and every cop in Montana is hunting them down. The guard begs for help from investigator Tawny Lindholm and her high-powered attorney husband Tillman Rosenbaum. The woman swears the escape never happened, denies the romance, and claims the inmate was murdered. Then she disappears, fleeing a brutal killer who wants to silence her and the cops who are ready to shoot first and ask questions later. To help the woman, Tawny and Tillman plunge into a sinister alternate reality where videos are illusions, but death is all too real. Will they lose their lives finding the truth?
After researching deepfakes, I wondered what could happen if this technology were used against an ordinary person? What if an innocent woman is tried and convicted on social media based on ‘evidence’ that looks convincing but is false? My imagination took off and this timely psychological thriller was born.”
East of Evil
Joni M. Fisher
ISBN 978-0-9972575-8-8
Author statement: “Orphaned at 14, Nefi Jenkins lost everything. At 21, studying for a career in law enforcement, she inherits a fortune and discovers someone will kill for it.
After a mission trip in Ecuador, I saw a stark contrast between the values and behavior of children raised in the rainforest and children raised in the U.S. How would a child raised without the influences of television and social media adjust to life in the U.S.? What attitude and skills would such a child use to handle dangerous situations?”
Far Out
Khaled Talib
ASIN B0BVWN62SV
Author statement: “Far Out is an unconventional tale that centers around screenwriter Blake Deco, whose life is turned upside down when his Hollywood movie star wife, Goldie Saint Helen, wakes up from a coma with a false identity. She believes she is a hippie detective living in the 1960s, tasked with finding a missing teenager. Her reaction to anachronisms, such as current songs on the radio and modern cell phones, is erratic, and her lawyers see her condition as an opportunity to take advantage of her. The plot takes a dangerous turn when the missing girl materializes, and a malicious scheme unfolds around the delusional detective.
The story was inspired by the dangers of conservatorship and the real-life experiences of Britney Spears. To comply with legal requirements, I used the real names of Hollywood movie stars in the story and created scenes around them.”
Fatal Rounds
Carrie Rubin
ISBN 978-1-958160-01-5
Author statement: “When Liza Larkin, a medical school graduate with schizoid personality disorder who doesn’t always make the best choices, suspects an esteemed trauma surgeon of stalking her family, she impulsively changes her training program of choice to his hospital. She wants to be near him. She wants to know what he’s up to. She wants to protect her family. I wanted to create a protagonist for whom interacting with the world is a constant struggle, one that impacts her judgment and makes her an unreliable narrator.”
Innocence on Trial
Stephen Roth
ASIN B09ZLT84TY
Author statement: “An intense courtroom drama plays out when young Tommy Henderson takes the stand to provide crucial testimony in his teacher’s sexual assault trial. Nothing could adequately prepare the boy for Lester Mobey’s meticulous cross-examination. The wily and experienced defense attorney left no stone unturned and committed everything to win his last trial. The consequences of the jury’s verdict have deadly implications for Tommy and this teacher. The lessons learned from that courtroom experience prove invaluable when Tom Henderson, now an adult and lawyer himself, desperately tries to save his son’s life. The only question is: how far is he willing to go?
Innocence on Trial is a hybrid of true crime and courtroom/mystery fiction. The true crime element originates from actual events revolving around my elementary school teacher and his cabin. The fictional part was inspired by my work as a lawyer.”
The Mentor
Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli
ASIN B01FEKUV6S
Author statement: “DCI Eric Shaw and a woman nicknamed Mina. The former is the chief investigator of a forensic team at Scotland Yard, but also so obsessed by his job that sometimes he tampers with the evidence to make sure the culprits go to prison. The latter is a serial killer. The problem is, she’s very close to him. During the investigation on the death of some known offenders, Eric starts suspecting that Mina is the person he’s looking for, but doesn’t want that to be true.
I’m a fan of the CSI franchise, precisely because the investigation in those series was based on scientific elements. The idea for The Mentor comes from the desire to write a crime thriller whose protagonists are forensic investigators, but who are a little more ‘flawed’ than those of the various CSI series, where there is a clear separation between the good and the bad guy, between good and evil. I prefer stories in which the border between the two things is not clear, and they tend to get confused depending on the point of view from which they are observed.”
Murder in the Marshes
Carter Fielding
ASIN B0C2JDFK9M
Author statement: “Sisters Finley and Whitt are meeting up in Charleston for Whit’s wedding and have booked one of the stately mansions off Colonial Lake as their Airbnb home away from home. As if managing Mama’s need to feed and tamping down Whitt’s pre-wedding jitters aren’t enough, Finley has to help her sister remember where she has seen the man who turns up dead in the master bedroom of the house they are renting.
Carter Fielding is the pen name we co-writing sisters use for our cozy mysteries. Keeping our identities secret because of our positions as a dean of a small university in Africa and as a senior international development banker in Asia, we have adopted a persona in Carter that matches our personalities and yet protects our identities.”
Pedaling West
E.A. Coe
ASIN B0BTM1KRWF
Author statement: “When Carrie loses her job and boyfriend during the opening weeks of the pandemic, she’s determined to reset her life in a positive direction. The answer? A solo, two-month cross-country bicycle trip from Virginia Beach to Mendocino, California. Yet dangers lurk that she’d never anticipated. During Carrie’s idyllic journey across the continent, her greatest danger comes not from her encounters with angry animals, road hazards, or the elements. Something much worse stalks her—something much too human.
After moving the timeline for my last two novels back to avoid addressing the issues all of us faced during Covid, I finally decided to address the pandemic head-on with a Covid-era novel.”
Rebels in Pisa
Ken Tentarelli
ASIN B0BSP216DY
Author statement: “Renaissance Italy 1465: After six decades of domination by Florence, agitators in Pisa are impatient to regain the freedom of their past when Pisa was an independent state. Rumors of insurrection in Pisa spur Florentine authorities to send young lawyer Nico Argenti and his team to investigate and stop the agitators. In Pisa, the team confronts more than they expected: smuggling, abduction, and murder.
During my extensive travels in Italy studying the language and culture, I became fascinated with the country’s history—who wouldn’t? Rebels in Pisa is the latest novel in the Nico Argenti series set during the Renaissance. It is my attempt to bring the excitement of that era to readers.”
The Rio Affair: A Thriller
Micah Barnett
ASIN B0BT2CT986
Author statement: “Special Agent Miles Ronan has a secret: his father is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. It’s been 30 years since Miles has heard from his father, but when he’s called to Brazil to identify his dead body, he’s sucked into a twisted mystery that forces him to unravel his father’s fugitive past... and become a fugitive himself.
This novel was inspired by travels to Brazil. During one of these trips a sensational murder dominated the news. An American executive and his wife had been hacked to death in their sleep. The couple lived in a secured condominium and the police found no sign of forced entry or a clear motive. Was it an assassination? Corporate espionage? Corruption? My conspiracy-minded Brazilian friends offered up dozens of imaginative theories.”
Want to see your book featured? Check out the Indie Spotlight calendar at booklife.com/indiespotlight.
