First off, I hope everyone had a good weekend. I spent Saturday at an art festival, the proceeds benefiting the Holly Lake Ranch Volunteer Fire Department. The downside of the event was that it rained all day long. It was cold and damp, but quite a few people braved the weather to come out and help out a good cause. I almost finished my Christmas shopping that day, and even sold a few books.
Sunday, I spent the day with my youngest daughter, Dany. We colored, cracked pecans, talked, took a walk, and talked some more. It was a nice, restful day.
A new contest that I am sponsoring with over 30 other authors of hard-boiled mysteries starts today! Enter now and enter often!
We are giving away a huge collection of novels, PLUS a Kindle Fire to one lucky winner!
You can win OPEN SEASON, the first book in my Seasons Mystery Series, plus books from authors like Sandra Brown and Libby Fischer Hellman, two of my favorite authors.
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Some good news from Newsmax: The Michigan presidential election recount is set to begin Monday after a federal judge cleared the way — despite objections from President-elect Donald Trump.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith, acting on a suit by Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, ordered the recount to begin by noon Monday, Politico reports. The order came just after midnight on Monday.
Other good news is that the Dakota Access Pipeline is to be re-routed. For months, members of the Sioux tribe and their supporters have camped out, fighting the pipeline they say could be hazardous and damage the water supply of their reservation nearby. For the full story click HERE
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I have a sick cat that I have to take to the vet, so I will close for today with an excerpt from OPEN SEASON, to whet your appetite. For the duration of the contest, which runs until December 12, the e-book version of OPEN SEASON is only 99 cents!
Sarah took a deep breath and faced Quinlin in the stuffy cubbyhole of an office. The room was hot and musty. Dust motes floated in the slivers of sunshine that had penetrated the haze of accumulated grime on the windows of the old building. The scent of his cologne hung heavily in the still air. Chaps. Rich, masculine, and too easily a distraction.
Dressed in a dark, somber suit, Quinlin didn’t speak. He watched her with the careful scrutiny of a snake considering a field mouse. A trickle of perspiration ran down Sarah’s back and dampened her white T-shirt. Shifting in the wooden chair, she contemplated the wisdom of taking off her jacket, then decided against it. He would interpret it as a sign of weakness.
She thought she was prepared for this. She’d rehearsed it a million times, remembering the images, nailing down the sequence, readying herself for his opener, “Detective Kingsly, tell me what happened that night.”
She recalled the moon playing tag with a few heavy clouds, casting weird, disorientating shadows on the crumbling buildings. She remembered wishing the clouds would give way to rain, anything to relieve the oppressive heat that had pounded the city relentlessly for weeks. She remembered thinking the heat made people do crazy things.
Maybe that’s why it had happened.
The rest of it flashed through her mind like a sequence of freeze frames.
Franco and the boy turn.
A glint of metal in the moonlight.
John pushes her away, reaching for the gun tucked in his waistband.
The clasp on her purse sticks.
A flash of gunfire.
The sharp report of return fire.
Struggling to get her gun.
Franco is down.
The kid swings his gun toward John.
She fires the same time the kid does.
The coppery smell of warm blood.
Hers?
No.
Goddam it, John, get up!
Why is everything so quiet?
Where is the kid?
There’s a big gaping hole in the cheap sequined evening bag.
Every time Sarah played the scene in her mind, she hoped for a different ending. It never came. Her purse always had the hole in it. John was always dead. And so was the kid.
“And you’re sure you had no choice?” Quinlin’s officious voice rankled with unspoken insinuations.
Sarah suppressed a surge of anger as he walked behind her chair. The son of a bitch is not going to trip me up. No way.
“Yes.” She didn’t trust herself with more words.