FUN TO READ

I am a regular contributor to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog. My articles appear on the first Thursday of every month. I have four books currently in print, a game, and two anthologies that I have either written for or edited. I have at least three other projects in the works and bound to be released soon.

I don't always do well in promoting myself and the stuff I have out there that readers might enjoy. I've always found self-promotion rather unsavory, the people quite adept at it equally as brutish and unpleasant to be around. But I really do think there are a lot of readers out there who will enjoy the books I've written, so when I encourage you to buy and read my books, it is only partially self-serving (I actually don't really make much on sales of my work) but it truly is an honest desire to share with others some fun, interesting, diverting, and quite entertaining stories and really do believe they will get a kick out of.

Maybe my books don't become you're favorites, still I promise you a fun time, something you'll enjoy, and even share with friends. Check out my books and if you like them, post an online review, I really do read those.

PATRICIA DUFFY - FROM PLAIN TO PLAIN AWESOME!

    Patricia Duffy is the foremost female heroine in my latest thriller, Presence of Malice. Many readers have asked how someone as nice as Patricia ended up working for such a prick as Dr. Gerald Gannery, and moreover, why she stayed.

    Such things happen gradually. To a wide-eyed college student still several months away from graduating from business school, it seemed like a dream job come true, at first. Not only was one of New York's most prominent plastic surgeons and purported philanthropists willing to hire her as his business manager before she graduated, but he would pay all of her student loans and buy back the mortgage her parents had put on the family ranch to pay for it. When, after a year beyond graduation, Gannery never did get around to signing the mortgage back over to her parents, well it seemed ungrateful and rude to press him on it. So she waited, hoping he would remember his promise himself.

    The job itself never quite seemed to rise to the level of Business Manager, either. While she was given free reign over his schedule and appointments, many of which were for consultations but none of which were ever for the actual surgery itself, he remained quite secretive about the practice's books and investments. It wasn't for some time that she realized he wasn't being cautious, he had no intention of sharing the books or other aspects of the business with her, and her job quickly devolved into little more than Secretary, though she preferred Executive Assistant.

    Patricia was raised on Midwest Judaeo-Christian values, to respect authority and one's elders, to show gratitude to benefactors, to be humble and never boorish or overbearing. When Gannery expressed dissatisfaction with her performance, she strove to do better. When dissatisfaction became disdain, and disdain gradually gave way to outright disrespect, still she tried to work harder to please him. By the time things had progressed to full-blown abuse, she wasn't in a position to recognize it right away. Her focus still remained doing a better job to please her boss.

    So what finally gave her the spine to rebel? It was a combination of factors really. His most recent tirade when she failed to book a socially advantageous lunch date for him led directly into his public humiliation of her on national cable television. That left her in just the right resentful mood when she spotted Gregory, Jet Gatling's paraplegic brother, hacking into her employer's computer. Suddenly, lashing out, getting back at Gerald Gannery was all she wanted to do.

    Read the exciting Presence of Malice and see how she does it!

Jet Gatling - Man of Mystery

Jet Gatling is the central character in my latest book, Presence of Malice, and yet very little of the book is told from his point of view (only two short narratives, in point of fact.) I did that deliberately, I wanted Jet to remain a mystery to the reader, with a big question - is he the good guy or is he another bad guy? If a bad guy, why didn't he outright kill Dr. Gannery, the man he'd been contracted to take out, given multiple opportunities to do so? If a good guy, then why doesn't he warn of the bomb that takes out an entire hotel floor?

These and other burning questions are answered in Presence of Malice, hopefully to the satisfaction of the reader. All except one - how far is Jet willing to go? What lines in he willing to cross? What, if anything, will make him stop and reconsider his rage-blind determination to accomplish what he sees as necessary?

Add Jet to any situation and he immediately becomes the wild card. There's no predicting what he's going to do, or how he'll go about fulfilling his contract. Is he constrained by the same laws and moral code as the rest of us? Or have his years as a Navy SEAL, carrying out black ops for his government, placed him above the law? Did eight years as a prisoner in a Chinese prison, disavowed by the same government that used to employ him, tortured endlessly by his captors for information, unmoor his moral compass, send him adrift amid his own roiling rage, to redefine justice...his own way?

Read Presence of Malice and decide for yourself!