by Hawk MacKinney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
In the spacious den of Moccasin Hollow, his ancestral South Carolina home, part-time PI, exNavy SEAL Craige Ingram examines a platinum brooch designed like a dragonfly inside a jeweler’s box that he has discovered at the crime scene of Corpsewood Manor. It is a remarkable piece of art…its wings and body worked in exceptional detail. Focusing toward the expected bulbous round eyes, his suspicions jar full throttle. Instead of a head, the empty sockets of a skull leer at him. His gut feelin’s tell him his SEAL buddy Grayson MacGerald’s investigation is considerably more than arson and a double murder trying to hide the theft of classic automobiles. The smoldering rubble of secluded Corpsewood Manor leads Ingram and another of their SEAL Team, Colorado Aspen ski buddy Spinner Krespinak, into a seedy tangle of smuggling crisscrossed and an unexpected encounter with a dead assassin from one of Spinner’s “closed” cases.
Read an excerpt:
“You been told to stay away from Corpsewood.”
Kenyon said, “Ain’t got no other place ‘cept them leaky sheds out behind the garage. They don’t leak much. Least before the fire I had a place to sleep. Got kicked out of my other place. They let me sleep here.”
“I’ll just bet they let your sweet cheeks sleep-over. You’re just the kind of meat they liked to sucker in.”
“Now I got no place, an’ nights are gettin’ colder.”
“They the ones that hooked you on crystal?”
“I told you. I don’t do drugs.”
“Cut the crap…I heard all the stories. Nothing out’a your mouth ever made sense—only a bunch of your twisted whining.” Somewhere between a snarl and a chuckle, “I’m suppose to believe you never done meth,” raven-black stab of a look. “Sure…you’re clean all right except for pushing crank or whatever up your nose or stoking it in your arms,” glanced at the needle tracks on both arms. “Got a problem? Run out’a veins in your arms? Using the ones in your ankles? Clean yourself up. Wash your greasy stringy hair and get it cut. Stop acting like some fool animal that needs to be caged. Take a bath. Get a job. Quit blowing your money, you’d have a place of your own.”
“I don’t snort crystal or Nazi dope,” Kenyon griped. “You’re like ever’body else, judging someone by the way we live.”
“I don’t care what you’re on, but anyone fool enough to supply you is askin’ for trouble. We got enough trouble with the Corpsewood fire and that goddamn homicide Lieutenant MacGerald nosing around with his friggin’ PI SEALmate Ingram helpin’ him dig.”
With postgraduate degrees and faculty appointments in several medical universities, Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem. In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate neuroembryology, Hawk has authored several works of fiction.
Hawk began writing mysteries for his school newspaper. His works of fiction, historical love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers are not genre-centered, but plot-character driven, and reflect his southwest upbringing in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his serial protagonist in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series… murder and mayhem with a touch of romance. Vault of Secrets, the first book in the Ingram series, was followed by Nymrod Resurrection, Blood and Gold, and The Lady of Corpsewood Manor. All have received national attention. Hawk’s latest release in the Ingram series is due out this fall with another mystery-thriller work out in 2014. The Bleikovat Event, the first volume in The Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series, was released in 2012.
"Without question, Hawk is one of the most gifted and imaginative writers I have had the pleasure to represent. His reading fans have something special to look forward to in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. Intrigue, murder, deception and conspiracy--these are the things that take Hawk's main character, Navy ex-SEAL/part-time private investigator Craige Ingram, from his South Carolina ancestral home of Moccasin Hollow to the dirty backrooms of the nation's capital and across Europe and the Middle East."
Barbara Casey, President
Barbara Casey Literary Agency
www.hawkmackinney.net
Thank you for hosting The Lady of Corpsewood Manor…also for your hosting(s) in previous BkBlast(s) from my Craige Ingram mystery-thriller series - - is much appreciated -
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Nice excerpt
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