Political Dirty Trick

From the author:

A Dirty Trick

For some time, I had been thinking about writing a novel that included a slippery slope.  A normally good person, for one reason or the other, crosses over “the line.”  Now they are on a slippery slope and any movement at all is likely to take them further down the slope, further away from the line that defined them as a “good person.”

In fact, I was going to call the book, A Slippery Slope. 

Then came all the uproar in politics. It seemed like each politician was more than happy to trash the other.

That, and the slippery slope rattled around in my brain for months.  As they began to run into one another, I decided to use the election venue to look at this person on the slippery slope. 

The result was my newest suspense book, Political Dirty Trick.  It is Book #3 in the Crystal Moore suspense series.  (A few months before I was ready to publish, I was corresponding with a writer I know. She mentioned she was ready to release a new book, titled “A Slippery Slope.”  When  I told her I was about ready to release one with the same name, she said to go ahead, it wouldn’t bother her. But I decided not to do that. So, it became Political Dirty Trick.)

In Political Dirty Trick, a basically good person is convinced to help a candidate by creating a dirty trick that would give the opponent lots of negative publicity and perhaps hurt him in the polls.  She agreed, convincing herself that it wasn’t really wrong. All is fair in politics.

But in the course of creating this, a man is killed. Now, she panics and tries to cover her tracks. This, as could be expected, leads to more problems. And before long, she will do anything to avoid the police. The slope is steeper and slipperier. 

Crystal is a good friend of the candidate on whom the dirty trick is played.  As she tries to determine who is causing the problems, she becomes a “loose end” that needs to be snipped off.  And much of the novel is trying to save Crystal, as well as save the campaign.

Political Dirty Trick releases in mid-May.  It is available for pre-publication orders at:  https://amzn.to/2pIHMqs     

James Callan

After a successful career in mathematics and computer science, receiving grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA, and being listed in Who’s Who in Computer Science and Two Thousand Notable Americans, James R. Callan turned to his first love—writing.  He has had four non-fiction books published.  He now concentrates on his favorite genre, mystery/suspense. His twelfth book releases in May, 2018

http://www.jamesrcallan.com.

Murder in Thistlecross

Eilidh Cameron comes to Wales from the Scottish Highlands following a tragic and bitter divorce. As the house manager for a centuries-old castle in the village of Thistlecross, it's her job to make sure the children of Annabel Baines are comfortable and entertained while they visit Annabel. And as Annabel's friend, it's her fear that Annabel's sons are hiding something. From the moment the first son arrives with his wife, it's clear there are tensions in the family that will have to be resolved for the sake of peace in the castle. And when a shocking murder takes place, Eilidh feels it is her duty to remain at the castle to help Annabel through the painful aftermath. But Eilidh's fierce devotion to Annabel may prove to be more dangerous than she could have imagined.

From the author:

           When I started the Malice series, my publisher asked me to write three books that were connected without sharing the same main character. I chose to write about three short branches of the same family tree, beginning with Greer Dobbins and her daughter Ellie in The House on Candlewick Lane, continuing with Greer’s sister Sylvie in Highland Peril, and finally, ending with Greer and Sylvie’s cousin Eilidh in Murder in Thistlecross.

           There were positives and negatives to writing three main characters instead of one main character, which is standard for most series.

           For example, I love varying the settings in my stories, and writing with three main characters allowed me to set my books throughout the United Kingdom without seeming herky-jerky. If the same character were to move to three different places during the course of a series, it might get a little unnerving for the reader.

           Here’s another example: each main character has personal interests, likes, dislikes, and issues that differ from the others. Writing the Malice series the way I did allowed me to explore each character’s backstory and personality traits.

           On the other hand, writing three main characters didn’t allow me the time and space I felt I needed to really delve into each character’s story. It also might have been fun to be able to populate the books with secondary characters and explore them in more depth, but there wasn’t time or space for that.

           Did it work to write a series with three different main characters over three books? The readers will have to be the ultimate judges of that, but I can say this: I enjoyed writing the books and I grew to love all the main characters. I hope you’ll agree!

Buy Links for Murder in Thistlecross:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fObci7

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2AXt1XO

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2rqpeyu

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2n2yseL

iTunes: https://apple.co/2Dvvw5M

Independent Bookstore: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781516100194

                                                   

Amy M. Reade is the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Malice Series, consisting of The House on Candlewick Lane, Highland Peril, and Murder in Thistlecross, all of which are set in the United Kingdom. She has also written a cozy mystery, The Worst Noel, and three standalone novels of gothic suspense: Secrets of Hallstead House, The Ghosts of Peppernell Manor, and House of the Hanging Jade.

Amy is a recovering attorney living in Southern New Jersey. She is active in community organizations and loves reading, cooking, and traveling when she’s not writing. She is currently working on a contemporary mystery set in Washington, DC, a historical mystery set in Cape May County, New Jersey, and a second cozy.