OFF THE BOOKS
Dana King
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Hard-boiled Private Investigator
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Nick Forte has lost his detective agency and makes ends meet doing background checks and other paperwork. He pays for everything else through jobs he takes for cash and without any written contract. What starts out as a simple investigation into a traffic accident exposes Forte to people who have truly lost everything and have no viable hope of reclaiming their lives. That doesn’t sit well with Forte, leading him and his friend Goose Satterwhite to take action that ends more violently than anyone expected.
“The return of Chicago private detective Nick Forte, the tough protagonist of two Shamus Award nominated novels, is well worth the wait. Nick’s latest escapade Off The Books—the first in nearly six years—will surely earn additional praise for the acclaimed series.”
-J.L .Abramo, Shamus Award-winning author of Chasing Charlie Chan.
"Nick Forte reminds me of Robert B. Parker's Spenser: a PI with a finely tuned sense of justice who doesn't take anyone's s***. Any fan of hardboiled detective fiction is in for a helluva ride."
--Chris Rhatigan, former publisher of All Due Respect Books
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt Two:
I’m a professional snoop. People’s privacy went only as far as the task at hand in my profession. I executed search warrants as a cop and opened more drawers than an Ethan Allen quality control inspector since I went private. Tonight I felt as if I was violating something sacred as I looked through what passed for personal effects in that trailer. Beside each bunk were two banker’s boxes that held what appeared to be all the earthly possessions of the men (and women?) who lived here. Most were family photos. Children’s drawings. Bibles and small statues of saints. A T-shirt or two. The random pair of jeans. I had no idea how often supplies were replenished. Must have been like Red Cross day in the POW camp this place kept reminding me of.
Bare bulbs suspended from the ceiling with reflectors above them were the only light sources. No clocks. A small shrine to the Virgin Mary occupied a corner of the kitchen.
What little fresh air I felt came through screened vents in the ceiling. I pulled a bunk over so I could peek through and found vent covers six inches above the opening. Air could pass through, but nothing else. Acrylic shields swung up to cover the vent in cold weather.
I photographed it all. After saving about fifty images I returned everything to where it had been and let myself out. Made sure the lock was in the same position I found it. Walked back to my car with my head on a swivel, alert to anything that might be a threat, or possibly useful when I came back.
Topic: Without spoilers, please describe your most pivotal scene and why it's important to the story.
In Off the Books, Chicago private investigator Nick Forte is hired to travel to Lundy, Illinois, to investigate a traffic accident. Lundy is in farm country near Normal, but don’t look for it on a map. I made it up.
Even Forte thinks it’s BS, but it pays, so he goes. Something is fishy about how the local police aren’t handling the case, but he’s still not too impressed. He stops in a convenience store on the way back to his hotel one day and notices the clerk’s attention is riveted on something Forte can’t see; the man appears frightened.
Forte wonders if the place is being robbed and, being Forte, sets down his purchases to see what’s what. He looks down a hallway at the back of the store in time to see the men’s room door swing shut. He follows up to find a man trying to climb out a window above the sink that is in no way large enough to accommodate him.
Forte grabs the man’s ankles and drags him back inside to find a twenty-something dressed in a dirty tee shirt, jeans, and cheap sneakers; the man speaks no English. Forte’s Spanish is high school-caliber and much of the scene is a combination of sign language and awkward translation until Forte can figure out the man is an undocumented worker who finds himself in a situation where…
Let’s just say he finds himself in a situation he has no good way out of and was not of his own making. Forte isn’t someone to let such things slide, especially as he’s taken an instant liking to the man.
It’s a pivotal scene in the truest sense, as the entire story turns from what it had been about to what it’s going to be about after this. And the two are related.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Off the Books is Dana King’s sixth Nick Forte private investigator novel. Two of the earlier books (A Small Sacrifice and The Man in the Window) received Shamus Award nominations from the Private Eye Writers of America. Dana also writes the Penns River series of police procedurals set in a small Western Pennsylvania town, as well as one standalone novel, Wild Bill, which is not a Western. His short fiction appears in numerous anthologies and web sites. He is a frequent panelist at conferences and reads at Noirs at Bars from New York to North Carolina.
WEBSITE
BLOG
One Bite at a Time https://danaking.blogspot.com
@DanaKingAuthor
https://www.facebook.com/dana.king.735/
BUY LINKS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY
Dana King will award a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you for hosting today.
ReplyDeleteThanks for having me. I'll be in and out all day, so if anyone has a question, please drop it in the comments and I promise an answer.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good book.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rita. It's free to read on Kindle Unlimited if you're so inclined.
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a great read.
ReplyDelete