Cloudy Ocean Shoreline

Hello again.  You’ll notice I use the same dark and stormy photo I’ve used before.  It’s about the gloomiest I could find and it portends trouble and grief, which is the way I view incest and other abuse, especially child abuse. I would have liked to use Munch’s “The Scream,” if I could have found an available copy.  I hope like me you read it and weep – then set out to help!

Frank Ryman, the lead detective is in his office where a young black couple has been ushered in.  He notices that the woman is somewhat unsteady on her feet and her companion is very solicitous of her.  She has been the understudy for the murdered woman.  Frank has asked the man to wait outside.

“My name is Carlotta Matthews.  I’ve never been married, so it’s Ms. Matthews, my father’s name.”

There was something about the way she said it, with a tinge of bitterness.  Frank sat in hhis chair at an angle to her.  “What is it you want to talk with me about?”

Her hands shook little less than her voice.  “I’m going to tell you something that will shock you, and I’d give my life not to have to say it.  I know you want me to tell you what I know about this woman’s death, but this has to come first.  Someone else’s life is in danger,  someone I love deeply.”

Frank nodded.  “Please relax and go on.”  His heart went out to her because she so plainly suffered.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush.  Being a detective, you know about incest.  She said the word as if it were a rattlesnake in her mouth.

“Yes, I do know.  You don’t have to stand on ceremony with me, Carly.  There’s nothing I haven’t heard about.  If  it’s something you’ve known, I won’t sit in judgment and I’ll give you what help I can.’

That should clear up any notion she had that this was some uhneard of evil.

“Okay.” Tears slid down her face.  He handed her a box of tissues.  “My father and I … oh God, it goes back to when I was an older child and it–didn’t stop until I was sixteen and ran away.  I told  him I’d kill him–I’d kill myself if he tried to make me come back.  He didn’t.”

She sttopped for so long, he said gently, “Please go on.”

Her face was a study in agony then.  “He said he wasn’t to blame, that I was a born whore, that  most women were.”

He felt the start of outrage.  “The biggest lie ever told, but I’m sure you know by now he had to excuse himself.  This kind of  behavior is common in men who sleep with their daughters.”

Frank hurt for her in some deep place within himself.  Matthews?  That cooperative man who had looked at him with such sorrowful eyes when he had talked about the murdered woman?  What must he have thought of her.  The man’s voice came back: she’s so good to me.

“Listen,” he said, his voice both angry and soothing.  “You’re dead when you stop caring in this business, so I’ll help you in any way I can.”

Just a little later Frank talks to his detective buddy, Hux, about the woman’s story.

Frank sat thinking about Carly Matthews and her anguished face when she’d talked about the incest and her fear for her younger sister.  Hux saw the look and sobered.  Frank told him the story and Hux whistled.

“What do you think?” Frank asked.

Hux looked at him with a baleful eye.  “I knew there was something I didn’t like about Webster Mattheews.  He looks like a half-assed knight on a white horse.”  Hux seemed to get more rattled as he talked.

“Listen,” Hux said, “I’ve always thought motherfucker was the most useful word in the English language.  And by God, men like Matthews prove it.”

——————————————————

There you have it, another turn in the case.  I had intended to make this the last excerpt, but what will be the sixth and last excerpt will go on Friday.  It’s about Frank’s beloved off and on lawyer girlfriend and her soul-searing rage at a former lover.  Abortion and miscarriage and lifelong grief and urge to kill.  It’s too powerful to miss.

I hope you’ll still be with me next Friday when you’ll read the longest of the excerpts, almost the whole chapter.  Many women will identify and weep.  Many men should hang their heads in shame, but many more men will empathize and swear never to go there and will look at the loved women in their lives in a different light.

Will I see you next Friday?  I think you’ll identify.  Until then -

Dying on the Edge: Fifth Excerpt originally appeared on Francine Craft on July 12, 2010.

Clouds at Sunrise

This week I begin, as promised, to tell you about my new romantic voodo mystery, Dying on the Edge.  It is available at Wheatmark Bookstore, http://www.wheatmark.com/bookstore for $18.95,  free shipping and handling.  It’s taking a bit longer than usual to go on Amazon and Kindle, but will be on,  I would guess, within the next two weeks.  It is taking longer than I had anticipated.

Today, I had planned to have photos of  front and back covers on this site, but the person handling it has hit a slight snag.  Photos will be up within a day or so.  Today, I’ll just give you a bit of information and tomorrow I’ll give you the copy from the back cover that is a true description of the book’s storyline.

Dying on the Edge is set in an imaginary city on the east coast between NewYork and Boston.  It is  April 1992  and I chose a detectives team to work this story because they were very much a part of the 90′s police scene.  The story begins with a prologue depicting a woman reminiscing about her time in Haiti seeking voodoo spells to kill a rival whose husband she intends to have. It is multicultural and so, multiracial.  Several socioeconomic levels are depicted, and I think you’ll like the variety.

I have a slogan with this story and it’s more or less true:  Dying on the Edge is Written in Blood — Mine!  It is a story of universal truths and treachery, of warmth and tenderness, of betrayal and lusts beyond reason.

Wednesday the excerpts begin, along with, I hope, the book photos and you can judge for yourself.  Later, there will be a trailer posted on this site.

I look forward to seeing you here.  Take  very good care.

Some Updates on Dying on the Edge originally appeared on Francine Craft on June 28, 2010.

Beautiful Nature

Sooner or later you’re going to ask me how much longer I’ll be testing.  You’ll be glad you waited when I begin to tell you things you always wanted to know about self-publishing.  It’s such a fascinating thing to do.

Creative control is the name of the game.  If you get a good company, they strive to satisfy you as to what you want your book to be, within reason.  And getting the cover together just thrilled me.  It’s a romantic voodoo mystery and so I wanted a gun.  No gun meeting my specifications could be found.  Okay, bullet holes.  The artist came up with the messiest bullet holes you could imagine.  I said no.  Too thuggish.  Gross.  So they redid and now you get the idea of romance, voodoo, mystery.

I wrote the back cover material which was duly checked.  The company I chose – Wheatmark – has excellent editors.  My copy made the grade.  And oh, the thrill of having my own Library of Congress Card Number.  They do turn down books.  ISBN, listing with RR Bowker, all kinds of things you can also do for yourself.

There are so many companies to help you self-publish.  You’ve got to check it out.  I mulled it over for nearly thirty years while I sold to established publishers.   This is for me.  Try it.  You just might like it.

Always And Forever Testing originally appeared on Francine Craft on November 6, 2009.