Ace Atkin's Carolina book tour swing--

Writer Ace Atkins stopped in Charlotte on an author tour on Wednesday and I was able to speak to him briefly and listened as he shared a few stories of his travels.  Atkins is the author of the Quinn Colson series which follows the work of a new sheriff in northern Mississippi.  He also writes the new adventures of Robert B. Parker's Spenser with three in print to date.  Parker died in 2010.

I told Atkins about my book club at the library and that we had read his second book of the Quinn Colson series The Lost Ones months ago (February of this year to be exact) and enjoyed it.  I wish had remembered to add that I would have suggested the book club read the first book of the series The Ranger--but the library system owned more copies of the second book.

Another comment I would have shared with the writer was that his book did bring us stateside for a story--and in the Souh specifically--after reading a number of books in England and elsewhere.

(I'm standing next to Ace Atkins during his visit to an independent
bookstore in Charlotte.  Our hands are resting on copies of his newest
"Quinn Colson" book The Forstaken which he was signing.)

I caught the tail end of the visit when the  discussion veered to talking "The Rockford Files" TV series starring James Garner.  Atkins was able to see some scenes filmed for one of the TV movies based on the series and also on a separate occasion got into a lengthy discussion with show creator (and novelist too) Stephen J. Cannell.



Author Mark de Castrique Visits Library

Local mystery writer Mark de Castrique visited my library recently for a special program in arrangement with the adult summer reading program for Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.  Billed the "Writing a mystery series," program,  de Castrique talked about development of his mystery series and components for effective fiction writing. 

De Castrique has two adult mystery series under his belt which are set in North Carolina. Combining the concepts that appealed to him to share in a narrative story and in locales he likes, the first series features a funeral director named Barry Clayton (Mark's father was a funeral director).  It is set in a fictional mountain town, resembling his childhood hometown.  Adding built-in personal conflicts for Barry to confront (such as self-sacrifice) along with murder investigations--a mystery series was created.  The second series features an Iraq veteran Sam Blackman set in Asheville.   

Some other points de Castrique shared included:

Mark de Castrique  (photo by blogger)

• likes to connect people and stories from the past to a present day story with interesting characters
• had worked from outlines to develop stories in earlier novels but works mostly from following the characters' stories now
• likes to include irony in stories
• when writing, he likes to pose the "what if" question
• hopes to write another Barry Clayton novel in the future
• works to be careful that too much research shared in a book doesn't turn it boring
• looks to a book editor to help shape a novel about when it should start and when it should stop
• "I'm a big believer everyone reads a different book" by the nature of experiences one brings to the story

de Castrique (photo by blogger)

De Castrique's newest book is the recently released is The 13th Target and set in Washington D.C. with a new central character former Secret Services agent Russell Mullins. De Castrique lived in the nation's capital briefly in the 70s and likes visiting the area.  He gave his first public reading of a passage from the new book which included a storyline about the Federal Reserve which interested him.

And de Castrique is careful to check facts in his writing as he shared this little story: in a pivotal scene for his newest novel, he wanted to re-examine a scene for accuracy so he took a day trip from North Carolina to Washington to settle the matter.  After arriving in the capitol, within an half hour the goal was accomplished to de Castrique's satisfaction.  Then he was free to visit family in the area--a second reward of the trip.

Local author has success--

Reading this week's copy of my community weekly newspaper, "The Matthews-Mint Hill Weekly," I happened up0n a refreshing article about a new author. The headline read "Matthews book lover becomes published author" featuring a story about new writer David Clarke. His mystery novel is entitled The Parole Officer set in Birmingham, Alabama where Clarke was a native. It is available in paperback and a Kindle version.

His picture is taken from his Amazon.com page (which is a surprise to me, I believe I use Amazon a lot and I didn't know authors may have their own page).

Working part-time on the novel, Clarke cranked it out in a period of months and used the book genre he enjoys reading which are mysteries. His story follows parole officer and family man Pete Watson as he investigates the death of his newest parolee--which troubles him. That man happens to be the brother of another parolee, Earl Stallings, whom Watson has worked with for a successful rehabilitation in the past. So, as the police quickly close the case, Watson and Stallings begin to work together with their own investigation.

For more information about the book, check the book's Amazon page. Clarke is currently writing a sequel to The Parole Officer.