Antiquarian book dealer Raymond Hilary finds himself on a white-knuckled dead-of-night ride through the roller-coaster roads of the Georgia countryside, gripping the handholds of a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith belonging to one Cornelius Astor-Beaudry, known to his many friends as “the Colonel.” They are racing to a Southern estate called Wisteria Pines, where its patriarch has been found dead in a locked room with bars on its windows. Voodoo, three wills, missing jewels, Cajun legends, Acadia, the French Revolution, the British regailia, New Orleans at Mardi Gras, and a $6-million fortune make “Murder at Wisteria Pines” a stupefying mystery pitting Raymond and the Colonel forces that the locals only speak of in whispers.
Targeted Age Group:: 12-100
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I have been hooked on mysteries ever since I was given a set of annotated Sherlock Holmes stories as a young man. I began writing stories about the Colonel and Raymond Hilary in the wee hours while still working a day job and raising a family. In the peace and quiet of a cottage on the Elk River in the beloved South where I was raised, I finally was able to finish this tale about Raymond Hilary meeting and becoming the personal assistant to Cornelius Astor-Beaudry, known fondly as "the Colonel."
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
Every character in "Murder at Wisteria Pines" is based on one or more people I knew or encountered while growing up in Georgia and Alabama. That includes even the British narrator, Raymond Hilary. The rich heritage of the South is a heritage of strong, vibrant personalities whose sometimes rough-hewn exterior often hides an astonishing depth of wisdom, caring, and kindness. I have attempted to bring some of them back to life in these pages and introduce them to you.
Book Sample
I didn’t choose the right-hand hallway so much as I simply went that direction, feeling my way gingerly. Almost immediately I saw that the first doorway on my right was partially opened onto a blackness that was some shade or so deeper than that in the hallway.
I stopped and again whispered Marie’s name.
Silence.
The odor was not my imagination. I knew that now. What was it? And where were the damned light switches!
I pushed gently on the partially opened door with my left hand, and advanced in a shuffling sort of way just barely into the room, feeling all the while with my right hand for a cursed light switch. I can’t say with any cer- tainty whether my foot encountered a curiously yielding mass or my hand found the switch first, or whether they were simultaneous occurrences. I do know that my fingers fumbled to operate that switch sufficiently long that mental flash-cards first of voodoo dolls and then of the dead body of Marie Dubois managed to assault my senses in the darkness before the light flooded the scene and I was staring down at the blood-crusted severed head of a black pig grinning back at me from the floor at my feet.
Links to Purchase Print Books
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines Print Edition at Amazon
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines Print Edition at Barnes and Noble
Links to Purchase eBooks – Click links for book samples and reviews
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines On Amazon
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines on Barnes and Noble/Nook
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines on Smashwords
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines on iBooks
Buy Murder at Wisteria Pines on Kobo
Have you read this book? Tell us what you thought! All information was provided by the author and not edited by us. This is so you get to know the author better.