Photofinish book promo

                                                                     Photofinish

 

    Photofinish delves into the mysterious death of famed horse-trainer Rory Kind. His name-sake grand-daughter turns her grief at his death into a search for how and why it happened. As shehelps solves the crime with Detective Bailey Morgan, Rory IIrelives the chance way she came to live with him and realizes once again that family is the very heart of everything she has grown to love.    

   The initial motive for the murder is robbery, pure and simple. The assailant is a small-time thug named Lucien working forThe Group, a mob with a yen for highlife respectability. Ordered to remain in his hotel room, he makes a forbidden trip to a racetrack .and gambles away all his funds. He stumbles across an opportunity to steal $300 on the backside of the track that same night. He does so and accidentally kills an old manhandling a horse. .But he is not a hardened criminal. When Lucien realizes the old man is dead, he puts the horse away so that he won't stand out in the cold all night long.

    The next morning the call comes giving Lucien his instructions and identifies his mark; Rory Kind, whose stable the Group wants to buy. He hangs up, sick inside as he realizes that is who he killed.  A complication arises; on the risked visit to the track, Lucien's face was captured in a publicity shot of the stakes winning colt, Mochaman.  Lucien realizes that if the photos run, The Group may find out went racing. Even worse, he has shredded the Group's plans and deal; a cardinal sin. Lucien panics and begins a desperate cover up and fabrication of his two mistakes.

    A race begins as Lucien searches for the photos, and Rory senses someone is following her. So far the mystery is one of the softer senses; fear, hearing, and smell, rather than the harder traces found by touch or sight. Lucien is almost but not quite invisible. Tension builds as Lucien works hard at staying one step ahead of his bosses while sorting out just how he came to kill two people.  

    Lucien visits the barn and leaves a footprint in the woodchips that is the first "hard clue" Bailey has to backup Rory II's feeling of being threatened.  Is Rory II in danger for another reason?  Her focus is on the footprint, Rory's is on the reaction of the horse’s the night Lucien comes to the stable looking for the pictures and Mochaman reacts in front of the stable group. The horse’s behavior, so consistent and telling without words, offersa clue to the killer’s identity.

      In a setup that draws Lucien to the barn, where he is caught by a witness no one expects and captured at last. Subplots of Bailey and Rory II’s respect and friendship, Rory’s past and unexpected family round out the characters and storylines.

    The characters’ paths crisscross to form a triangular net thatprovides a fast-paced ending that explores the complexities of personality. Bailey's objectivity plays off Rory’s senses of doubt and heart; the latter are well road-tested by the end of the book. Lucien's character gives us the faults and cracks that tell us he is not all bad; few people are.

    This is a story about choosing, and the believing that we do.      

 

Photofinish was published as an eBook in December 2012, withsales in the U.S. and Great Britain. About 78,500 words long, or 314 pages; 5 stars, Clarion Review. Interest is in expanding publishing opportunities, marketing and readership. Related books are possible.