The Lady of Corpsewood Manor, Book 4 of
the Craige Ingram Mystery Series
by Hawk
MacKinney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
In
the spacious den of Moccasin Hollow, his ancestral South Carolina home,
part-time PI, exNavy SEAL Craige Ingram examines a platinum brooch designed
like a dragonfly inside a jeweler’s box that he has discovered at the crime
scene of Corpsewood Manor. It is a
remarkable piece of art…its wings and body worked in exceptional detail.
Focusing toward the expected bulbous round eyes, his suspicions jar full
throttle. Instead of a head, the empty sockets of a skull leer at him. His gut
feelin’s tell him his SEAL buddy Grayson MacGerald’s investigation is
considerably more than arson and a double murder trying to hide the theft of
classic automobiles. The smoldering rubble of secluded Corpsewood Manor leads
Ingram and another of their SEAL Team, Colorado Aspen ski buddy Spinner
Krespinak, into a seedy tangle of smuggling crisscrossed and an unexpected
encounter with a dead assassin from one of Spinner’s “closed” cases.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt
Three:
This was a dead woman.
The blunderbuss-shocker of seeing that particular woman-wraith joggled
his reality. Craige couldn’t have been
more shaken if one of their KIA SEAL casualties had unzipped the body bag,
stood up in full dress uniform, came to attention, and marched off. He wrestled with brain-locked
premonitions. She was like a chokehold
of death, much too lethally close for his liking. As quick as he thought it, he dismissed this
ready-made way to ending up very dead.
It almost had been for him and Spinner.
Couldn’t have been her…but…if it was, how was she here? Why was she here? Was she on a search and destroy, here to take
care of loose ends? Following him? His thoughts were disjointed. He felt like a lonesome abandoned fence
post…lost for words in a honeysuckle-snarled weedy field. Brain-locked, his feet epoxied to the spot
like he was a pole-axed chunk of granite.
The pain of betrayal she'd put Kentucky-born, Texas-raised
David Wellington Spinner Krespinak through came flooding back, fresh, beyond
nasty, and stoking a rising anger.
Craige took it considerably more than personal when anyone locked
cross-hairs on a friend. Spinner was a
hard-as-titanium, damn fine XO. Solved
problems; didn’t pass them on. Took the
heat for the dirty work Commanding Officer Craige wanted done. Spinner, Gray and Craige as close, maybe
closer, than blood kin. Had shared guts
and gore and KIA losses during more than a few ReCon-and-RetrieveOps. With options down to one, if de rigueur
critical they’d left their share of blood spattered calling cards. His backside had been in a fair share of
close calls, saved more than once by SEALmates.
Stay smokescreen concealed, kill if you have to…or be killed,
unforeseeables could pack deadly surprises.
Some in CTU/S paid that price.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
With
postgraduate degrees and faculty appointments in several medical universities,
Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and
Jerusalem. In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate
neuroembryology, Hawk has authored several works of fiction.
Hawk began
writing mysteries for his school newspaper. His works of fiction, historical
love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers are not genre-centered, but
plot-character driven, and reflect his southwest upbringing in Arkansas, Texas
and Oklahoma. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated for the prestigious
Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes
Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his serial protagonist in the
Craige Ingram Mystery Series… murder and mayhem with a touch of romance. Vault
of Secrets, the first book in the Ingram series, was followed by Nymrod
Resurrection, Blood and Gold, and The Lady of Corpsewood Manor. All have
received national attention. Hawk’s
latest release in the Ingram series is due out this fall with another
mystery-thriller work out in 2014. The Bleikovat Event, the first volume in The
Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series, was released in 2012.
"Without
question, Hawk is one of the most gifted and imaginative writers I have had the
pleasure to represent. His reading fans have something special to look forward
to in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. Intrigue, murder, deception and
conspiracy--these are the things that take Hawk's main character, Navy
ex-SEAL/part-time private investigator Craige Ingram, from his South Carolina
ancestral home of Moccasin Hollow to the dirty backrooms of the nation's
capital and across Europe and the Middle East."
Barbara
Casey, President
Barbara Casey
Literary Agency
www.hawkmackinney.net
Barnes and
Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-lady-of-corpewood-manor-hawk-mackinney/1113530101?ean=9781933300429
Hawk will be awarding a $20 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.
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Posts
Nice excerpt
ReplyDeletebn100candg at hotmail dot com
Thank you…sandwiching the plot-on-plot from other titles in the Ingram series was great fun writing. Glad you liked it - hope you like the read -
DeleteHawk MacKinney
www.hawkmackinney.net