Gun Toting Mommas ~~ Happy Mother’s Day

When readers think Christian Fiction, they usually don’t think of a “mother character” in terms of a woman with children at home who is carrying a gun. Yet, more than one Christian author has penned mother characters who are packing heat.

Kathy Herman’s THE REAL ENEMY, first in the Sophie Trace Trilogy, comes to mind with its heroine Police Chief Brill Jessup. This police chief got her nickname Brill due to her 18-year career filled with brilliant detective work before accepting the position of police chief in a small town. She most assuredly carries a weapon and knows how to use it.

http://goo.gl/qAaQa

Issie Putnam, the heroine in Fay Lamb’s BECAUSE OF ME is a mom on a mission to keep her son’s insane rapist father from learning about the precious boy she loves. Issie doesn’t like guns, so she carries and .22 caliber pistol and she shoots it with deadly accuracy at its farthest range. Issie and Cole are the only ones who know about the safe room Issie built in the attic of their farmhouse, and Cole knows exactly what he is to do if he ever needs to seek refuge there. No one will hurt Cole, including the man Issie loves. If Michael Hayes can’t see past the ugly truth of Cole’s beginnings and learn to love her son, well, he can’t love her. Even if Michael is the only safe refuge Issie’s heart has ever known. At Amazon. http://goo.gl/6ab3i

Christine’s Lindsay’s heroine Abby Fraser has brought her young son to India intending to begin life with her British Army lieutenant husband now that WWII is over. She’s faced with one disappointment after another, threats, and danger to herself and her son during periods of upheaval in the colonial sub-continent. The wives of British officers have been advised they must learn to be proficient with firearms. Abby, who learned to shoot in the states, shocks them all by repeatedly hitting the bull’s-eye on her first try. SHADOWED IN SILK recently won the 2011 Grace Award in the Action-Adventure/Western/Epic Fiction category.

http://goo.gl/49Vy6

Author Wendy L. Young’s creation, Laura Harmon, is a gun-toting Momma with four kids and a fifth on the way. Licensed to carry a concealed weapon, she knows her rights and knows how to use them. She grew up with a much-older brother who was a Marine and Police Officer and has been married to another officer for over 25 years. Until recently, she never had a cause to use a weapon but things are changing in Campbell Creek and she aims to protect herself and her family. Soon she will have her gun trained and know that she is ready to use it, whatever the cost. This third novel in the series is coming in Summer 2012.  Laura and her husband Will are the main characters in The Campbell Creek Mysteries:  COME THE SHADOWS http://goo.gl/cE0Ax and RED SKY WARNING http://goo.gl/OlJG3 .

*****

I’d like to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to gun toting mommas wherever they may be: in law enforcement, on the battlefield, driving bank armoured cars, and so much more.

Read An E-Book Week: March 4 – 10

Wow, How Exciting Is This???

Here are a few crime fiction novels available in ebook form:

 

GOODBYE NOEL, by Nike Chillemi  ~ Historical Romantic Thriller ~ Bodies piling up, kidnap, warm love story.

 

 

 

BURNING HEARTS, by Nike Chillemi ~ Historical Romantic Thriller  ~ Arson/murder, action, sweet love story.

 

 

 

 

 

KILL SHOT, by Anne Patrick ~ Contemporary Romantic Thriller ~  Former combat medic is home and somebody is trying to kill her, almost as disturbing is the sheriff who’s trying to save her.

 

 

FIRE AND ASH, by Anne Patrick ~ Suspicious fire claims the life of college student, what investigators discover rocks the whole town.

 

 

 

THE WITCH TREE by Kain Kaufman ~ Contemporary Cozy ~ Genealogist finds woman’s body, husband blames her,  modern Wiccans confound the issue, killer targets her.

 

 

 

 

 

OFF THE GRID, by Mark Young ~ Contemporary International Thriller ~  Force Recon trained Seattle police officer finds a body that plunges him into terrorism and intrigue.

REVENGE, by Mark Young ~ Contemporary Thriller ~ A highly trained killer bent on revenge threatens ex-cop now teaching criminology at the college level.

 

 

 

 

 

A HEART OF JUSTICE, by Janice Cantore ~ Contemporary Police Procedural ~ Two Eastern European girls with tattoos, one dead. K-9 officer and her partner plunge into human trafficking.

 

THE KEVLAR HEART, by Janice Cantore ~ Contemporary Police Procedural ~ K-9 officer’s passion is finding abducted children and bringing them home alive, because she was once abducted by a vicious pervert…and now he’s back, maybe.

Steven James, Inspy Awards 2010 Winner, Thriller/Suspense/Mystery

It was a total blast taking the journey our committed panel of judges in the Inspy Awards 2010 Thriller/Suspense/Mystery category embarked upon. A pilgrimage into what demonstrates the highest levels literary talent in the general area of Christian crime fiction — and what constitutes Christian themes in literature.

Winner:  Steven James ~ The Knight

The statement issued by our panel of judges: Mark Buzzard, Kim Ford, Tim George, Dee Stewart, and myself.

How does one (who has no Christian reference points) make that first step toward the Lord? Where does that first question about spirituality come from? How does the author make it believable? Steven James makes it believable. This question encapsulates many of the judges’ thoughts about Patrick Bowers as he struggles to solve a series of grizzly crimes in the INSPY Award winner for the Thriller/Suspense/Crime Fiction category. The literary skill employed by James creates a story that steals the reader’s sleep while also stealing their breath. Creating an unforgettable set of characters who face an unimaginable and escalating series of terrifying crimes, James captures both the imagination and heart of the reader as he spins his tale.

Steven Jame’s website: http://stevenjames.net/

Motives For Murder ~ Fiction vs. Real Life

When I’m creating what I call my basic plotline, or my simple (very simple) plot outline and need a motive for murder — I usually go for what I call my big three –money, jealousy, and revenge — or a combination of those three.

I’m sure  you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that research shows in real life the number one reason for murder is a domestic argument. This includes one of my big three, jealousy, but also encompasses all the non-sexual infidelity reasons for the termination of a marriage. Still we most often term this type of killing a crime of passion.

The second motive most often listed in police reports is revenge. Of course people who commit revenge murders don’t think of they’ve really committed a crime. Oh, they know it’s against the law or they wouldn’t try to conceal their identity. They just don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. After all the bum had it coming, in the murderer’s view. Some think revenge would’ve been the first on the list, but I think most people who are revenge minded don’t want the victim dead, they want them alive and suffering.

Coming in at three is money. Frankly, I thought this one would’ve been numero uno. Perhaps that’s because most of the vitriol I’ve witness has occurred after the will was read in my own extended family and in the families of friends and associates. Of course nobody I know actually committed murder over it, so maybe that’s evidence it’s not such a pressing reason to kill.

The fourth motive most often sited in real police reports is alcohol/drug use. This is a scary motive because it often includes no motive at all, or scant motive. A guy gets blotto watching the game with his buddies comes home and finds his wife didn’t do the laundry and he wanted to wear his team’s tee shirt, so he kills her. In a great many drug/alcohol murder investigations detectives find the perpetrator often doesn’t know or can’t recall clearly what went through his/her mind before killing.

Coming in about fifth on the list, depending on the locale, is the mob hit. This can involve money, turf, but it also can involve personal power and/or disgracing a “made man.” A made man is someone who has formally been inducted into a crime family as a lieutenant. It’s not a wise thing to cross such a man. Power and disgracing the family name in non-mob circles don’t even make it on the real life law enforcement list — both of these big reason in the prime time soap operas of the 1980s like Dynasty and Dallas.

A motive that has recently been finding it’s way into police reports in urban areas as a motive for murder with the influx of foreign immigrants is ethnic customs. The so-called honor killing is not as uncommon as one might suppose. A young Muslim girl has not behaved as modestly as her older male relatives think she should’ve. She’s taken off her head scarf while at school, or allowed an American boy to walk her part way home, so her father and brothers kill her. Another scenario could be that a young man comes to live in the USA with missionaries who lived with his tribe in South America. He spends his teen years here and marries, but then suspects his wife of infidelity, so as is the custom in his tribe, when his wife gives birth, he kills the infant.

Serial Killers are growing in popularity in fiction as the perpetrator of gruesome murders, so much so that they’ve practically become their own sub-genre. It’s not surprising that in real life mental illness and sociopathology seem to be cropping up more often in crime reports. If you or someone you love discovers they are married to a bigamist, are involved with a professional gigolo, or a con-man defrauding women – RUN. There is great danger there, even potential for murder.

Just Who Is Colton Parker Anyway???

This has been an edgy Christian fiction summer for me and I’ve loved every minute of it. Via my Kindle (kissing it now), I read one of Michelle Sutton’s spicy novels and two of Brandt Dodson’s noir novels while on vacation in sunny Florida. The reading experience was incredible!!!

I always prefer to begin a crime fiction series from book one. So, of course, the first book in Brand Dodson’s series is Original Sin and I gobbled it up.

I got introduced to the droll main character, former FBI agent, now an Indianapolis private investigator (trying to make ends meet) Coltin Parker.

I like to get to know the protag in a work of crime fiction from the get go. Here I find Coltin, figuratively speaking, nearly on life support. He’s been fired from the FBI for beating the tar out of a kidnapper, which resulted in the rescue of the little girl victim. So, right from the beginning I knew if circumstances warrant it, Colton can become violent. In addition Colton’s wife Anna recently died in a car accident leaving him unprepared to be both father and mother to a thirteen year old daughter who because he’s been such a workaholic he hardly knows. In addition his daughter Callie blames him for her mother’s death.

This guys is so adrift after the death of his wife, if it wasn’t for his love for Callie he might take his own life, or find some low-life criminal to take it for him. As the book progresses, I discover violence isn’t so foreign to Colton, in fact he often has to reign himself in, sometimes with great difficulty. Now this is a hero on the edge. I don’t know what he’s gonna do and that makes the read exciting.

The return of Colton Parker in Dodson’s second gritty novel, Seventy Times Seven, deals as one might suspect with forgiveness. Colton’s looking for a nerdy rich business owner’s wife who it seems has run away. Then her car turns up with blood in the trunk and thing are not what they seems.

In the midst of this Colton begins to discover he must seek the forgiveness of his daughter for what she perceives to be his misdeeds and his involvement in the accident that killed his wife, her mother. To complicate matters more, although intellectually Colton believes he’s not responsible for his wife’s death, emotionally he feels he may be.

As the story progresses and plot elements intertwine, we discover Colton has someone he must forgive.

Brandt Dodson