Ric

Writer, musician, reformed biker, downhill and x-country skiier, ex-waterskiier, home brewer (and cosumer of)and working hard to bring my golf score under 85.Background Information: (Please excuse the lack of spaces and paragraphs. Apparently I haven't sent up the right offerings to the gods of the internet so they keep mashing them all together. Oh well - I hope you find it interesting) I'm really having fun with my current mystery series starring a '20-something' pair of lovers and musicians who also occasionally wind up fighting for their lives against the Mafia, drugged out little rich girls and slightly deranged killers! As a recent review put it. "The Newport Folk Festival provides a cool backdrop for this fun and exciting mystery set in the music and drug soaked sixties. You’re sure to enjoy this appealing mystery featuring a pair of musician partners in love and danger. Don't miss Shadow of Innocence!"And here's a chapter excerpt from Shadow of InnocenceBridget strained against her bonds, every nerve fiber screaming to let her sink her fingernails into that fat, mocking face. The movement attracted the attention of the figure sitting in the half light at the head of the table. He stopped stroking the blond head of the girl by his side. He slowly got up and moved down the table until he stood next to Bridget. She stopped struggling and looked up into the bottomless eyes. It was like looking into a deep black well. Fear began to chip away at her rage. The memories of the night before came rushing back. She felt her stomach constrict as he reached out one of his scarred muscular hands and stroked her cheek, just above the gauze covered wound underneath her black turtleneck. “You’re right, Cataldo. I did give her something to remember me by last night, but where is it? It should be right here.” His finger traced a line down her cheek. “Yes, it should be right here, but it’s not.” He took Bridget’s heart shaped face between his massive thumb and forefinger and looked into her frightened eyes. “Didn’t you appreciate my gift? Whether you realize or not, it really was a gift you know. It would have saved you from becoming a soulless, heartless bitch, whose only purpose was to seduce men with those perfect eyes and lips and—face.” The steel-like fingers pressed into her jaw. “But you rejected my gift. You’ve kept that beautiful face which can only cause you and everyone around you, pain and tears and regret.” His voice was getting louder. “Where is your mark, little girl? I know I struck your skin. I heard you scream. I smelled burnt flesh. Where is it?” Bridget pushed back into the moldering chair but his fingers rolled down her face, gripped the collar of the black turtleneck and pulled. There was a sound of tearing fabric and a satisfied, “Ah, there.” Tears of rage, pain and humiliation rolled down her cheeks and he caressed them with his fingertips. He put one tear wet finger between his lips and licked it. “Do you know what it tastes like, little girl?” Bridget bit her lip beneath the gag to keep from crying but it was no use.“I’m afraid that it still tastes like… beauty.” His eyes burned. “I thought I had saved you last night and likewise saved everyone who would look at that beautiful face and be poisoned, imprisoned and emasculated. But somehow you avoided my healing brand or twisted away. I failed. I apologize.” Bridget writhed and tried to pull away from his hands. He smiled. “But I promise you, I won’t fail again.”He took a gold engraved cigarette lighter out of his pocket. “Shall we complete what we started?” Bridget’s nostrils flared as she tried to scream underneath her gag. “Oh, forgive me.” He reached down and ripped the taped gag from her mouth. “You’ll want to scream, won’t you?” He flicked the wheel over the lighter’s flint and a bright blue flame sprang from its tip. He grabbed Bridget’s jaw in a vise-like grip. “It was such a pretty face, wasn’t it? But now it going to be better. So much better for all concerned.”He moved the lighter to her face. Bridget gritted her teeth as the uncontrollable tears ran down her cheeks. Don’t cry. Don’t scream. You are a Connolly girl! she screamed in her mind. Remember the beatings your father’s taken, your grandfather. You are a Connolly, damn you. Don’t cry! But the tears didn’t listen; they kept on dripping onto the stone floor. He looked at her with something that far back in his dim past might have been a feeling close to compassion. He bent down and kissed her cheek. “This will be the last kiss that this beautiful face will ever receive.” He pushed the red-hot lighter toward Bridget’s milk-white cheek.She screamed.Ric Wasley Author Shadow of Innocence - Kunati - April 2007 Acid Test – Fall 2004http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Ric_Wasley http://www.kunati.com/shadow-of-innocence-hip-myster/Ric Wasley has spent almost forty years wandering through corporate board - rooms and honky-tonk bars. He now divides his time between writing mystery novels – Shadow of Innocence & Acid Test - McCarthy Family Mysteries – and observing the really ‘juicy parts’ of the human condition.PERSONAL BACKGROUND INFO I've always loved reading and as a kid started a little hand printed magazine with my stories and distributed it to the neighborhood. Then in high school and college, I wrote for the school newspapers. I've always believed that it's more convincing to write about things you know and have experienced. I was lucky enough to have spent (or rather I should say, "misspent") a large part of my younger days crisscrossing the country on a motorcycle with a guitar and an occasional lady friend for company. I often quite literally 'sang for my supper'and quickly learned why honkey-tonk bars put chicken wire in front of the stage! Years later, I used these experiences as background for the adventures of Mick and Bridget in my McCarthy Family Mysteries. In fact here's an excerpt from a recent interview that I did with Book Lovers Haven that pretty well tells the story.BLH: You began as a musician. Were you writing while you organized and played in your own band?RW: Yes. I actually started in a high-school basic rock band, but I had the good fortune to live just 15 miles from Harvard Sq. in Cambridge. And in the 60's all of the greats of folk music - Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Ian & Sylvia; came to play in Harvard Sq. clubs such as the original Club 47 (later known as Passim's). One night I had the opportunity to play at the 47 on the same stage and was really blown away by Dylan's ability to combine poetry, prose and music into something incredibly powerful. From then on I was hooked on both music and writing. One interesting side note is that both of my sons also play in rock bands and they have both put out what I, as their obliviously 'proud papa', think are some really dynamite words and music!BLH: Which do you prefer most, song or book writing? Why?RW: When I was about sixteen, I read Jack Keroac. And while his 'stream of consciousness' prose leaves you kind of panting for breath, I was drawn to his self discovery, on-the-road, stories. As a result, I started keeping a kind of a journal of my own 'adventures on the road' traveling around on my motorcycle, playing as a single folk act, and later in a VW Mini-bus touring with my rock band. Equally fortunate, I kept these journals which many years later became much of the source material for the adventures of Mick and Bridget, my two main characters in my McCarthy Family Mystery series. The series is set in the Boston area in 1968. And, in addition to helping out his dad with his detective agency, Mick and his girlfriend, Bridget... (guess what?). Often go 'under-cover' when working on a case, and travel around as folk-singing duo!BLH: Tell us about your latest title. What is it about? Where is it set and who are the leading characters?RW: Shadow of Innocence takes place in 1968. It follows the lives and adventures of the very eclectic but always interesting, McCarthy family. But most of the action .centers around the middle child of the five person family, Michael Prescott McCarthy, Mick, and his cute, gutsy girlfriend, Bridget Connolly. Shadow of Innocence starts out when Mick, a former Vietnam vet now back at college and helping his dad (a former Boston cop) with his detective agency, gets a call from an old army buddy. He tells Mick that his cousin is playing in a band at the 1968 Newport Folk Festival and has just been arrested on suspicion of murdering the beautiful daughter of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Newport. So Mick and Bridget fire up their motorcycle and set off to Newport to find out what really happened. But when they get to Newport, the home of the largest blues and folk festival in the country (and some of the countries most elite social set of millionaires) and attempt to unravel the mystery, they find that they are becoming increasingly entangled in a nasty mess of dark secrets of the proverbial drugs, sex, rock & roll and ... murder!I am also a member of lots of author and music groups and have met some very tallented and fascinating people through them. I also belong to marketing groups like MMA (Murder must Advertise) and believe that good marketing is the key to success in selling a book in today's multi-media market. One of many reasons, but certainly a major one, of why I signed with my current publisher Kunati, is that they are absolute masters when it comes to publicity, marketing and promotion. Kunati also accepts only authors that they passionately believe in - and then they support them passionately as well.I'm currently about 6 months into a 9 month signing tour for Shadow of Innocence and have been loving every minute of it. I've met lots of really nice people in dozens of towns and have been really gratified by the reception that Shadow is getting. I've also just finished my third McCarthy mystery, The Scrimshaw, and am targeting the fall of 2008 for release.Shadow Of Innocence is available at all major bookstores and on-line at Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601640064/ref=cm_arms_pdp_ dp/102-9493123-7988954Ric Wasley Author Shadow of Innocence - Kunati - April 2007 Acid Test - Fall 2004http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ric_Wasley http://www.kunati.com/shadow-of-innocence-hip-myster/