by Blair Howard
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Mystery/Crime Fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
It's
midnight on a cold and snowy night in January when a beautiful young girl,
Tabitha Willard, throws herself off the Walnut Street Bridge. Harry Starke happens
to be there. Wrong time, wrong place? Maybe. Although he tries, he is unable to
stop her. Thus begins a series of events and an investigation that involves a
local United States congressman, a senior lady senator from Boston, a local
crime boss, several very nasty individuals, sex, extortion, high finance, and
three murders. Harry has to work his way through a web of deceit and corruption
until finally.... Well, as always, there's a twist in the tale, several in
fact.
Harry Starke is a big fish in a
small pond. He's a tough individual with a past and a conscience. He has
friends in high places. He’s single, successful, wealthy, a womanizer, well
educated, and he will hurt you if he needs to. This book is the first in the
series of Harry Starke novels.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
"You're
about as transparent as that window, Benny. Maybe more so. It's filthy. Now
tell me the truth."
"Screw
you, Starke. I don't have tell you nothin'. Get the hell out of my office, and
stay outa the bar too."
I
sat there for a moment, contemplating his fat face, then I nodded and rose to
my feet, but I didn't leave. I walked around the desk, reached inside my jacket
and pulled out the MP9, and sat down on the desk facing him.
"Whoa."
He leaned away from me, his eyes wide, his hands in front of him, fingers
spread.
"Now
then, Benny. There are two ways we can do this; either way you'll tell me what
I want to know. So, what do you think? Painful or not?"
"Harry,
I swear I don't know those two guys. I barely even noticed 'em."
I
nodded, and then tapped him gently on the bridge of his nose with the barrel of
the nine."
"Ow,
ow, ow." he yelled. "That hurt, you son of a bitch."
"I
asked you, Benny... painful or not? You chose painful." I tapped him
again.
"Oh
ow. Goddam it, Harry. Quit it. You'll bust my nose."
"Yup,
it's quite likely I will. You ready to talk?"
"I
told ya, I don't know who they are."
Smack!
This time I laid the flat side of the gun hard against his ear.
"Uch,
uch, uch, uch, uch," Hah, the man was actually crying, sobbing as he rubbed
his ear. The bridge of his nose was already turning black.
I
grabbed his right hand and slammed it down on the desktop, fingers spread.
"Benny,
you want to talk to me, before I start on your fingers?"
"Okay,
okay." He nodded enthusiastically.
"They...
they... work... for the Packman."
"The
Packman? You mean Lester Tree, Shady?"
Amazon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Blair Howard was born and
raised in England. He writes sweeping historical epics, and is the author of
four historical novels, with a fifth due to be released at the end of July this
year: be on the lookout for Three Days in Hell: a Novel of the American Civil
War. His current novels are: Chickamauga: a Novel of the American Civil War;
The Mule Soldiers: a Novel of the American Civil War; The Chase: a Novel of the
American Civil War: and Comanche: a Novel of the Old West. His new book, Harry
Starke, mystery novel will be available on September 4, 2015 All of Blair's
books are available on Amazon as eBooks or Paperbacks.
Blair is also a travel
writer and professional photographer specializing in golf travel, vacation
travel, and golf course photography. His travels take him throughout the United
States, Europe and the Caribbean playing golf, writing about his experiences,
and photographing the golf courses he visits. You can follow him on About.com
here: http://abt.cm/1zoDpei.
Blair is the author of more
than 40 books and more than 4,500 magazine, newspaper, and web articles. His
work has appeared in many national and international publications, including
Delta's Sky Magazine, PHOTOgraphic magazine, The Mail on Sunday, The Walking
Magazine, Petersen's Hunting Magazine, The Boston Herald, The Detroit
Free-Press, The Anchorage Times and many more.
On Twitter @bcwhoward
**************************************
GIVEAWAY
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The tour dates can be found
here
***************************************
My review:
3.75 out of 5 stars
Harry Starke
by Blair Howard is a mystery story that
evokes the American noir genre, with its eponymous central character, a private
investigator with ties to the police force as well as other movers and
shakers.
An unwilling witness to a
suicide, Harry is determined to discover the reason for the attractive young
woman’s fatal decision.
His
investigative techniques are sanctioned by his contact with the police
department until he crosses a line that the lieutenant can no longer
ignore.
As Harry gets closer to the
truth, he finds that far more is at stake than he ever imagined and his case
gets even more personal and the end result may not be what he wants after all.
The mystery that gradually unfolds through the course of the
story is intriguing and fun to follow but I can’t say that I am thrilled with
Harry’s persona. His hard-bitten persona
and adversarial relationship with both a former colleague as well as various
thugs provided interesting interludes that show what a tough customer he is,
but his blithe dismissal of a long-time relationship, disregard for proper
protocol, and willingness to use whatever tools or connections he has to
achieve his goals is less than attractive to me. Despite that, the story is entertaining and
keeps one’s attention as Harry works through the clues he finds, even though it
has a bit of an unusual twist. I was a
little taken aback at the casual handling of items that I would think are
supposed to be part of a documented chain of custody and I am sure that Harry’s
unorthodox methods would not be accepted elsewhere, but they definitely
contributed to a very colorful story. This
was a good light read that will be appreciated by fans of detective stories starring unorthodox characters who are willing to use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals.
A copy of this story was provided to me for review.
, is at this link.
