Five Star Publishing

Series: A Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Mystery

Hardcover, 308 pgs

August 17, 2016, $25.95

Genre: Mystery

Synopsis

Saudi Arabian prince, Husam al Saliba hires Dru, a PI specializing in tracing missing children, to find his missing wife, Reeve Cresley and daughter, Shahrazad (Shara).

At a dinner to introduce himself and his story to Dru—and Richard Lake, her lover and an Atlanta police detective—he strikes Dru as charming but unbelievable. He tells of falling in love with Reeve, of turning his back on his possible ascendancy to the power structure in the kingdom for the woman he loves. He also talks of his king’s disapproval of him marrying and siring an infidel. But then he says his family wants him to return, marry his betrothed Aya and get in line to be an heir to kingship. Confused Dru thinks she’s fallen into a fairy tale. After all the prince is known to be a great storyteller and is partial to reciting tales from the Arabian Nights.

The investigation had just begun when Reeve’s parents, Lowell and Donna Cresley, who do not seem disturbed that Reeve is missing with Shara, are killed. That brings the Atlanta police into the case.

A U. S. resident, Prince Husam is a partner in a New York law firm. Reeve is a scientist who works for NASA. The couple spend little time living together. Husam goes off to Paris to see his Saudi princess, Aya, and Reeve is in an affair with Thomas Page. As Dru remarks, nobody in this tale is faithful. Then she finds out all have something too dreadful to hide.

Purchase Running With Wild Blood

Guest Post

Publishers Weekly reviewed my first novel in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series, The End Game, writing:

“A well-researched plot and snappy dialogue—plus some fine rail-yard K-9 detecting by Buddy, a German shepherd, and Jed, a Labrador retriever—keep the action moving.“

What? The PW reviewer didn’t think I knew all about trains and dogs without researching?

Having hopped a train once, I knew I had to jump off before it got moving too fast, and there have been few years in my life when I haven’t had a dog. But what did I know about a train yard and search-and-rescue dogs? Only what I see in the movies, on television and read in other books.

That easy way aside, I love to research. At times, I’d rather research than plot action or get inside a character’s head. When I’m stuck in a corner of my own making, I’ll throw something into the mix of which I know nothing, and go on a research mission.

I also love authenticity, which means I have to get to the source, the gritty in the nitty.  When I wrote The End Game, I knew from the start trains and dogs would figure prominently in my story. Computers, too, along with cops and prisons. Cops were easy. I worked with them when I reported for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. My heroine, Moriah Dru, is a former cop, now the owner of a PI firm specializing in finding missing children. Her lover, Richard Lake, is still a cop, handy for her to get all the information she needs on cases that involve cops.

The Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series is set  in Atlanta, where I’ve lived most of my life. But their investigations take them far and wide. The Last Temptation begins in Atlanta and then head West to Palm Springs. I’d gone there to play golf with my husband and decided I wanted to write a thriller set in that glitzy, zany place, and I did. We spent a week there, but I had to bone up on casinos, the Native Americans, the desert, the neighborhoods, the night spots—oh the night spots where the spirit of Frank Sinatra lingers large.

In The Devil Laughed I needed to learn about wine. I’ve drank my share, and have grown grapes in the past, but what did I know about wine-growing—the particular type of grape that makes either a cabernet or a sauvignon blanc or a pinot and what goes together to make other vintages. Our mountain region in Georgia grows different varieties of grapes than the Fear River region of North Carolina, another region I visited for the novel. Great place to be a tourist and visit the wine boutiques. In Running with Wild Blood, I got to get up close to motorcycle clubs.

In my most recent book in the series, America Nights, the research required was heroic. I had to learn all about the Saudi Arabian family, its food, culture, customs because Moriah Dru hired on to find the American wife of a Saudi prince. The prince loved to recite from the Arabian Nights. Fun to read those old tales again

To revolve back to SAR dogs—given to us mortals by a benevolent goddess—in my next life, I’m going to be a trainer. These canine specialists, I learned, do it for the pure joy of showing off their talents and a treat or two at the end of the search. They are tireless in their quest, and, like us, they suffer disappointment if they don’t succeed. In countless reviews, like PW’s, Buddy and Jed, came out heroes. Maybe because when I wrote them into the plot, they were my heroes.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

About the Author

Retireed journalist for The Atlanta-Journal Constitution,Gerrie Ferris Finger won the 2009 St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel for The End Game. The Last Temptation is the second in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake series. She lives on the coast of Georgia with her husband and standard poodle, Bogey.

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