I'm pleased to have Lyndi Alexander visiting my blog today! And what a story!
One
of the best periods of my writing career was spent in several years as a daily
news reporter at the South Dade News Leader (http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/)
in Homestead, Florida. The job opened doors to me I’d never have expected.
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| With thanks to Alan Cleaver |
I
interviewed senators, doctors, astronauts, hurricane specialists and more. I
could pick up the phone and ask for a tour of just about anything and got a warm
welcome. I got to fly a F-14 jet flight simulator. (Good thing it wasn’t
real—took me less than seven minutes to totally destroy a $6 million machine…
oy.)
I
wanted to bring a piece of that experience to my latest novel, Love Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, released this
month by Hydra Publications, when I created Sara Woods, the young woman who
comes to the Ralston Courier, a small paper in Ohio, to begin her life again
after a nasty divorce. She isn’t new at the business; she’d worked as a reporter
in a much bigger paper in Pittsburgh. But what she’s about to find is a bigger
story than she’d ever encountered before—one that could actually take her
life.
Small
towns are a world unto themselves, with a lot of secrets hidden behind common
doors that aren’t open to outsiders. It’s easy to see how someone new to town
might miss some obvious clues, or some alliances that seem innocent, at least to
begin with. I know it took me a long time to cultivate the right sources of
information to help me sort through what was true and what was not.
But
then I had all the time in the world. Sara doesn’t.
Young
women are dying in this town, perfectly healthy young women, and someone has to
find out why and stop the people who are responsible. If the police aren’t doing
it, and the doctors can’t figure out why, then who else is left? Circumstances
come together to leave Sara in that position. Then the trouble
starts.
BLURB:
Running away
isn’t necessarily the answer.
In her mad rush to escape
a failed marriage, Sara Woods takes the first job available and lands in the
middle of a mystery. Her first assignment as a news reporter for the Ralston
Courier is the investigation of a string of deaths, all young women, all her
age.
She becomes a patient at the Goldstone
Clinic, a local mecca of healing, to deal with chronic pain from her past.
But all is not as it seems at the Goldstone, its
doctors and nurses all the picture of perfect beauty and health. Patients at the
clinic first seem to get better, then they deteriorate. Sara enlists the help of
Dr. Rick Paulsen, who teaches her how to access her internal power, skills she
never knew she had, revealing secrets from her past. Police officer Brendon Zale
also takes an interest in Sara, but he acts like a stalker, watching her every
move, and he won't leave her alone.
As she digs deeper into the
story, she tries to choose allies wisely, but not till the last confrontation
does she discover the identity of her true enemy.
By then, it’s too
late.
EXCERPT:
Gloria kept me on a full round of assignments, though I still
didn’t have a regular beat. I interviewed farmers, called state legislators on
budget talks, and wrote obituaries. But I found that whenever I asked for time
to do further investigation about Lily and the others, Gloria bent over backward
to make it happen for me.
While I was grateful, I thought it was unlike
the hard-bitten editor to allow such devotion to a cause that had been shelved
by the police and everyone else. She certainly didn’t seem to give others that
leeway. After several days, I found myself alone with her by the coffeepot in
the hallway between the news and sports departments, a pencil stuck behind one
ear, looking very intellectual in the tortoise shell glasses. Her movements were
stiff, caused by arthritis, according to newsroom scuttlebutt, but she refused
any medication and denied any disability. I asked her about Lily.
“Gloria, I
get the feeling you should be telling me to get over this case and move on. But
you don’t.”
“No.” She
poured a tall mug of black coffee.
I waited for
more of an explanation, but she didn’t elaborate. I shoved several quarters in
the snack machine for some cheesy crackers. “So you think it’s worthwhile.”
“Yes.” Gloria
stared out the window, jaw set.
She was as
stubborn as I. A little smile inched across my lips. “Because?” I said
pointedly.
She looked up
and down the hall, and started to speak, but bit her lip instead. “Come to my
office,” she said, and marched away. After a moment of stunned silence, I
followed her. She waited till I was inside, then shut the door. She turned on
her radio, loud. National Public Radio’s Fresh Air,
She took her
time, burning up half the cigarette before she finally turned to me. “I want you
to get them.”
“Them
who?”
“The people
who are killing all these women. Because there’s more than four. There’s more
than the ones you pulled from O’Neal’s files. By my informal count, there’s at
least 17.”
“What?” My
voice, tight with surprise, got almost shrill.
She glanced at the radio, then at
the door, then at me.
“Sorry,” I said, much more softly. “Where does that number
come from?”
“Several people have taken notice of the deaths, the
pattern, the statistics. We’ve compared notes and done what we can, but the
authorities were less then helpful.”
“Good thing that’s changed,” I said with a heavy helping of
sarcasm.
She smiled without warmth. “Cops are cops. They’ll never
change.” She tossed the cigarette butt out the window. “When you’re ready, I
will give you my contacts. Because I want you to nail the bastards. They killed
my baby sister.”
BUY LINKS:
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Me-Kiss-Kill-ebook/dp/B008WCZIZK/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1346811901&sr=8-5&keywords=lyndi+alexanderBarnes
and Noble.com:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-me-kiss-me-kill-me-lyndi-alexander/1112464898?ean=2940014864022
