Tuesday, November 30, 2021

 Just in time for the holiday season!

I love multi-genre author CW Hawes' books. Simply put, he is a very good writer. My favorite is his Justinia Wright PI series. And just in time for the Christmas season, he has offered up a new collection of mysteries for us to enjoy! 

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If you love short stories, mysteries, and Christmas, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of CW Hawes' wonderful new short story collection - Christmas with the Wrights: Justinia Wright Private Investigator Mysteries.

My review:

I have enjoyed CW Hawes' Justinia Wright series for a long time, and this short story collection has arrived just in time for the holiday season. If you've followed the progression of the series, you'll be delighted to know that the three stories in this volume have all the fun, mystery, and mayhem that you love in the full-length books. And if you're new to the world of Minneapolis' top private sleuth and her equally talented brother, Harry, then you are in for a real treat! The stories are told through the eyes of Harry, which lends a bit of the whimsical to the narrative as Harry pulls no punches regarding his sister's down falls as well as why she is the best PI for any client looking for justice in a cruel world. You can feel the love, trust, and admiration between the two characters as Hawes has done a superb job allowing the dialog to show the reader the tight, though somewhat flawed relationship between a brother and sister. Hawes is a master of his craft, and these three tales pack a lot of surprise and intrigue inside each crisply written mystery. One of the things I like best about this collection is that even though the common thread throughout the book is that it's the holiday season, these are not stories about Christmas mysteries, but rather good old fashion mysteries that happen to take place during Christmas time. It's a wonderful blending of a magical time of year and the realization that mystery, bad decisions, and crime do not take a break during the holidays. Do yourself a favor, and pour a cup of eggnog (spiked if you prefer), get cozy in front of the fireplace, and enjoy some of the best storytelling you'll find between the pages of a book.



Just click this link: Buy here for information and a link to Amazon.

Saturday, June 19, 2021

Happy Father's Day






Mom and Dad
This is a picture of my mother & father, but since it’s Father’s Day weekend, I am gonna say a few words about my dad. 
He showed me what a good father is supposed to look like... what it means to truly be there for your kids, your family. How important that presence can be when it comes to shaping the mindset of your kids as they grow into adulthood. 


He passed back in 1997 after a short battle with mouth and throat cancer, so he never really got to see my kids, his grandkids, blossom into adulthood. My daughter was six years old and my son was four when we spent that last Christmas with him and my mom back in 1996. He was gone just four months later. During that holidayhe took me aside and made sure he told me that he was proud of the kind of father I'd become. I think he knew it would be his last chance. Today, as I think back on that time, I realize that what he said to me had deepened the love and respect I had for the man, because he never really got to see how much of an influence he was when it came to me making sure I was there for my kids as a dad. 

And unfortunately, when I had the chance as an adult, I never took the time to tell him what it meant to me that he was always there and how much I appreciated that he would show up at all my events. When I was going through that time as a kid, I didn't think about it since he was always around. It was the norm for me. I didn't know that every kid didn't have the same experience. When I was in my twenties, I thought I knew it all and didn't appreciate who he was as a father and a mentor. By the time I reached my thirties and had kids of my own, I finally realized how special he was and how much I valued our relationship. But by then it was practically too late. When you're younger, you always think there'll be more time. I did get to tell him, but it was while he was unconscious and on his deathbed. I want to believe he heard and understood my words, but I'll never really know. And for that I am truly sorry, because he supported everything I was into as a kid - all the different sports, the school plays, when I wanted to learn to play the guitar, when I couldn't decide if I wanted to be an architect or a cartoonist, when I decided not to be either, and many other odd or weird choices I made as I grew up. And he was also always there for all the important milestones in my life. He didn't miss anything. He was there for my first steps, my first words, my first day of school, all the way up to graduation... and all the stuff that happens in-between. He taught me how to ride a bike, he went to all the ballgames (he even coached some years) and the Cub Scout meetings. He actively listened to the stories, the heartaches, the tears, the laughter, the dumb jokes... My father always showed an interest in me as a person. He was engaged with me and not just Uh-huh-ing me while thinking about other stuff. He asked questions and down deep I knew he cared. 

Overall, I had a pretty good relationship with my father. I loved him very much, and he knew that, because I was able to tell him on many an occasion. I just tend to get a bit melancholy around Father's Day because I start to compare my skills as a dad, with his. And as I said, there are some things about fatherhood I'd wish I'd said to him while he was alive. I've told him a million times since he died, but it's really not the same thing.

He was a good man - dare I say, a great man. If I’ve done any kind of a good job helping to raise and influence my now adult kids, it’s because of what I learned from my father. 

 


 
 My brother, Tony and I loved shooting pool in our basement  with him, and he took advantage of that time to teach us about life - Of course, we didn’t know that’s what he was doing - but he was. He would rather spend time at home with his family than be anywhere else. 





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I think about my dad every day. He is my hero. I miss not being able to pick up the phone and talk with him. I miss not being able to share my successes with him and get his advise on how to face life's challenges. He was just sixty-four when cancer stole him away from our family. That's only two years older than I am right now, and I think about that every day too. If you are blessed to still have your father in your life, take advantage of that and spend some quality time with your dad this weekend... and not just because it's Father's Day. 



Sunday, May 16, 2021

 Getting closer...

I’ve been working on the third Tony Razzolito book, on and off, for what seems like forever. I explained in my last post why it’s been taking so long, so I’m not going to spend time rehashing that here. If you haven’t read my last blogpost, please do - it’ll explain where my head has been for the last year or two.

Dirty Air should have been finished and released at the end of 2019... at least that was the original plan. It has been both a labor of love and a hard book to write. The ability to focus on finishing the project has been difficult. Not the actual writing, because whenever I do sit down and concentrate on the writing, the story flows from my fingertips fairly easily. I know these characters... every nuance, every personality quirk, everything that makes them tick and makes them think the way they do. It's always helped the stories evolve and sends them down paths I couldn't imagine without having defined characterization. Of course, I have an outline, but it's rough at best. Like many writers, I'm a pantser, I let the personality of my characters write the dialog, which drives the direction of the plot. But as you now know (if you read the last blogpost), I’ve had a lot of distractions over the last couple of years, and making myself sit down to actually do the writing has been the hardest part of writing this book.

That being said, I am inching closer to completing and releasing Dirty Air. I promised in my last post that I would provide a peek at chapter one of Dirty Air: A Tony Razzolito PI Story (Book 3) - Instead, I'm including the first two chapters. I’m hoping two things - 1) you enjoy this preview, and 2) it makes you want to know what happens next. 

I welcome your thoughts and comments😄

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Chapter 1

Sonny Regan had never seen a dead body before. He was standing in an alley in Uptown Charlotte trying to sort through what he was looking at. He and his buddy, Ronnie Stump, were in town for the Coca-Cola 600 and had been enjoying Speed Street, a three-day party extravaganza held the week before one of NASCAR’s biggest race weekends of the year.

    The boys started drinking at the campsite they had rented right near The Charlotte Motor Speedway, sometime earlier in the day. They’d taken an Uber into the middle of the city to cap off their night with some good music, food, and of course, more beer.

    Ronnie was waiting on the corner for his friend to finish his business and was starting to get antsy. He walked down the alley to see what was taking so long. “Hey,” he protested, as he approached Sonny. “How the hell long does it take you to piss?” He was spent, and the alcohol was making his head spin. “I gotta get back to camp ‘fore I pass out!”

    Sonny ignored his drinking buddy. He just stood there staring into the lifeless eyes of the man lying behind the trash bin.

    “C’mon, zip it up. Our ride’s fixin’ to be here any min—” He stopped short as he got closer to where Sonny was standing. “What in the hell? Is that a dead body?

    Ronnie’s outburst finally jolted Sonny from his trance. He looked at his buddy with a pained expression on his face. “Hell,” he said. “I nearabout pissed on him!

    They both stood there looking at the body. It was that of a man in his late twenties, dressed in khakis and a blue polo shirt. He was wearing a pair of Spalwart track shoes, which was the only article on his body that hinted toward someone with money. If there was a watch or any other jewelry, it had most likely been taken by whoever put the bullet hole in the middle of his chest.

    “Sonny, we need to get outta here,” slurred Ronnie. “We don’t need to be involved in nothin’ like this. Let’s just walk away and call 911. We’ll tell ‘em that the dead guy is in the alley, but we won’t tell ‘em who we are. No one has to know we wuz ever here.”

    “Won’t work," said Sonny, who was a bit less drunk than his friend and was thinking a little more clearly. “The cops’ll be able to track us by way of our cell phone.” He paused and blew out some air through pursed lips. “But I reckon that we need to call ‘em.”

    The two looked at each other. Ronnie started to sweat and was taking deep breaths. He was swaying ever so slightly as he said, “I don’t feel so good.” He bent over, held his stomach, and threw up all over the body. After a full minute of retching up what felt like several gallons of beer, he dropped down and sat against the cool metal of the trash bin. “Oh, shit,” was all he could manage to say.

    Damn Ronnie, you done puked all over him!” screamed Sonny.

    Ronnie couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh as it struck him how ridicules this whole situation was. He immediately regretted it. “Ow!” he said as he doubled over, holding his stomach. “An’ I think I’m fixin’ t’do it agai—” His words were cut off as his throat tightened up and he began to gag and dry heave. There was nothing left inside of him. After a minute, the sensation began to subside and he sat back against the trash bin. This time he sat there in silence and blew out short breaths.

    Sonny had turned away from his friend for fear he would join him in his spew-fest. Of course, now he was looking right at the body. Everything Ronnie had to eat and drink all evening was blanketing the man’s shirt and pants. He moved his eyes away from the puke stained clothing and concentrated on the man’s face, which was the only vomit-free spot on the body. Hell, Ronnie had even barfed all over the dead guy’s expensive looking shoes.

    Now that he had a better look at the man’s face, he thought he recognized him. He wanted to be sure, and he cringed as he thought about what that meant. He was going to have to check the body. The dead body that his friend had just thrown up on. He took in a breath and tried to hold it for as long as he could as he leaned over the man’s torso. He pushed him over onto his side so that he could check his back pocket for a wallet. He patted both pockets on the man’s backside, and then rolled him back over so that he could check the front. Being inebriated made it hard for him to hold his breath for long, and the rancid smell from the vomit had almost caused him to lose it twice. And to make matters worse, he didn’t find a wallet or any other form of ID anywhere on the body… unless it was in his socks or his shoes, and he wasn’t going to touch either since they were heavily soaked in bile and puke.

    Both the boys had been drinking a lot, but he’d always been better at holding his alcohol than Ronnie. Just the same, he was drunk, so he wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing a trick on him. After all, the whole city of Charlotte was NASCAR crazy this week, and he was certainly caught up in all the revelry, so it could be that he was wrong in what he was thinking.

    He sat down next to his friend, who had nodded off, and nudged him in his side. “Hey,” he said, as he poked his buddy in the ribs with his elbow. “Wake up. I think I recognize this guy.”

    Ronnie started to stir from the constant poking. He opened his eyes and looked over at Sonny. “What the fu—” The burp that escaped through his words cut off his protest.

    Goddamn!” complained Sonny, as he waved his hands trying to stir the putrid air away from his nose. “Get that stank puke breath outta my face!

    Ronnie turned his head away. “Sorry,” he grumbled, as he continued to moan and belch.

    “If you can hold your head up long enough, crawl over there and take a look at that guy’s face.”

    Ronnie rolled from his sitting position onto his hands and knees and moved to where the body was lying. He stared at the face and then crawled back to where Sonny was sitting. He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t recognize him.”

    They both just sat there, backs against the cool trash bin. After a few minutes Sonny looked at Ronnie and said, “I think that’s Jarrod Trevino.”

    Ronnie was still feeling the effects of the nausea from earlier. “You mean the driver of the Carter-Swanson number sixty-two Ford Motorsport car?” he pushed out, between shallow breaths. “That Jarrod Trevino?”

    “Yep,” replied Sonny.

    Ronnie looked over at the body, then back at his friend. “Then I reckon we better get on that call to 911.”


Chapter 2

It was the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and Scott and I had decided to close up shop and start the unofficial beginning of summer a little early.

    I'd met Scott during a visit to Charlotte a few years ago. He and I had partnered up on my very first case as a PI. I was pretty green back then and needed a lot of guidance. Scott was nice enough to take me under his wing and helped me solve the case. I learned a lot about the PI business from him, and we'd proven to be a pretty good team. So much so, that I'd ended up moving to North Carolina to accept a position with McHenry Investigative Services, the PI firm that bears his last name, which is only fair since he founded the agency. We’ve been friends and business partners ever since.

    My girlfriend, Karen, and I were looking forward to a fun-in-the-sun weekend at America’s playground, Myrtle Beach. Well, actually Karen was the one looking forward to a beach trip, it had been more than a few years since I’d laid out on any beach. My parents were never big sun and surf people, so of course, I developed other vacation interests based on my upbringing. Growing up only a few hours away from the Adirondacks, I was more of a mountains kind of guy rather than the beach type. I was not much of a fan of lying around in the sun char-broiling my skin while sand worked its way into my shorts, on a quest to find all the nooks and crannies on the lower half of my body.

    Karen had assured me that this ocean side community had a lot of other things to do besides sit on the beach, so I was putting my trust in her for a fun weekend. For all I cared, we could stay in the room the whole time. Just being with her was all I really needed for an enjoyable weekend getaway.

    My job was to pack the car with our suitcases, folding chairs, the cooler, beach bags filled with all the beachy stuff that Karen packed inside of them, beach towels, and the all-important sunhats and sunglasses.

    Karen is a special needs teacher at Double Tree Elementary School in North Charlotte, and the deal was that I would have everything packed and ready to go when she got home at four o’clock this afternoon.

    I had all the stuff in the car except the cooler, opting to wait until right before we left to dump in the ice and fill it up with the beer for me, the Mike's Hard Lemonade for her, and the food we bought for the trip.

    I glanced up at the kitchen clock. It was only one-thirty, giving me a couple of hours before Karen would be home from work. Plenty of time to kick back and watch a movie on Netflix while I waited for her to arrive.

    I was settled into my favorite easy chair with a big bowl of popcorn and a soda, banging on the remote control looking for a comedy I hadn’t seen before, when my phone started to vibrate on the table next to me. I knew Scott was on his way to Georgia for the holiday weekend to visit his mother, so it surprised me to see his name pop up on my caller ID.

    “Hey Scott, what’s up? I figured you’d be halfway to Atlanta by now.”

    He sighed into my ear. “I thought so too, but I just got off the phone with Robin Trevino and she wants to hire us to look into the death of her husband.”

    I was at a loss. “Who is Robin Trevino?”

    “Robin Trevino is the wife, or I should say widow, of NASCAR driver Jarrod Trevino.”

    Well that explains why I didn’t recognize the name. I don’t follow NASCAR, so unless the last name is Earnhardt, whose name you can’t escape if you live in Charlotte, I wouldn't know the names of any of the drivers. So, it stands to reason that I certainly wouldn’t know the names of their wives.

    “Okay,” I said. “I’m not familiar with her… or her husband for that matter. When and how did he die?”

    “He took a .45 slug to the chest two nights ago. A couple of good ol' boys in town for the race this weekend found his body in an alley near where Speed Street is going on in Uptown.”

    Now even though I wouldn’t call myself a race fan, even I knew about Speed Street. A weekend long party that shut down traffic in the heart of Uptown Charlotte was hard to ignore. It had been on every news broadcast for days.

    “What was a NASCAR driver doing at Speed Street? I don’t know much about racing, but I would think that the drivers themselves wouldn’t have time to be in Uptown during race week. I mean, shouldn’t they be preparing for the actual race?”

    “He and some of the other drivers were there signing photos in an area called the Autograph Zone,” answered Scott. “According to his wife, he was there all afternoon signing his name for a steady stream of fans. She said he called her around seven that evening, saying that he and a couple of the guys were gonna get some dinner and then he’d be heading home. She went to bed and didn’t realize he hadn’t come home until the detectives knocked on her door, waking her up.”

    “So, they’re local?”

    “Yes,” replied Scott “The Trevino’s live in Mooresville.”

    I’m not well versed on the racing community, but I do know that a lot of the NASCAR teams are based in Mooresville, a town just a few miles north of Charlotte. It’s a beautiful area located on picturesque Lake Norman, right along interstate 77. It’s known as “Race City USA”, because of the number of prominent racecar teams and drivers that make Mooresville their home.

    “What about the cops? I’m sure they are in hot pursuit of whoever killed this racecar guy. What does Mrs. Trevino think we can do that the police can’t?”

    “The cops think it’s probably a robbery gone wrong,” he said.

    “Well, they’re probably right,” I shot back.

    “She’s not so sure. Apparently there are some things she didn’t share with the detectives… things she would rather keep out of the media.”

    “Let me guess—she doesn’t trust that the police can or will keep these things under wrap during their investigation.”

    “You’re smarter than what people give you credit for,” he quipped.

    “Hmm… I’m also guessing that you’ve already agreed to take on her case, correct?”

    No reply. His silence said it all. Why did I feel my glorious beach weekend slipping away? I sighed. “You gonna help me explain this to Karen?”

    “Nope. That’s all you.”

    Awesome.

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Well, that's it for now... Obviously it's a story that ties into racing... with a twist😏


Meanwhile, if you haven't experienced the world of Tony Razzolito, PI, yet... click on the links below and give him a try. You might just like what you read - But, of course, I may be a bit biased😎







Find all my books here: amazon.com/author/joecongel

Follow me on twitter: @JoeCongelAuthor

Visit my web page: Carter Novels 
 Follow me on Facebook: JoeCongelAuthor



Saturday, May 1, 2021

 Updates...

Okay, so it's been quite some time since I've posted on my blog. A lot has happened during the year and a half or so since my last post. Obviously, the biggest thing that happened was the pandemic. But, thankfully, we may have the worst behind us and as more people get vaccinated, the light at the end of this horrible tunnel will keep getting brighter.

That being said, there was also a personal issue that I went through last year that prevented me from thinking about almost anything else for a good long while. I had a health scare that involved my heart. I was diagnosed with heart disease after the results of a calcium screening I did early in the year. Without getting too specific, my numbers were abnormally high. Of course, this sent me into a panic mode before I really understood what the numbers actually meant. My doctor sent me to see a Cardiologist, who in turn scheduled me for a Cardiac MRI and stress test. The biggest obstacle for me was the four weeks, during the hottest part of the summer, that I had to wait to actually get the MRI. That waiting period ended up being the biggest cause of stress on my heart, of all.

The good news was that the MRI/stress test came back completely clear… which I didn’t understand considering my crazy high calcium score. But, as luck would have it, the calcium build up in my arteries was distributed in such a way that, although high in amount, it was thinly lining the walls with no signs of any blockage - and most of that was mainly in one artery. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there is not a problem. The calcium just doesn’t simply go away, and I still have heart disease. If I’m not careful with my choices going forward, I could always develop a buildup on top of the calcium already there, and that would be bad since any new calcium could cause the damage I was lucky enough to avoid this time around. I’ve had to make better choices with my diet, which I’m still working on… and I’m trying to lose some weight – get back into fighting shape, as they say. All things considered, I am a very lucky man. It could’ve easily been a much different result. I am grateful that I will get to spend time with my grandkids and with my kids, and my family in general. It’s made me really look at what’s important in life.

One of those important areas that I dug deeply into was the balance between my work and my home life. I found it to be completely out of whack. I turn 62 this year – in a few weeks, as a matter of fact, and decided to leave the industry that I’d built my career on and take a leap of faith that I could survive working a job with less hours and much less stress. Of course, that also meant less money. But at this point in my life, the time I can now spend spoiling my grandkids is worth much more to me than any amount of money. It’s been a couple of months since I took that leap, and so far, so good. I have been able to be around my family more and I am much happier. In theory, this is also supposed to give me more time to write. Something I have not done much of over the last couple of years, and something I am slowly getting back to.

 I am working diligently on the third Tony Razzolito PI book, Dirty Air, and it should be finished very soon. I won’t put a release date out there just yet, as I’ve done that a few times already and it’s burned me on the backside. Suffice to say, I am making good progress and, hopefully, the book will not disappoint anyone who has been patient enough to still be a fan and is waiting for the release. You don’t know how much that means to me. I’m also working on the second book in the Tony Razzolito short story anthology series. The new collection will be three stories that are tied together by the common theme of baseball. The anthology is called, Top of the Third, and should be ready for release in early to mid summer. I’m including a picture of both covers to whet your appetite, and I will post a sneak peek of the first chapter of Dirty Air in the coming weeks.

 

As I embark on this new chapter in my life, I will begin to spend more and more time at the writing table. I recently spruced up the small corner of the room I call my office with a new desk, a comfy new chair, and a bigger monitor that I can see without having to put on my reading glasses. Hey, if I’m going to spend more time staring at a bluish light, tapping on the keys late into the night, I might as well be comfortable.


Until next time…😎

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Find all my books here: amazon.com/author/joecongel

Follow me on twitter: @JoeCongelAuthor

Visit my web page: Carter Novels 
Follow me on Facebook: JoeCongelAuthor