A giveaway follows!
About the book (provided by IRead Book Tours)“He had an itchy feeling, something he had seen that his memory had recorded but that he wasn’t paying attention to…”When a man has everything, he can afford to be generous. Lawyer, philanderer, and horseman Grant Wodehouse is generous to a fault—until he’s stabbed to death with a pitchfork in his barn. The killer could be anyone—his lover’s husband, his troubled son, the homeless guy he lets sleep in his barn, his unscrupulous partner or even his wife.Methodical Detective Sam Lagarde doesn’t miss a clue as he questions an ever-growing list of suspects, only to discover the killer has been hiding in plain sight the entire time. Always one step behind the killer, finally Lagarde’s only recourse is one he never wanted to take.And I thought...Another new favorite. A page turner. Can't wait for more.
Plan a couple of days of getting nothing done but reading!No Good Deed Left Undone was a thrilling page turner from page one!
I have to admit I was a little ambivalent about this book. I truly didn't know what to expect. From the cover I got the idea it wasn't a present day story. From the back cover I got no indication of the time period.
Honestly I totally missed the mention of S&M on the back cover. Don't let that scare you off. It's one very short and well written scene. There is one other very brief scene during one of the murders.
The rest of the book is super face paced as the reader rides along with Sam (the main character) as he and his deputy make haste in solving the crime(s).
It was pretty apparent who dun it but the author does an excellent job of keeping the reader interested and strung along making you wonder if your prediction is correct. Without spilling the story I was a left slightly uneasy about the subject of violence caused by addiction to prescription drugs.It was unsettling to realize that even though this was a story that anyone's family could be involved in tragedy caused by drugs prescribed by physicians.
I really enjoyed No Good Deed Left Undone and look forward to more from Ginny her bio and my interview follow.
This was a great read but I suggest caution if violence or graphic sex is a trigger or concerning.
This review will appear on Amazon, B&N, Good Reads and My Journey Back.
I received a complimentary copy. Book Details...Book Title: No Good Deed Left Undone by Ginny FiteCategory: Adult Fiction, 267 pagesGenre: Mystery / ThrillerPublisher: Black Opal BooksRelease date: September 10, 2016Format available for review: print and ebook (PDF)
Will ship print books to: USA & CanadaTour dates: Dec 12 to 23, 2016Content Rating: R (There are a few scenes of explicit sex and violence. Language isPG-13+M)
Where to buy...Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble
About the author
Ginny Fite is an award-winning journalist who has covered crime, politics, government, healthcare, art and all things human. She's been a spokesperson for a governor and a member of Congress, a few colleges and universities, and a robotics R&D company. She earned degrees from Rutgers University and Johns Hopkins University and studied at the School for Women Healers and the Maryland Poetry Therapy Institute. No Good Deed, published by Black Opal Books in 2015, is her second Sam Lagarde mystery/thriller set in Charles Town, West Virginia. Author interview . . .
Hello Ginny. Thank you for sitting down with me and your Sam Lagarde series.
Before we get into Sam let’s break the ice with a few more personal questions.
I am a quilter and as such I have lots of quilts or pieces started. It’s kind of a thing with quilters. How many unpublished or un-finished books do you have?
Hi, Sherry, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to talk about Sam Lagarde and No Good Deed Left Undone.
That’s a brilliant observation. My process is exactly like a quilter’s. I work on several projects at once, although not in the same day or maybe even the same week. I am constantly taking notes about ideas related to plot or character, which may be like gathering together fabrics you want to incorporate into your quilt. I also “sketch out” or design the general architecture of a story so I know where I’m going. I can be deep into writing one novel (like sewing one piece to another), be gathering material for a second, and sketching out a third. Right now, I’ve just finished writing the third Lagarde mystery; I’m tweaking a fantasy/thriller and a twisted romance that I’ve been writing over the last two years, and I’ve started sketching another novel.
Do you have a schedule or timeline when you’re writing?
I have a schedule only in the sense that I write every day, but I don’t set myself a number of pages or words to accomplish. What I want to do is write, which requires thinking and imagining. But it’s not weight training. The only goal I have is to complete the project I start, which can take longer or shorter depending on how complex the initial idea is.
When you began this journey with Sam did you plan or plot the stories in the series? Can you give us a peek at book 3?
When Sam started telling me his story, I thought only in terms of one book. But as I finished Cromwell’s Folly, I could see that Sam had some life left in him and more to show me. When I ended No Good Deed Left Undone, I knew Beverly was coming back and I had to write that story.
In book three—Lying, Cheating & Occasionally Murder—Sam has to find the murderer of a real estate broker who is shot in the middle of the night on a dark road. Beverly immediately suspects the wife, a brilliant medical researcher working on a cure for brain cancer. But you know Sam. He just has to follow the clues, wherever they lead.
Why does the series take place with Sam at his current age?
That’s another great question. Sam is the age he is because that’s how he came to me. I saw him complete in my mind the minute he started talking. He was always in his early 60s, weathered but not wrinkled. There are benefits to his age: he knows a lot, he’s relatively comfortable in his skin, and he’s really eccentric without anyone to stop him from behaving the way he wants. But he’s still got personal issues he’s never solved, particularly about love, and that makes him interesting to me. It’s also possible that I think men his age are sexy. He’s kind of grown on me, as you can see.
Your description of Sam says he seems to like horses better than people.
Riding his horse is his outlet. Do you have a hobby that is your outlet when you’re having writer’s block or maybe needing a break?
Yes, I paint and draw. My mind simply goes away and I’m all right brained, intensely absorbed in color and line. It’s a wonderful vacation from words and sentences.
I enjoyed reading No Good Deed Left Undone I found myself as I read the story
and as the people Sam interviewed describe Grant Wodehouse that I kind of thought
I would have liked him even though he is described as a bit of a scoundrel.
Grant is a scoundrel! But Emma loved him and it’s okay if you like him.
How would you describe Wodehouse’s true character?
Grant is someone who really doesn’t know himself. He’s completely unconscious about the harm he does to the people around him. He’s charming, smart, and totally self-absorbed. He’s successful and therefore he never questions his behavior. When women reject him, he’s initially hurt but he simply replaces them. In a way, he’s spoiled, but he’s learned certain techniques to engage people. He is stuck at the developmental stage of making himself happy. You can like him, but don’t trust him. He’ll eventually break your heart.
You draw the reader in fast in the first page. I enjoyed how the story jumped from the present to the hours prior. Was it difficult to write in this style?
I think my mind works this way. It’s intriguing for me to write in this style but not difficult. I want to know everything that got these characters into this mess, but everything doesn’t happen in the present moment. And of all the things that happened to them to get them to the present predicament, only some of those are critical events. Figuring out where I want to show the reader those past events while I’m moving the present-time story forward is sometimes tricky. I may move a chapter a few times before I’m happy with where the reader finds that information.
Will future stories maybe give us a younger Sam?
I never thought about that. What a great idea! Who knows, maybe now that you’ve put that idea in my mind… A prequel!
Since publishing Cromwell’s Folly has your writing style or process changed with this second book in the series?
Somewhere in the middle of writing the third Lagarde mystery I think I understood what I was doing. At the beginning of writing a novel, there’s a picture in my head, some of which I don’t see consciously. During the course of unraveling the mystery of “who done it,” I take all the pieces of this 3-dimensional puzzle apart and examine them. And then I put it all back together so that the reader and I can see the entire thing at the same time. I’m clearer now that I want the reader to be a collaborator who sometimes knows important details before Sam does.
I have one last question I’m dying to ask. With the plot of the story taking place around a horse barn did you have to do some research or do you have experience in the Equestrian arena?
I took riding lessons in my early 40s—late in life to fall in love with horses but better than never—and everything about it stuck with me from mucking out the stalls to standing in the stirrups galloping across a field, whooping in joy and fear. I even managed to fall off a horse while trying to take a jump. That’s how I learned you’re supposed to look where you want to go. Some experiences stay with you for life.
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