Allen Smyth is a retired adman. The Lone Ranger Card is his first novel. He lives in Brighton, Michigan with his wife, Marilynn. Allen and Marilynn are both grads of Wayne State university and both did time in the Navy. Between sessions on his second book, Allen plays a little golf and too much poker, is in awe of both his children and their respective spouses, spends as much time as he can with his grandson, and laments the general state of the nation.
Title: The Lone Ranger Card $16.00
A timely Detroit based story probes our cultural fascination with guns and vigilante heroism. Pete Rossi, a gentle, unassuming everyman, is devastated by family tragedy, the result of a shooting at the local high school. Tormented by grief, he refuses to give in to the banality that “life goes on”. He develops a plan of action, the outcome of which, he assumes, will capture the attention of the nation. When bodies are found, a brilliant and dedicated FBI agent, Maggie Foster, is assigned to solve the puzzle. Will she succeed? When she unravels the tangle of victims, will she still want to?
Michele Roger is a Renaissance woman. One part harpist, one part author, all around celebration of all the wonders life has to offer. Michele Roger writes horror and paranormal mysteries and when she isn’t writing about things that go bump in the night, she writes children’s books (Huggy Muggy Do), and young adult adventure novels (Leviathan Jones and the Sea Witch). She hopes to help others express themselves through music and
words.
She has won awards for her strong female lead characters in her horror novels in 2009 and in 2014. Michele was a Finalist in the 2015 Detroit Music Awards for Outstanding Classical Composition. She writes a food and travel column for SEARCH magazine, highlighting how food can build bridges between cultures and generations. When she isn’t traveling or performing, Michele teaches stringed instruments to students locally. She hopes to help others express themselves through music and words.
TITLES:
BOOK 1 – Terror Under the Lupin Moon: Book one of the Michigan Macabre Mysteries $12.50. It was supposed to be a simple weekend. Amanda had prepared herself for meeting with Hospice to help her mother plan the final stages of her wild, magical life. She had prepared herself for the doldrums that would likely accompany returning to her small, Michigan hometown. Instead, within minutes of pulling in the driveway, Amanda finds herself in the middle of a homicide investigation, a two-hundred year old Native American legend, a talking cat, a reconciling with the local witches and the most unlikely place to fall in love.
BOOK 2 The Curse of the Snake Princess $12.50 is the sequel to Lupin Moon. A Legend About Detroit’s Belle Isle Sends Chills … Chief Sleeping Bear’s daughter was then known as the Snake Goddess of Belle Isle. The legend also states that the “Lady in White” has the ability to transform into a white doe that many people have claimed to have actually seen. For many years there were a number of fallow deer on the island, including several white ones. It’s not all picnics and morning runs in this park. There’s an old legend on Belle Isle that says when you honk your horn three times the “Lady in White” will appear. There is no shortage of urban legends on the island, but the “Lady in White” is one of the most well-known and spookiest. Visiting Belle Isle anytime soon? This is a story told around the legend of The Lady in White and her spirit that lives on.
B.R. Bates is a longtime author and journalist who has concentrated her career in the pop culture genre, with 10 books in print and a number of e-books and publications, as well. With “Missing from Michigan Ave,” she makes her first foray into true crime, returning more solidly to her journalism roots. She graduated from Michigan State University’s accredited School of Journalism with a bachelor’s degree, and a second major of English, and spent 10 years in the daily newspaper industry before transitioning into the corporate world. Besides time at the Wausau (Wis.) Daily Herald and The Saginaw (Mich.) News, she spent five years at The Detroit News, where she worked at the time of this case. More recently, she has managed websites for a federal agency while continuing her freelance writing projects. A Michigan native, Bates has also lived in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Co-Author – Gerald Cliff – investigated the Armstrong case in Detroit. He has degrees in criminal justice from Michigan State University and the University of Detroit, and advanced degrees in Wayne State University. He began his career as an officer on the Detroit Police force in the 1970s, became a sergeant, a lieutenant, then was appointed commanding officer of the Headquarters Surveillance Unit of the Violent Crimes Section. He commanded the Special Services Section and the Compliance and Training Section of the Civil Rights Integrity Bureau. Retiring from the Detroit force, he served as the chief of
police in Saginaw, Michigan, then joined the National White-Collar Crime Center as research director. He has taught administrative and labor law at Saginaw Valley State University, and has been an adjunct instructor at Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community and Technical College in West Virginia. Cliff
and his wife recently returned to Michigan after several years away.
Title: Missing from Michigan Avenue $34.00
In late 1999, women began disappearing from Detroit’s thriving areas of prostitution. The following spring of 2000, when the bodies of three of them were discovered on a seedy stretch of railroad tracks in the southwest part of town, police realized there was a serial killer operating in the Motor City. And though it was a quick arrest – just a couple days later – police at first had no idea just how far and wide the horrors of this crime extended. As the perp began to talk, and he revealed detail after detail, it became all too clear that the case of John Eric Armstrong could span the country. And even the globe.