The moment we have been waiting for is almost here. Whodunnit this time? Find out on Monday, February 4th when truTV will announce the winner of their "Search for the Next Great Crime Writer Contest" during that night's episode of "Murder By The Book" starting at 10 p.m. ET. It would be a crime to miss it!
Here are the five finalists:
Dale Cozort - Char
Dale Cozort is married, with a teenage daughter, a twenty-something stepdaughter, and a step-granddaughter. He's a computer person and educator by trade, and an avid amateur historianin his spare time. He self-published a print-on-demand book of Alternate History essays called American Indian Victories a few years ago.He has a short police procedural/Science Fiction story called The BEMs in the Amazon Shorts program. He has also had a few paid articles published by the Military/Political website StrategyPage.com.
Dale received much of the court and police procedural background for Charin the course of a real-world court case involving an alleged attempt to defraud one of his elderly aunts.
About Char
Charis a police procedural story set in modern-day Wisconsin. However, there is one major element in Charthat you won't find in most police procedurals: Char herself.
One Fourth of July evening near a small town in near-future Wisconsin, Char of the Real People walks out of a mud hole that she didn't walk into, wearing a deerskin skirt and carrying a crude wooden spear. She has a larger than life-sized wolf-head tattoo on her chest. She is bleeding from a spear wound in her leg. She finds herself in what to her is a strange and empty forest. She is apparently being chased by mysterious and powerful enemies. Is she dreaming? She hopes so, and that's the only explanation she can think of, but if this is a dream it seems frighteningly solid.
Two worlds are about to collide and a murder is about to happen. Will Char be a victim? A scapegoat? The murderess? Or a key witness to the murder?
Ch. 1| Ch.2
Genie Davis - Marathon
Genie Davis has written for day time television, and written, produced, and directed reality programming and documentaries. She's also produced and written numerous commercials and corporate videos, including such notable work as "Santa Goes Shopping at Frederick's of Hollywood" and "Let's Watch the Big Metal Machine Parts go Up and Down For Twenty Minutes While the Boring Guy Says Stuff." She's also written romance for Kensington Publishing, including The Model Man, Five O'Clock Shadow, and Rodeo Man from The Cowboy anthology. Her novella Dreamtown was published by a small press.
About Marathon
Haunted by vivid images of a woman's murder, a troubled psychic becomes a victim herself.
Searching for the killer, Houston ex-cop and licensed private detective Lynn Bryant finds her beliefs challenged and her life in danger. Traveling to a small town in the high desert, she uncovers a web of death and destruction, and revelations that intimately effect her own life.
Ch. 1| Ch.2
Christina Fiske - Allegations
A former Department of Defense teacher, Christina Fiske taught English to US Army dependents while she was stationed in Germany in 1990-1992. She lived abroad during a magical time, following the Cold War yet prior to the devastation of nine-eleven, when Americans living overseas might attend a local festival on any given week night or visit a castle over a long weekend. In the summer of 1997, Christina set out to recreate that moment in time through the medium of a crime fiction novel.
Christina, a Stay-at-Home Mom to two elementary age boys, currently spends her days trying to keep up with all her boys' activities while looking forward to their precious nightly read-aloud time. She also teaches salsa and pilates classes, volunteers at her sons' school, and, during school hours, writes. In her spare time she enjoys jogging and hiking with her dogs, singing in her church choir, seeing movies with her husband, and reading.
About Allegations
In Allegations a high school teacher's lifelong dream of living in Europe becomes a terrifying nightmare when her best friend is murdered on a US military base in Nürnberg, Germany. Catherine Caldwell's close bond to her friend Jessica Tarran, deepened by their isolation from home, compels her to seek the truth behind Jess's death despite the Criminal Investigation Division's inquiry into her own husband as the killer, his subsequent Article 32 Hearing, and her inner struggle as she uncovers Jess's buried secrets. Along a path of deception and intrigue, Catherine faces issues involving friendship, trust, obsession, magnetism, fidelity and loyalty until ultimately the killer's identity is revealed.
Ch. 1| Ch.2
Terrence P. McCauley - Prohibition
Terrence P. McCauley is a proud life-long New Yorker. He was born and raised in the Bronx and graduated from Fordham University with a B.A. in Political Science. He has more than 12 years of extensive economic development and government affairs experience. Mr. McCauley is currently employed at Metro-North Railroad, the second largest commuter railroad in the United States. An avid reader and writer, Mr. McCauley currently resides in wonderful Wassaic, New York with his wife Rita.
About Prohibition
Prohibition is set in 1930 New York City. The country has already begun its long, downhill slide into the Great Depression. People are losing their jobs. Breadlines are growing longer by the day. People are getting desperate and not even the underworld is immune. Archie Doyle has controlled the most powerful mob in the East coast for almost a decade, but his organization is starting to lose power fast. As desperate times call for desperate measures, Doyle draws up a bold scheme that if successful, will make his criminal empire more powerful than he ever dared to dream.
But Doyle's plan comes to a grinding halt when someone tries to kill one of the top men in his organization. Doyle must turn to his loyal body guard - the ex-boxer Terry Quinn - to find out who is behind the shooting and why. Quinn stays hot on the assassin's bloody trail in his search for a man who might know all the answers. Through the rain-soaked cobblestones of the Lower East Side to the swankiest night clubs in the city to the hallowed halls of City Hall itself, Quinn is in a race against time to discover who is trying to destroy Doyle before all hell breaks loose. Danger lurks in the shadows behind every corner as he searches for the one man who may hold the key to saving Doyle's empire...and his life.
Ch. 1| Ch.2
Amie Thompson - Kill Me Sweetly
Amie Thompson lives in Aurora, Il. She teaches middle school science at Simmons Middle School, and online graduate classes for the American Museum of Natural History. She wrote her first book in the seventh grade and has flirted with writing intermittently. When she's not writing she enjoys family time with her husband, Mike, and four children, Logan (23), Rachelle (21), Sheah,(13) and Ian (11). When time permits she bikes, roller blades, reads and travels.
About Kill Me Sweetly
Kill Me Sweetly stars an in-your-face heroine with a sharp wit and tons of attitude. Tommie D'Ambroso is a bricklayer in Aurora, Illinois. She finds herself on the radar of a brutal serial killer known as The Mutilator when she discovers the disfigured body of her best friend. She must dodge a detective determined to fix the crime at her door. Past demons plague her and she has to battle the monster within in order to win the war with The Mutilator in a twist ending that will leave you scouring the book a second time for the clues pointing right to the killer's boots.
Ch. 1| Ch.2
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Comments: 16
The average quality of the chapters in the contest was very good though, much higher than in the two previous contests in my opinion. There are some very powerful stories out there. Some of the chapters are still up, and I'm sure the authors would enjoy any feedback, even if it doesn't 'count' anymore. There is also an ongoing Crime Writers' Showcase and Workshop where authors have posted updated versions of their entries.