THE CORRUPTIBLE - Mark Mynheir - Free Book

Welcome back, Mark. Why do you write the kind of books you do?

Mystery/Suspense. After twenty three years in law enforcement, I just can’t seem to escape that life.

Besides when you came to know the Lord, what is the happiest day in your life?

There are several. The day I got married, and the birth of all three of my children. When I was younger, I never imagined the fulfillment and joy that a family could bring. They make everyday fun and new.

I agree with you there. How has being published changed your life?

Not as much as I thought it would. First off, Oprah has yet to call. I’m a little disappointed with that. The rest of my life is pretty much the same as it was before I was published. I’m still writing every day, still battling insecurity and all the little mental health disorders of being a writer. (I was hoping that would end when my first book released. Not so.) I do enjoy seeing my books at stores and hearing from people who appreciate the stories, but getting published wasn’t the earth shaking event I dreamed it would be. Don’t get me wrong, I am very blessed to be in this position, but I do try to keep it in perspective.

If you don't, you'll have plenty of people willing to help you do that. What are you reading right now?

I’m reading the galleys for Gayle Roper’s new book, Shadow on the Sand, and Jerry Jenkins’s latest The Brotherhood. I’m enjoying both of them.

What is your current work in progress?

I’m working on a sequel to The Corruptible, with Ray Quinn back in the saddle. I’m in the early stages, so we’ll see how it goes.

What would be your dream vacation?

Israel. It’s where Jesus walked, and the whole world seems to be watching it right now. I’d also like to go to Australia. Not nearly for the spiritual reasons of Israel, but it just seems like it would be a fun place.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

I like using locations in Florida because I know the area well and it seems that very strange things tend to happen here. It makes for a nice setting. My first series, The Truth Chasers, was set in Brevard County where I grew up. I moved the Ray Quinn series to Orlando for a fresh feel.

If you could spend an evening with one person who is currently alive, who would it be and why?

Natan Sharansky. He was a Jewish dissident in Soviet Russia in the 80’s. I’ve read two of his books—Fear No Evil, and The Case for Democracy. Fear No Evil was a memoir of his dissident days when he and others stood up the KGB and the highest echelons of the Soviet Union with only their convictions. He spent many years in prison for his beliefs. A very powerful story from an incredibly brave man. Now he’s in Israel, working for the government there.

What are your hobbies, besides writing and reading?

I really enjoy martial arts training. I’ve been involved in one style of martial art or another since I was ten. My three kids and I all train together now. My wife’s not really into it, so she doesn’t go with us. But she is gracious enough to give me the time for my hobby. It helps to keep me sane and focused, too.

My grandson who is in the army has been big in marital arts. What is your most difficult writing obstacle, and how do you overcome it?

When I was growing up, writing was the worst thing imaginable to me. I loathed putting words to paper. I’m Dyslexic and the very reason (I believe) that God invented spell check. But soon after I became a Christian, I felt the Lord leading me to write. It didn’t make much sense to me and seemed impossible. I shared with my wife what I thought God was doing, and she encouraged me to go to school and learn the skills I needed to write.

So, it took about ten years of classes, writing, and more classes. Then I started attending writer’s conferences, where I met my agent. A couple of years later, I signed my first book contract. It’s been a long road, but worth every second.

Sounds like an interesting journey. We all have one. What advice would you give to a beginning author?

Stick with it! Many a great manuscript or talented writer will never be discovered because the author didn’t show the fortitude to stick it out through the tough times—and there will be tough times. If you’re called to be a writer, write. Learn your craft, read books about writing, go to conferences, and write, write, write. Don’t let negative voices around you derail the dream God has planted.

There's a contemporary Christian song titled, "The Voice of Truth." I've often clung to the words in that song to dispell the negative voices. Tell us about the featured book.


The Corruptible is the sequel to The Night Watchman, in which Ray Quinn, the protagonist, owns his own private investigations company. He’s hired to find an old acquaintance who is suspected of stealing corporate secrets. But when that friend is found dead, Ray’s case gets ramped up into a full-scale murder investigation.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Dying on the toilet was not how I envisioned leaving this world.

“Ray Quinn, you’re a dead man!” the behemoth’s rumblings reverberated off the bathroom walls like a fully-throttled Harley Davidson.

I locked the stall door and shuffled back against the wall, my good leg using the toilet to keep me righted. My balance was still suspect from the shooting that destroyed my hip and pelvis eighteen months before. I pulled out my phone and typed a hurried text message to my partner Crevis.

“Trapped in bathroom w/maniac. Get here now!”

“Where are you, you gumshoe rat?” The goon kicked the stall door three down from me. Keith Wagner, my large and socially challenged pursuer, didn’t possess much of a sense of humor. His wife suspected he was being unfaithful and hired me to follow him. It wasn’t a difficult job, as he possessed a predilection for the young ladies and excessive amounts of booze. Easy money, I thought. Now it seemed that Keith was going to extract from my body every dollar his wife paid me.

The lovely and gracious Mrs. Wagner didn’t think it important to inform me that she confronted Keith, blamed everything on me until after she went to the gym and met with some friends for a brunch date.

I got her flippant warning call as Keith followed me into the restaurant where I was to meet Crevis for lunch, so he was now on a quest to separate my head from my body. I ducked into the bathroom to avoid him. Not the smartest move I’d made in a while, because now I was cornered. And in my hobbled condition, I couldn’t outrun anyone anywhere. I hoped Crevis got my message, or he would be looking for another employer soon.

“So you wanna ruin other people’s marriages, do ya?” Another stall door fell victim to Keith’s raging foot. Pointing out that it was his serial adultery and boorish behavior that led to his personal problems probably wouldn’t help the situation, so I remained quiet.

“You wanna stick your face into other people’s business?” The walls rocked again as the stall next to mine endured his assault. I aimed the weighty hawk-billed brass handle of my cane towards the door that would soon be opening on me. Whatever he wanted to do to me would come at great cost.

I can hardly wait to start the book. How can readers find you on the Internet?

My website is http://www.copwriter.com/ or markmynheir.com. Either will get you there. I’m also on Facebook.

Thank you, Mark, for visiting with me today.
 
Readers, here's a link to the book. By using it when you order, you help support this blog.



Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. Please tell us where you live, at least the state or territory. (Comments containing links may be subject to removal by blog owner.)

Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws.

The only notification you’ll receive is the winner post on this blog. So be sure to check back a week from Saturday to see if you won. You will have 6 weeks from the posting of the winners to claim your book.

If you’re reading this on Feedblitz, Facebook, or Amazon, please come to the blog to leave your comment if you want to be included in the drawing. Here’s a link.

http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com/

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN - Mark Mynheir - Free Book

Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters.

I don’t think it’s possible to write any character that doesn’t have traits from the author embedded in them—some more than others, of course. The challenge for the writer is to create characters that will speak, react, and observe the world around them in a way that is different from the author and yet remain consistent and believable. It helps to understand human nature and the differing personality types. Police work and being a detective has really helped me in this area.

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

That’s a loaded question. I once swam across a huge alligator infested waterway in the middle of the night. I think that qualifies and more stupid than quirky. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

When did you first discover that you were a writer?

When I was growing up, writing was the worst thing imaginable to me. I loathed putting words to paper. I’m Dyslexic and the very reason (I believe) that God invented spell check. But soon after I became a Christian, I felt the Lord leading me to write. It didn’t make much sense to me and seemed impossible. I shared what I thought God was telling me with my wife, and she encouraged me to go to school and learn the skills I needed to write.

So, it took about ten years of classes, writing, and more classes. I met my agent at a writer’s conference. He shopped my first novel, which got some good reviews but didn’t sell. I wrote the proposal for Rolling Thunder, my first published novel. He sent it out. I expected it to take six months or so before I heard anything. But about a week later, I got an e-mail from Multnomah, asking if I would be interested in writing a series. I had to wake my wife up to read the e-mail just to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind.

To say the least, I got kind of weepy when I held my first book. But don’t tell anyone.

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading.

I have a rather diverse reading list. I like biographies and history, but I also read biblical apologetics, like anything from Lee Strobel. I alternate my fiction reading to include some of the classics, secular fiction, and many of the awesome Christian writers today.

What other books have you written, whether published or not?

My first novel was Rolling Thunder. Then From the Belly of the Dragon, The Void, and now The Night Watchman.

How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world?

My faith in Christ is first and foremost. When I get exhausted and beat down, He always lifts me back up. My faith helps me know that there’s a much larger context to everything that’s going on in the world and in my life. Without that knowledge, I think I would have gone loopy a long time ago.

My wife and kids give me joy daily. I couldn’t function without them as well. We do a lot together as a family.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

I try to have names that match the personalities and yet are different enough so as not to confuse readers with names that sound the same. I don’t really have a scientific process. They just seem to come to me.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

My kids. They’re lots of a fun, and they make me very proud every day.

If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?

A Praying Mantis. They’re really cool and fight in a Kung Fu-type style. They only problem is that the female at some point usually eats the male. So I would remain single . . . forever.

What is your favorite food?

Grilled Salmon. I could eat it every meal.

What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

Insecurity and fear. I battle with them everyday. I’ll let you know if I ever totally vanquish them, but it hasn’t happened yet.

What advice would you give to an author just starting out?

Stick with it! Many a great manuscript or talented writer will never be discovered because the author didn’t show the fortitude to stick it out through the tough times—and there will be tough times. If you’re called to be a writer, write. Learn your craft, read books about writing, go to conferences, and write, write, write. Don’t let negative voices around you derail the dream God has planted.

Tell us about the featured book?

In The Night Watchman, the protagonist, Ray Quinn, is an Orlando homicide detective who is severely wounded in an ambush and forced to medically retire from the force. Ray battles the haunting guilt for his partner’s death. Numbing the pain with alcohol and attitude, he takes a job as a night watchman at a swanky Orlando condo.

But when a pastor and an exotic dancer are found dead in one of the condos in an apparent murder-suicide, Ray can no longer linger in the shadows. The pastor’s sister is convinced her brother was framed and begs Ray to take on an impossible case–to challenge the evidence and clear her brother’s name.

Crawling from the wreckage of his former life, Ray struggles to find healing and purpose again. But when the case of a lifetime is thrust upon him, Ray must decide whether he’ll succumb to his depression and pain or use the God-given gifts he still has inside him to catch a madman.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Here is an excerpt:

The two men stalking me had emerged from the shadows and then trailed me though the parking lot.

They lagged behind me about fifty feet. I slowed my pace, not that I wasn’t as slow as a tree slug already, to see if they would overtake me or hang back.

They hung back. Not good.

Any human at a normal pace should have passed me by now. I could feel their eyes punching holes in me, waiting for the right time to move.

Since I wasn’t up for dealing with any problems, I stepped it out as best I could. With a new-and-improved plastic pelvis and hip, along with ten months of physical therapy, I should be able to hobble a little faster. No such luck. The cane and gimpy leg would only go so fast. Grandma Moses on a pogo stick could hop circles
around me.

Using the rearview mirrors on the cars parked along Lake Avenue, I kept tabs on my new friends without being too obvious, a little trick I picked up when I worked undercover. No need to give them more of an advantage than they already had.

The big one, a black kid maybe twenty years old, wore a white wife-beater muscle shirt and black jean shorts. Mini-dreads jetted from his head like a frayed ball of yarn. The other kid, probably the same age, was an anemic white with a tattoo sprawled on his neck and a shaved head that glistened under the streetlights.

With each glance I caught, they feigned like they were talking to each other, but I could sense they were planning to pounce. And why not? I was an easy mark—a crippled guy negotiating the Orlando streets alone at night. One more block to go until I was at work.

Eleven months ago I would have enjoyed this game of cat and mouse. But then I would have been the cat, a big hungry one ready to swallow those thugs like the rodents they were. I hoped they were just playing a game.

I stole a furtive glance behind me, and my tails were nowhere in sight. I stopped and shifted all the way around. Gone. Must have headed up an alley. Maybe I was just losing my mind. Hadn’t been out much lately.

I used to love the Orlando nightlife, the clubs and things to do; the pulse of the city at night energized me. It had changed so much in a short amount of time. Faster, meaner, a stranger to me. Like I was living on a different planet. I had grown up here, not long after Mickey scurried in, back when Orlando was more of a cowtown.

Now it’s a big city plagued with big-city problems.

As I approached the corner of Lake and East Jackson, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber raced around the corner right in front of me, both out of breath. They must have sprinted down the alley behind the store to cut me off just before I reached the intersection.

This wouldn’t end pretty.

“Hey, old man. ”The ugly white kid checked up and down the street, like felons do when they’re preparing to do something monumentally stupid.

His buddy invaded my personal space on my left. “How about some spare change?” he said with an accent, maybe Haitian.

“Don’t have any change.” I eyed possible escape routes, though escape wasn’t likely in my condition. And I couldn’t count on anyone to help me, or even to notice, for that matter. On this corner, in a city of over two hundred thousand people, I was on my own…as usual.

“Then give up your wallet, or I bust your head like your leg is.”

The black kid pressed in on me.

“Okay.Okay.” I held up my right hand while leaning more on the cane with my left. “I’ll give you my wallet. Just don’t hurt me.”

“Hurry up!” The white kid spit as he spoke, clenching his fists at his sides. “I ain’t got all night.” He was the alpha dog of the two.

If they were going to attack, he would lead. He needed to be tamed.

I reached back with my right hand, brushed past my wallet in my back pocket, and slipped my hand up into my waistband. I let go of the cane. The brass handle clanked as it bounced off the concrete, echoing around us. Huey and Dewey beaded in on it, drawing their attention down for the second I needed.

I unsnapped my Glock 9mm from its holster, then drew it to eye level, setting my night sights on the white kid’s forehead. A stupefied look crossed his face, which must be a regular event for him. He wasn’t so alpha dog now.

“The leg’s busted, scumbag, but my finger works fine.” I gritted my teeth and leaned forward. “You wanna test it out?”

Sounds intriguing. I can't wait until I get my copy. How can readers find you on the Internet?

They can visit my website: http://www.copwriter.com/ and my Facebook account.

Thank you, Mark, for spending this time with us.

Readers, here's a link where you can order the book.

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book.

Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws.

The only notification you’ll receive is the winner post on this blog. So be sure to check back a week from Saturday to see if you won. You will have 6 weeks from the posting of the winners to claim your book.

If you’re reading this on Feedblitz, Facebook, or Amazon, please come to the blog to leave your comment. Here’s a link.

http://lenanelsondooley.blogspot.com/