Once again, LoupDargent.info is hosting a Book Tour for the day, cool!
This time, it's for 'Time Killer' by Todd M. Thiede... and it's a detective story. Yeaaah! We do love a good detective stories here at LDi. They do help make our little grey cells work and all, don't they?
Today's Book Tour should please most of you (as long as you like books and detective stories, of course) as, not only we learn a bit more about the book and its author, but it also includes a Guest Post by Todd M. Thiede himself and, (yes, that's right!) a Giveaway giving our readers the chance to win an autographed copy of Time Killer, by Todd Thiede AND one $10 Amazon gift card as first price. Not too shabby, is it?
All you have to do to participate to the Giveaway is go to the end of this post and follow the easy instructions there... Worth the effort, surely?
(Oh, and yes, the virtual tea and coffee area is opened as usual.)
Enjoy!
Loup Dargent
About Time Killer:
Max Larkin is an ace detective in the small town of Rockton, Illinois. He hasn’t had a partner for a while now and is beginning to like it that way. He is also plagued with a recurring and chilling nightmare going back to childhood that somehow is central in his life but almost impossible to explain.
He is matched with a new partner, Jesse, a gorgeous young woman whose father was a cop and whose memory she is determined to honor with her good work.
At this time a serial killer with odd and bloody ways hits the scene. It soon becomes apparent that the killer is a psychopath with some personal issue involving the wasting of time. At every murder he requires the victim to pay him for his lost time.
Since Jesse is the rookie of the team she has no problems taking a back seat in this investigation. She is a bit of an overachiever with a penchant for analysis and who is eager to please. Yet the dynamics between them tends to flare up once in a while. They start out by tracking this killer’s murders back ten and twenty five years.
For the most part they work well together and begin to gather clues on the case, which has shocked the small town of Rockton.
The sum total of the clues seem to suggest that the killer is a salesman who earns pretty good money and hates people who he believes are wasting his time.
The killer is revealed halfway through the story and then the task becomes catching him.
About this time Jesse buys a new car and her salesman is no other than Mike Hogan, the killer. She is a bit suspicious but is put off the trail.
The story comes to a head when Hogan murders his ex-wife for things he perceives that she has done to him. But by now the team is hot on his trail. When they catch him there is still a problem with solid evidence and as a result he is released since Max has a conflict of interest because he learns that Hogan is the murderer of his own father back twenty five years ago.
Max and Jesse are temporarily suspended and it looks bad for the case. But when, using Jesse as bait, they lure him into an attempt to murder her they get the goods on him.
This is a chilling and fast moving thriller that keeps the reader turning pages.
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Todd Thiede's Guest Post:
I have always had an intuitive mind and I loved reading mysteries when I was younger. Since I have gotten older I find myself having less time to read. Between my full time job as a finance manager and being a full time father of four I find it hard to find time for reading. And now that I have my first murder mystery published and people that have read it want another Max Larkin book I am spending most of my time writing the next one.
One of the questions I have been asked is who was the inspirations for Max and Jesse. Was it Sherlock Holmes? Nope. Sorry that would be too obvious. The people that most inspired me when it came to Max and Jesse were not characters you will find in a book. You will actually find them on TV. Max and Jesse are crosses between many detectives that most people watch today. Jesse Fairlane (Max’s female partner) gets her compassion for the victims from Detective Olivia Benson on SVU. She gets her toughness from Catherine Willows on CSI. She also gets her “I have to prove everyone wrong” attitude from Catherine Willows and Olivia Benson. It seems like week in and week out those two women were going against the men around them and coming out on top.
Max is a little harder to explain than just TV shows. Max is the prototypical loner detective in some aspects and not in others. He hasn’t had a partner for a long time and it isn’t that he truly didn’t want one like most loner cops. The reason he doesn’t want a partner is because he has severe trust issues. His last partner betrayed his trust and he just figures it is easier to do things himself rather than rely on a person that could let him down.
The most common question I get is where did you come up with this story? That one is not only the most common question I get it is also the one with the funniest answer. I came up with the idea for “Time Killer” in July 2010. I was in Las Vegas, I had just gotten married to my beautiful wife Courtney at Caesar’s Palace. Obviously we were up late that evening and when we finally fell asleep it was a restless sleep for me. I had a very bad dream that involved me waking up in our home in Illinois. She was tied to the bed next to me and I was helpless because I too was tied up to the bed. I saw a figure closing in and killing her.
I immediately woke up and could not get back to sleep. I just lied in bed staring at her and thinking to myself that I was lucky to have her and very lucky it was just a dream. Because I couldn’t sleep my mind started to wander. I sat straight up in bed and thought “This would make a great story”. I gingerly got out of bed to not wake her and grabbed my laptop computer and started writing it down. By the time she had woken up I had most of the first chapter spelled out on the screen. She read it and she agreed that it is a great story. I told her my plans to keep expanding on it and she didn’t hold me back at all. She still laughs about the fact that I was writing a book on our honeymoon. How many wives can say that happened to them? Not many, that is for sure. Most are talking about the beach or what they did. My wife doesn’t talk much about what we did or who we saw in Las Vegas but she still tells everyone that she got to see me write a great murder mystery on our honeymoon.
About Todd Thiede:
Todd Thiede discovered a passion for writing at a very young age creating personal stories in order to pass the time. His vivid imagination—sometimes too much so—is fuelled by what he sees in his everyday life. Todd resides in Elgin, IL with his wife and four children. www.toddthiede.com www.fb.com/thiedetimekiller
Giveaway:
1. Autographed copy of Time Killer, by Todd Thiede; One $10 Amazon gift card
2. Autographed copy of Time Killer, by Todd Thiede
