Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Havoc by Ronie Kendig

Book Description

A soldier, a Malinois, and a stuntwoman walk onto a TV set . . .

Former Special Forces operator Sergeant Crew Gatlin takes everything in stride, even the career-ending incident that separated him from the Army, half a leg, and his beloved working dog, Havoc K027. Putting his life back together and lying low, he takes a job with A Breed Apart and is unexpectedly reunited with Havoc. It’s too good to be true—and the proof is in their first assignment: to work as a K-9 team for a television drama in Los Angeles. Miffed at being relegated to TV fodder, he’s willing to pay the price when he sees the stuntwoman.

Being a stunt double allows Vienna Foxcroft to fulfill her acting dream—with a side of MMA—and stay out of the limelight. The same one that plagued her childhood and put her through a nightmare scenario. Now, her tight-knit stunt team are the only ones she trusts. Then in walks Mr. Mountain-of-Muscle and his tough-as-nails dog, and Vienna has a bad feeling her life is about to turn upside down.

Ticked as they head overseas for a location shoot in Turkey, Crew guts it up—after all, he has Havoc again. Okay, and yeah—Vienna is going, too. When an attack sends the cast fleeing into the streets of Turkey, Vienna must face the demons of her past or be devoured by them. And Crew and Havoc are tested like never before.

Experience the high-octane thrill ride that is the first book in the A Breed Apart: Legacy series.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Havoc by Ronie Kendig allows readers to get a three for one:  a great plot, great characters, and a heroic dog named Havoc. This book is very appropriate since the 9/11 remembrance just passed.

The story opens when former Special Forces operator Sergeant Crew Gatlin had his career ended after his leg was blown up from an IED. Returning to the States he was separated from his working dog Havoc K027. Putting his life back together and lying low, he takes a job with A Breed Apart and is unexpectedly reunited with Havoc. Their first assignment is to work as a K-9 team for a television drama in Los Angeles. Miffed at being relegated to TV fodder, he’s willing to pay the price when he becomes infatuated with the stuntwoman.

Being a stunt double allows Vienna Foxcroft to fulfill her acting dream—with a side of MMA—and stay out of the limelight.  Now, her tight-knit stunt team are the only ones she trusts after being assaulted by a former beau. Crew and Vienna form an instant attraction but are in denial until they are pushed together after a terrorist attack on location in Turkey. Havoc, Crew, and Vienna will have their wits and physical abilities tested like never before. This story has it all: banter, romance, action-packed pacing, and readers will not want to put it down.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the series, story?

Ronie Kendig: From the first series that I wrote over a decade ago. They both are called “A Breed Apart” but the new one is called “A Breed Apart Legacy.”  Each book will have individual characters.  The common thread is a ranch in Texas called the Breed Apart Ranch with former military dogs and handlers.

EC: Why the Shakespeare quote at the beginning of the book?

RK: I always look for a quote that fits the story, and that one did, obviously because of the dog’s name—Havoc.

EC: Can you describe Havoc? 

RK: Havoc is a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois who was a military working dog, qualified in patrol and explosives detection.

EC: What about those puppies that have washed out-did you adopt one?

RK:  I have two dogs, an English crème Golden Retriever named after Fort Benning.  I also had a military working dog that had washed out when she was a year old. I think she was too sweet, and she had stomach issues.  We call her “Drama” because she moans like a person but her real name is Aandromeda. She puts us through the paces. She is very intense because of her pre-training.  She has no fears.

EC: How did you get information about the scene in the beginning regarding Afghanistan?

RK: I’ve been writing paramilitary suspense for over a decade, so it’s mostly experience and consuming a lot of reads/listens related to our military. And anyone who’s watched the news knows how the U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan. Takes just a few moments of looking at organizations or individuals who are trying to help to learn the hard truths about that rapid-withdrawal fallout.

EC: What do you want readers to know about “A Breed Apart?”

RK: First, that it’s called A Breed Apart: Legacy, the second/spinoff series to my original A Breed Apart series. Second, that each book focuses on a different MWD and handlers facing tough circumstances, and third, that all subsequent books were written by authors I mentored and advised throughout the entire process.

EC: How would you describe Crew?

RK: He is funny, confident, audacious, witty, tenacious, disciplined, intense, direct, and protective. I think the cover and the book copy perfectly portray him. He’s been dealt a tough hand in life, but as a Special Forces operator, he’s learned to roll with the punches and get back up when something knocks you down.

EC: Why write books on military handlers?

RK: I wrote the first series more than ten years ago. Back then there were not a lot of stories. In Trinity a military working dog frees his handler while in captivity.  Back then working military dogs was a fresh concept.

EC: How would you describe Vienna?

RK: She is surly, tough, fierce, defensive, determined, thoughtful, and an inner warrior. Vienna is one who isn’t going to wait for someone to defend her. She did that once and it turned out terrible for her. But she also isn’t so obsessed with being a strong woman that she won’t accept help when she needs it.

EC: What is the role of her being a stunt person?

RK:  It had not been done much.  I wanted someone to be an equal to Crew. But also, the characters are not high on feminism and low on masculinity.  I made sure there was a balance.

EC: How would you describe their relationship?

RK: They push each other’s buttons, are competitive, consider each a puzzlement, was not looking for a relationship, both visibly affected by their past relationships, both realize they help each other belong, have fun, and are passionate. Crew and Vienna are both strong personalities who bring their own force and baggage to the table. They know how to work together when it’s needed. They’re perfect complements to each other’s lives and fill gaps that neither of them knew existed. She swore off guys after a terrible incident a few years ago, and Crew was happily focused on regaining his career after losing a leg and getting back to work as an K9 handler and Special Forces operator.

EC: How did you get information about the boxing scene between Crew and Vienna?

RK: It’s not boxing but rather Krav Maga, and that information came from my husband who trained in Krav, and I had some minor training in it to complement my taekwondo training.

EC: Please discuss your charity the MWDTSA.

RK: It’s not my charity. It’s the Military Working Dog Team Support Association and is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports MWD dog/handler teams by sending support packages, writing letters, but they do so much more than that. I adopted a Military Working dog, Volt, and had him for a little over five years. These dogs are intense, and the bond is a lot deeper than a normal pet dog. When my retired military working dog Volt N629 seized the Rainbow Bridge after a years-long battle with cancer, MWDTSA sent me a card and a Fifty/Fifty stainless steel etched tumbler with Volt’s EOW date. That tumbler is super special to me, and I’m so grateful for the way they touched me during my grief.

EC: Next books?

RK: My next one after HAVOC’s release is LADY OF BASILIKAS, a standalone space opera, coming May 2024 from Enclave Publishing. Beyond that, you’d need a TS-1 Clearance to access that intel.

The next book in this series is titled Chaos written by Steffani Webb. All the other books are written by other authors with completely different characters. I mentored the other authors, helped them brainstorm, and go through the editing process. I made sure the books had the ‘Ronie Kendig flavor.’

THANK YOU!!

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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Bone Records by Rich Zahradnik

The Bone Records

by Rich Zahradnik

January 30 – February 10, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE BONE RECORDS by Rich Zahradnik on this Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tour.

Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a Kingsumo giveaway. Good luck on the giveaway and enjoy!

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Book Description

NY Police Academy washout Grigg Orlov discovers an eerie piece of evidence at the scene of his father’s brutal murder: a disc-shaped X-ray of a skull. It’s a bone record–what Soviet citizens called banned American songs recorded on used X-rays. But the black-market singles haven’t been produced since the sixties. What’s one doing in Coney Island in 2016?

Grigg uncovers a connection between his father and three others who collected bone records when they were teenage friends growing up in Leningrad. Are past and present linked? Or is the murder tied to the local mob? Grigg’s got too many suspects and too little time. He must get to the truth before a remorseless killer takes everything he has.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62689659-the-bone-records?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=cXk8UXEYqs&rank=1

The Bone Records

Genre: Mystery
Published by: 1000 Words A Day Press
Publication Date: November 2022
Number of Pages: 338
ISBN: 9798985905649

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

THE BONE RECORDS by Rich Zahradnik is a non-stop fast paced thriller filled with Russian mobsters and government agents, corrupt NYPD police, and FBI agents, good and bad, all after a young protagonist caught up for unknown reasons in international intrigue.

Grigg Orlov has never felt he belonged in his neighborhood of Little Odessa. Born of a Russian immigrant father and a Jamaican mother, he is plagued with prejudice his entire life. His father reappears after a six-month absence only to have both chased and his father killed. Grigg finds a disc shaped x-ray of a skull on his father’s body. It has an individual old song recording on the opposite side. He learns the discs were called bone records which in the old Soviet Union were sold on the black market with banned American music, but what does this have to do with his father?

Grigg and his ex-girlfriend, Katia, discover an old connection his father had to a group of friends in Russia and bone records, but what does that have to do with the present day run for his life from Russian mobsters and government spies? With no help from law enforcement, Grigg must find the truth before he and Katia end up dead.

This is a thriller with a stubborn and flawed young protagonist that the author is able to make me still care about and follow on this harrowing investigation and run for his life. The history of the bone records was interesting and new to me. The vivid descriptions of the neighborhood of Little Odessa and Coney Island made both feel real and integral to the story. I felt at times the number of mobsters, spies and corrupt law enforcement officials was over the top, but it certainly kept the action and Grigg moving. Every plot thread is tied up at the climatic ending, I just wish a few were answered sooner in the story because for me, all the solutions were rushed into the last chapters with much of the story being threat and chase.

I recommend this entertaining thriller with its unique protagonist and plenty of action and suspects.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

Friday, August 19, 2016

Grigg’s reunion with his father was brief—eight minutes to be exact—and ended when a man with a nickel-plated revolver shot Dad twice.

Three hours before the violence began, Grigg struggled through the crowd on the Coney Island subway platform. He was the last to reach the stairway to the station’s exit. Again. Even the old folks were gone. His wrecked knee held him back.

Outside the station, Deno’s Wonder Wheel turned slowly, towering over the amusement park that took its name from the ancient fifteen-story ride. The wheel’s spokes glowed a hot neon white. Hazy coronas surrounded all the lights.  

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

Grigg had started wearing his father’s Timex soon after he had gone missing. He put the watch up to his ear, as he’d done too many times before. It wasn’t loud enough to be heard. The clockwork noise was in his head. Maybe a reminder to keep looking. Maybe a reminder that six months was already too long in missing persons cases.

His father’s watch read 8:18 p.m.

He limped away from Coney Island’s amusement parks toward his house on West 28th off Mermaid Avenue. As he did, the street darkened. He checked behind him more than once. The neighborhood became far less amusing as night came on—and the farther you went from the fun parks. Mugging wasn’t the thrill ride Grigg needed. He didn’t want any more trouble. He had a lifetime’s supply. His long days pinballed him between two jobs and the search for his father. 

But despite Grigg’s best efforts, the minutes and hours and days kept spinning off the Timex, found by the police in a Howard Beach motel room, the last place his father was seen before he vanished into the thin March air. Their empty house waited to reflect Grigg’s loneliness back at him. His mother had died when he was eighteen months old. His boss at the city’s claims adjustment office rarely talked to him outside of giving orders. All of his connections—he couldn’t really call them friends—in the neighborhood he owed to his father. Dad, like the rest of them, had immigrated from Russia. Unlike the rest of them, he’d married a woman from Jamaica, a union that guaranteed Grigg would always be on the outside in Little Odessa.

The rubber soles of his cheap dress shoes slapped the wet pavement. A thunderstorm had blown through while he was on the subway, leaving behind the sticky-thick humidity. His messenger bag tugged on his shoulder.

He went over the lead he’d uncovered tonight. Going door-to-door in a Midwood apartment building full of Russians, he’d talked briefly to a tenant named Freddy Popov, who recognized Grigg’s father when shown a photo. Popov said a man—maybe a cop—had been canvassing the building with a picture of Grigg’s dad four weeks earlier. Inside the man’s apartment and shielded by Popov, someone said something in Russian. Popov got hinky, then said he didn’t know anything more and slammed the door. Grigg banged on it until a woman across the hall threatened to call the cops. He left with only the knowledge that someone else—maybe a cop?—was also searching for Dad. Still, that bit of info was his biggest lead to date.

Grigg limped up to the small, two-story brick house—kitchen, living room, two bedrooms over a garage—a duplicate of the other attached homes on the street. He unlocked the steel gate, then the front door, and stepped inside.

The thunk of the door closing echoed through the house. Two days ago, Grigg had moved everything out except for the sleeping bag in his bedroom of twenty-seven years and a blue duffel, readying the old house for its new owners. He turned the deadbolt.

He shouldn’t be staying here tonight. He’d spent all his free time on the search for Dad, right up until the closing on the sale of the house. Even at the end, he’d hoped for a breakthrough that would save him from selling. He’d signed the papers yesterday, writing a check for $1,650—most of his savings—because the house was underwater on a second mortgage his father had taken out. Grigg knew the out-of-state buyers wouldn’t be moving in for three weeks, so he’d kept a copy of the key. 

Trespassing in my own house. Inviting trouble when I already have too much.

The plan was to use the next three weeks to find an apartment share, but the lead from Popov tugged at his thoughts. Would it pull so hard that he’d spend his free time searching for Dad and end up homeless? He ducked his own question and instead pictured going back to demand Popov tell him more. He shook his head. He could barely keep his mind on his housing problem for the space of a single thought. He took a beer out of the refrigerator, went up to his room, and rolled his sleeping bag into a fat pillow to lean against.

Grigg popped open the 90 Years Young Double IPA. Nine percent alcohol. The strong stuff he’d dubbed “floor softener.” He downed two sixteen-ounce cans, and the ache faded from the muscles in his damaged leg.

He took out his phone. He’d run through his data allowance last week. Three days until the new billing cycle. At least he had his music. He played the Decembrists, their songs about revenge and ships at sea set to jangly indie rock. He followed with the Killers, then Vampire Weekend.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

His father’s watch read 11:20 p.m.

He opened his notebook and wrote down “Day 191” along with what he’d learned. It was longer than any previous entry—yet not long at all. So many days. The silence in the house chilled him, sending goosebumps in waves over his arms and thighs. He got up and turned down the air conditioner. It wouldn’t help. He missed his father’s voice, the way it had warmed their home. They could talk about everything and anything, a lot of anything, but such interesting anything. Dad was always there with his questions, his curiosity, and his deep interest in whatever Grigg was up to. There were days his father was more intrigued by Grigg’s job than Grigg was. Even that helped.

A fourth beer. He floated on the wood floor of his empty bedroom. Slept.

A thump. The floor hardened underneath him. Another thump. Half buzzed, halfway to a headache, Grigg opened his eyes. He heard it again. Not a dream. On the roof. He followed the steps above him to his father’s empty bedroom. He was about to switch on his phone’s flashlight when legs—silhouetted by the glow from the street across the way—dangled over the room’s tiny balcony. They descended slowly, inching, hesitating, as if the intruder were no expert at this sort of move. The toes stretched to touch, and finally, the person dropped, stumbled, and landed on their knees.

Grigg didn’t know whether to laugh or arm himself. If this was a robbery, then the joke was going to be on a thief who’d picked a house with nothing in it. Grigg decided discretion was the better part of whatever, returned to his bedroom, and pulled the stun gun from his messenger bag. Ever since he’d been attacked when he was in the police academy—suffering the knee injury that forced him to drop out—he hadn’t felt safe unless he carried the weapon.

He placed the messenger bag next to his duffel in the hallway in case he needed to get out fast. In the kitchen, he grabbed his second six pack as a backup weapon.

Of course, he could escape by the front and leave the intruder for the police to deal with. But if he did, then the buyers would be notified, and he’d lose the three weeks of temporary housing he’d been counting on. 

He crept through the doorway into the main bedroom.

The figure, whose face remained in deep shadow because of the streetlight glow from behind, rattled the handle to the single balcony door, used his elbow to smash in the square pane nearest the knob, reached in, and turned the simple metal lock. As he pushed the door open, Grigg stepped forward, hit his phone’s light, and thrust forward the stun gun.

“Get the fuck out of my house!”

The figure froze. “I’m not going to hurt you, Grigg.”

Grigg moved closer.

“Dad? Dad!”

Full beard and longer hair, but it was him. 

Grigg didn’t know whether to hug his father or scream at him.

“I came to say goodbye,” Dad said.

“Goodbye?”

“I’m leaving. For Russia. I don’t know when I’ll be able to return. It’s the only way.”

“I don’t understand.” Any of it. “You said you’d never go back.”

“It’s the only way to fix things.”

***

Mystery writer Rich Zahradnik

Author Bio

Rich Zahradnik is the author of the thriller The Bone Records and four critically acclaimed mysteries, including Lights Out Summer, winner of the Shamus Award. He was a journalist for twenty-seven years and now lives in Pelham, New York, where he is the mentor to the staff of the Pelham Examiner, an award-winning community newspaper run, edited, reported, and written by people under the age of eighteen.

Social Media Links

www.RichZahradnik.com
Goodreads
Instagram – @rzahradnik
Twitter – @rzahradnik
Facebook – @RichZahradnik

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads

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Kingsumo Giveaway

https://kingsumo.com/g/woiqxy/the-bone-records-by-rich-zahradnik

Feature Post: Cleveland Author Event – June 2018

I had a great day today meeting many new to me authors!

All of these books and swag plus about 25 more bookmarks and cards. I’ll be working some extra hours to cover my credit card usage today. 🙂

I want to share just a few of the great authors I met today and I hope you will check them out, also.

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T.K. Leigh – Beautiful Mess series and The Vault series

 

Ariel Marie (Cleveland Author)- Steamy Paranormal/ Shifter Romance

 

Kate Squires (Ohio Author) – Contemporary Romance

 

Kathleen Kelly – Contemporary Romance with a bit of Erotica

 

Kiarra Taylor – Contemporary and Romantic Suspense

 

 Tia Louise – The Bright Lights series and The One To Hold series

 

Taylor Dawn – Contemporary Romance

 

Tara Sivec (Ohio Author) – Romantic Comedy, Romantic Suspense, Contemporary Romance and Psychological Thriller

 

These are just a  small sample of the friendly, talented authors I met today.  I want to give a shout out to my new friend from Pittsburgh, who was my event buddy for the day – Rexi Lake. Rexi is an up and coming BDSM Erotic Romance author. Check out her book and all the others highlighted.

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Twenty minutes before the end of the event the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the hotel.  The Cleveland firemen who showed up got quite a surprise and cheer from all the women out front. They were very sweet to pose for pictures once they knew they were not needed.

The perfect end to the event! 🙂