Open Season (Seasons Mystery Series) - Softcover

Miller, Ms Maryann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0986426903 ISBN 13: 9780986426902

Publisher: MCM Enterprises, 2015

Synopsis

Set against a backdrop of racial tension and deadly force controversy in Dallas, Open Season introduces Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson, homicide detectives who are unlikely and unwilling partners. When people start dying in area shopping malls, the detectives find themselves up against a killer who has his own race card to play. This is the first book in the critically-acclaimed Seasons Mystery Series, followed by Stalking Season. "Try this debut mystery by a journalist for its open treatment of current urban problems, clean prose, and realistic depiction of women working together. For readers who enjoy Robin Burcell and fans of police procedurals." Library Journal "Open Season is a solid police procedural with fully developed characters and provocative social issues." L.J. Sellers, author of the Detective Jackson Mysteries “Detectives Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson are crisply drawn characters. The hard-edged story of racial tension in Dallas could be drawn from today’s headlines. Open Season is a smart, spirited page-turner.” —Bruce Cook – Tommy Gun Tango "Miller spins a tight tale that's a cut above the average police procedural in this first of a new series introducing Dallas police detective Sarah Kingsly." Publisher's Weekly

About this title

From the Author:

The idea for this story started to germinate while I was mall-walking with a friend. Each time we passed long dark corridors leading off the main aisles, I couldn't help but think of how many places a person could hide down there in the shadows if he or she were up to no good.(Voicing that probably did nothing to improve my friend's heart condition.)

At about the same time, the Dallas Police Department came under national scrutiny for its use of deadly force. Racial unrest also simmered just below the surface of polite behavior in the city, and I thought it would be interesting to look at those issues through the eyes of two women on opposite sides. Why not make them homicide detectives who have to track a serial killer through the shopping malls?

This project started out as a screenplay requested by Dallas filmmakers, Alan and Cynthia Mondell, and when the feature never got beyond development, the rights to the story came back to me and I decided to novelize the script. Looking back over that crazy period of straddling two mediums like some daft rodeo performer, I realize that the strength of the story came from the exercise. Not that I'm eager to 'stretch' myself that way again any time soon, but I won't ever forget the lessons I leaned along the way

From the Inside Flap:

Excerpt from Prologue

Sarah took a deep breath and faced Quinlin in the stuffy cubbyhole of an office. The room was hot and musty. Dust motes floated in the slivers of sunshine that had penetrated the haze of accumulated grime on the windows of the old building. The scent of his cologne hung heavily in the still air. Chaps. Rich, masculine, and too easily a distraction.

Dressed in a dark, somber suit, Quinlin didn't speak. He watched her with the careful scrutiny of a snake considering a field mouse. A trickle of perspiration ran down Sarah's back and dampened her white T-shirt. Shifting in the wooden chair, she contemplated the wisdom of taking off her jacket, then decided against it. He would interpret it as a sign of weakness.

She thought she was prepared for this. She'd rehearsed it a million times, remembering the images, nailing down the sequence, readying herself for his opener, "Detective Kingsly, tell me what happened that night."

She recalled the moon playing tag with a few heavy clouds, casting weird, disorientating shadows on the crumbling buildings. She remembered wishing the clouds would give way to rain, anything to relieve the oppressive heat that had pounded the city relentlessly for weeks. She remembered thinking the heat made people do crazy things.

Maybe that's why it had happened.

The rest of it flashed through her mind like a sequence of freeze frames.

About this edition

• Publisher: MCM Enterprises
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0986426903
• ISBN 13: 9780986426902
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244
• Illustrator: Russell Dany