The Shooting of Nancy Howard: A Journey Back to Shore - Softcover

Dr Alice Mathews

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1457554607 ISBN 13: 9781457554605

Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

The Shooting of Nancy Howard: A Journey back to Shore combines love, betrayal, conspiracy, suffering, and survival with a cast of improbable characters: a respected church-going husband and his mistress, a group of colorful criminals in East Texas, and a millionaire businessman. The story opens with Nancy's returning home from a church function on a Saturday night in 2012, and pulling into her garage. As she walks toward the door to her house, she suddenly faces an attacker who demands her purse and then shoots her in the head.  Investigation of the shooting first reveals that Nancy's husband has been having a three-year affair. A few days later, detectives uncover connections between her CPA husband and the East Texas gang. The story becomes increasingly bizarre as evidence surfaces of a murder-for-hire conspiracy initiated by Nancy's husband.  
 
While Nancy deals with multiple injuries, including the loss of an eye, investigators uncover evidence that her husband has been paying large sums to the criminal gang for the expressed purpose of killing his wife. The money source is her husband's rich client, from whom he has extorted over six-million dollars, some of which he has used to give his mistress extravagant gifts. Meanwhile Nancy is undergoing painful repairs to her face, throat, and arm, followed by weeks in rehab.
 
Nancy's physical suffering is exacerbated by learning of the growing evidence against her husband, at the same time enduring tension with her children, who continue to maintain their father's innocence. During the trials of her husband and the shooter, Nancy learns how many times the would-be killers' plans were thwarted by God's intervention to save her life, even by using the conspirators themselves. Today she is committed to sharing her unwavering faith that God can bring blessings out of the most devastating tragedies.

About this title

From the Author

The writing of Nancy's story was born from our shared faith and membership in a church choir; and from similar injuries caused by attacks:Nancy's by a hit-man's bullet, mine by a blow to the face likely linked to the so-called "knock-out game" popular in 2014. The timing for writing the story was felicitous. Nancy had recovered emotionally and physically enough to discuss the details of her suffering. And I had recently retired from the University of North Texas, where I was a professor specializing in British literature. 
 
The story recounts a murder-for-hire conspiracy initiated by a respectable, church-going husband and father who was leading a secret life with his mistress. The conspiracy lasted for almost three years; and it involved an unsavory group of criminals who were paid millions of dollars but failed to kill their target. Aside from the sensational elements, the story describes how a woman's faith enabled her to survive and even thrive after unspeakable losses. ~Alice Mathews

From the Inside Flap

An Excerpt from The Shooting of Nancy Howard: A Journey Back to Shore... 
"At what point does an otherwise good man . . . become someone else? Is it when he looks across a casino floor and sees a woman he decides to approach?  Perhaps it's when he sees how easily millions of dollars can be diverted from an employer with a dubious reputation? How could a good man know that the price of hidden nights enjoying the body of a stranger could lead to the near death of the woman he had promised to love forever?" 

Edition details

• Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1457554607
• ISBN 13: 9781457554605
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 146