Moonlight Falls (41 page)

It took me longer to read this book that it would most because I kept finding myself struck by his writing and had to go back and re-read lines that were just amazing! I read a lot! And I do enjoy most of what I read, and I read a lot of good stuff and find a lot of good authors, but when the exceptional comes along, it’s sort of like brain-candy for me. I find myself having to go back and re-read a lot just because the writing is stunning! That was the case for me with this book. And, I actually already knew that about Vincent’s writing but I think I actually let myself forget just how amazingly talented he is. He can do things with words that just blow me away! He is definitely one of the best thriller writers out there today, if not one of the best writers, period.

Dick Moonlight is a new favorite character of mine now! I’m a sucker for a good character-driven series and I love this fabulous character. I’m looking forward to hopefully much more to come!

I VERY highly recommend this book! The writing is amazing! The story hooked me from the very start and I could not put the book down! It’s full of mystery and suspense. You’re just as much in the dark as Dick Moonlight is, and it’s full of twists, turns and surprises, many of which you will not see coming.

In case you haven’t read any of Vincent Zandri’s work, I also highly recommend
The Innocent
and
Godchild
. His most recent release is
Concrete Pearl
and I’ll be reading and posting on that one in September, so be watching for that one (and it’s only $2.99 right now). And then there’s
The Remains
. No, I still don’t have it and haven’t read it yet. I have heard so many wonderful things about it. Several people have told me it’s their favorite of his.
Moonlight Mafia
is a digital short with Dick Moonlight. I have that one but was waiting until after I finished
Moonlight Falls
to read it.
Moonlight Rises
will be out in another month or two. Now that Dick Moonlight is a new favorite character of mine, I cannot wait! Be sure to follow Vincent’s blog over at
The Vincent Zandri Vox
and keep up with all the latest!

Book Summary:

In MOONLIGHT FALLS, novelist and photo journalist Vincent Zandri asks the question “If you knew your life could end at any moment, how far would you go to prove you murdered your lover? ” Albany, New York, is the setting of Zandri’s paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard “Dick” Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana – his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The problem is … Moonlight doesn’t remember what happened!

Moonlight Falls by Vincent Zandri

Posted on March 14, 2010 by Sheila (Book Journey)

Moonlight Falls is the Albany, New York-based paranoid tale (in the Hitchcock tradition) of former APD Detective turned Private Investigator/Massage Therapist, Richard “Dick” Moonlight, who believes he might be responsible for the brutal slaying by knife of his illicit lover, the beautiful Scarlet Montana. The situation is made all the worse since Scarlet is the wife of Moonlight’s boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana.

Why does Moonlight believe he might be responsible?

He’s got a small fragment of a .22 hollow point round buried inside his brain, lodge directly up against his cerebral cortex. The result of a botched suicide attempt four years prior to the novel’s start, an operation to remove the bullet frag would be too dangerous.

But the bullet causes Moonlight lots of problems, the least of which are the occasional memory loss and his rational ability to tell right from wrong. The bullet frag also might shift at any moment, making coma and/or sudden death, a very real possibility.

Still, Moonlight has been trying to get his life together as of late.

But when Scarlet begs him to make the trip over to her house late one rainy Sunday night to issue one of his “massages,” he makes a big mistake by sleeping with her. Later, having passed out in her bed, he will be rudely awakened by a garage door opening and Jake’s unexpected and very drunken homecoming. Making his impromptu escape out a top floor window, Moonlight will seek the safety of his home.

Two hours later however, he will receive another unexpected visit from Jake Montana. This time the big Captain has sobering news to report. He’s discovered his wife’s mutilated body in her own bed. She’s been murdered and now he needs the P.I. to investigate it in association with Albany ’s “overtaxed” Special Independent Unit before I.A. pokes their nose into the affair. Moonlight takes a big step back. Is it possible he made a second trip to the Montana home-sweet-home and just has no recollection of it? Once there, did he perform a heinous crime on his part-time lover? Or is this some kind of set up by his former boss? Is it really Jake who is responsible for Scarlet’s death? Does he wish for Moonlight to cover up his involvement, seal the case before Internal Affairs starts poking their nose into the situation?

There’s another problem too.

Covering Moonlight’s palms and the pads of his fingers are numerous scratches and cuts. Are these defensive wounds? Wounds he received when Scarlet put up a struggle? Or are they offensive wounds? Wounds he couldn’t avoid when making his attack on Scarlet with a blade? The answer is not so simple since Moonlight has no idea where he acquired the wounds.

Having no choice but to take on the mission, Moonlight can only hope the answers to his many questions point to his former boss and not himself.

I grew up with mysteries being my book flavor of choice. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys may as well have been by neighborhood playmates, after all I spent a lot of time with them and they usually caused me to be late to such things as dinner.

Even as my tastes in literature grew and I branched out into other genres and explored the larger world of books, I still have always had a spot in my heart for a good “hunker-down- blanket and cocoa-curled in a big soft chair- mystery”. Enter stage left…. Moonlight Falls.

Moonlight is an unlikely main character…. he has faults…. big ones. Yet for some reason I really liked this guy. Through a storyline of not only trying to solve a crime, that he may or may not have been involved in…. but also clearing his name. Moonlight truly has his work cut out for him.

I have always liked the feeling a good mystery gives me….. the type before there were vampires and werewolves, and the occasional zombie thrown in for good measure. Moonlight Falls gave me that feeling.

I had picked this book up in the mood for a good thriller and Vincent Zandri did not disappoint. My advice to anyone considering reading this book is to allow yourself plenty of time to read the book and surround yourself with the basic necessity’s (food and water) because once you hop on this thrill ride of a book you are not going to want to let go until it screeches to a halt at the satisfying end of the ride.

INTERVIEW AND REVIEW WITH READAHOLIC, FEBRUARY 23 2010

Richard (AKA Dick) used to be a detective but now is a P.I. Dick had a failed suicide attempt that left a bit of a bullet near his cerebral cortex. It would be more dangerous for doctors to try to remove the piece, so he is left with the burden of memory lost and the ability to distinguish right from wrong.

When his lover, Scarlet, is killed in what looks like a fit of rage, Dick can’t help but wonder if he is the one responsible for her death. What’s even more unsettling is that Scarlet is married to Dick’s boss.

Moonlight Falls
is a brilliant whodunnit. A thrilling tale with amazing characters who come to life page after page. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read this book. Mystery/Thriller fans everywhere need to get their hands on a copy.

REVIEW BY THE CAJUN BOOK LADY, FEBRUARY 22 2010

My Review:

Let me start off by saying I’m now a fan of Vincent!

I loved this book for so many reasons but I’ll start with the main character Moonlight. He was such a well built character that no matter what dastardly deed he did in the story, I found myself still rooting for him.

Now “Moonlight Falls” is categorized as a thriller but I definitely think it can fit into other genres too.

There were so many plot twists and turns that Vincent Zandri keeps you on your toes! Murder, dirty cops, affairs, you name it and this book has it.

Now this was a great thing for me…most of the time I can figure out the killer about halfway through the book but this one kept me guessing till the end…you wouldn’t believe who started it all!

I’ll give it five stars and say that thriller and suspense fans should check it out!

INTERVIEW IN THE
AMERICAN CHRONICLE

INTERVIEW WITH THRILLER AUTHOR VINCENT ZANDRI, JANUARY 29 2010

Thank you for this interview, Vincent. Can you tell us briefly what your latest book, Moonlight Falls, is all about?

Moonlight Falls is basically film noir on paper. It´s about Richard “Dick” Moonlight, suicide survivor who now must cope with a small piece of .22 caliber bullet lodged in his brain. Because it´s pressed up against his cerebral cortex he has trouble making good decisions and he suffers on occasion from short-term memory loss. In times of stress he passes out. He could suffer a major stroke or die at any moment. So time means little to him. When he makes the wrong decision to sleep with his former boss´s wife and she later turns up brutally murdered, he believes it´s possible he might have killed her and just can´t remember it.

Can you tell us who or what was the inspiration behind your book?

I believe I was down in Manhattan promoting As Catch Can with my then Delacorte editor, Jacob Hoye (now MTV Books), when I came across a story about a man who survived a suicide attempt and lived with a piece of bullet shrapnel still stuck in his brain. At the time I was also influenced by a self-stabbing suicide art exhibit that I caught in a Soho gallery by the artist infamous artist Damien Hirst. I´ve also been fascinated with a rarely spoken about story from my family history in which my paternal grandfather committed suicide by slicing his neck open with a straight razor in front of his grown children

Is this your first published book and if so, can you tell us your experiences in finding a publisher for it?

This is my fourth published novel. I´ve had two, including Moonlight Falls, published by small publishers, or what they now refer to as, “Indy Press.” The other two were pub´d by major commercial publishers, Delacorte and Bantam/Dell. In a nutshell, commercial publishers publish for money; small presses publish for love of the book and belief in the author.

How has R.J.Buckley been to work with?

By far the best publishing experience in my life. It´s as close to being a family-run house as you can get.

Do you have an agent?

Janet Benrey of Benrey Literary Agency.

Can you tell us how long it took you to write your book and also how long it took from the time R.J.Buckley sent the contract and the time it was released?

I wrote several different versions of this book between 2001 and 2008. At one time it was being represented by the William Morris Agency in New York under the title, A Body to Die For. But later on, when Janet took over, I switched the name to Moonlight Falls, which is based on the main character´s unlikely surname.

Buckley took on the manuscript (after an initial rejection!!!), last winter and it was just released in December of 2009. US/UK distribution didn´t kicked in until January 2010 however. Now the Kindle version is out as well!

Do you have any words of inspiration from other writers who would like to be wearing your shoes?

The publishing business is undergoing drastic changes. Traditional publishing is being replaced with electronic substitutes, and big print runs are slowly giving over to POD. More and more indy presses are springing up while the big conglomerations die a slow, agonizing suicide. Like an editor friend of mine in NYC told me last week, a submitted MS now has to be a “sure thing” before they will publish it.

Advice?

Work as hard as possible, be willing to adapt to the changing publishing environment and keep jabbing. Eventually you´ll get a good solid punch or two in.

I understand that you are touring with Pump Up Your Book Promotion in February and March via a virtual book tour. Can you tell us all why you chose a virtual book tour to promote your book online?

Logistically speaking, it´s impossible to hit every bookstore in the nation, much less my home state. Many newspapers, including major newsprint publications, no longer maintain a budget to run book reviews (sad but true). What they do instead is farm reviews and interviews out to bloggers who then publish them on the paper´s website. When I asked my traditional publisher what was the one thing I could do to guarantee that word about Moonlight Falls was spread all over the globe, she issued two words “Virtual Tour!” She also reminded me that unlike traditional print media, online reviews, interviews, profiles and blogs remain in cyberspace forever…It´s the gift that keeps on giving.

What´s next for you?

Two new book projects being shopped as we speak:

I´ve just completed a novel called The Remains, about a woman who receives strange text messages from a man who abducted her and her twin sister back when they were kids. For decades she´s believed he died in prison. But now, 30 years later, she realizes her past has not only come back to haunt her, it´s come back to kill her.

I´ve also completed the first in a new detective series about a woman named Spike, who´s inherited a commercial construction business and who wields a framing hammer like some detectives carry a pistol. When one of her still-occupied elementary school renovation jobs becomes contaminated with a major asbestos leak, and the man responsible for the asbestos removal goes missing, Spike goes searching for him. But what she uncovers is a plot of greed, deception, lust and murder. Spike is a cool, sexy, tough, character. She also knows how to drive a bulldozer! You can´t say that about every woman you come across!