Spotlight Saturday: Guest Post and Giveaway with Mike Faricy, author of Bite Me

Hi, everyone!

Welcome to another edition of Spotlight Saturday at Darlene's Book Nook, where we feature authors and their books!

We will be joined today by Mike Faricy.

About Mike:

Mike Faricy writes crime fiction with a sense of humor and even a little romance. All his crime fiction books are set in Minnesota and populated with whacky, unforgettable characters. His Dev Haskell series takes place in his home town of St. Paul, Minnesota. His books are filled with the sort of oddballs and flakes we’re all curious about, but wisely prefer to keep at a distance. They won’t be saving the world from terrorism, international banking conspiracies or government coups. The situations they find themselves in are due to their own bad decisions, but then bad decisions make for interesting tales. Mike lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and Dublin, Ireland with his very patient wife.

CONNECT ONLINE WITH MIKE:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook Author Page | Mike Faricy Books on Facebook | Goodreads

Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Mike!

Mike has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to him!

If you’re reading this post on Darlene’s Book Nook chances are you like books. You may in fact be what is referred to as a voracious reader. That certainly describes me, I love to read, history, biographies, and fiction, an awful lot of fiction. The television is rarely on, but there’s a large stack of books next to the continually growing ‘to be read’ list I’m dying to attack. I don’t know about you, but I seem to inhale an author, read everything they have out there, then keep an eye peeled for that next, latest release.

The authors I read, much like life experience, has an effect on my writing, I don’t think there is a way to avoid that, I’m not sure I would want to. Elmore Leonard, with his quirky characters and unique names had me hooked years back. Robert B. Parker, with his tightly written, dialogue driven Spenser, Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall tales introduced the sense of a fast pace. Carl Hiaasen and the zany situations his characters find themselves in left me wanting more. Stuart McBride’s edgy violence and Ian Rankin’s interaction among work colleagues all shape my end result.

I write what I know. The bars, restaurants, street corners and buildings all exist in real life. What I don’t know I ‘research’, if one of my characters is slipping a pistol into her purse I want the thing to be able to fit in the first place and not weigh six pounds. Without sounding too technical, it’s not going to be a colt .45. I went to a fire arms store and ‘shopped’ with the help of a sales lady for just the right weapon. “A favorite of mine is a less expensive version of the J frame. The Taurus model 85, it’s a 5 shot .38 special revolver, a snub nose. It conceals very well and has a great grip.” The logical choice to slip into a handbag for a quiet evening out, I’m sure her dates were always on their best behavior.

I once had an informative forty-five minute conversation about a scene I’d written. Two friends brought me to task about the difficulty of running in sling back stiletto heels, then gave me a demo, there may have been some beverages involved. I was informed if I thought it was so easy maybe I should try it. No thanks, but I learned that basically it can’t be done, at least not effectively for say more than ten feet. I like things to be accurate, and yes, there’s a craziness to my tales, but at base level, they are real life.

As much as I enjoy reading, at least for my tastes, I have trouble with the sort of scenario where the ex-special forces guy just wants to be left alone and farm organically, but someone has kidnapped his voluptuous, heiress wife and now he’s coming to save her and her father, the president. Or, the guy on the trail of an international assassin who calls his old Army pal, the Secretary of Defense, to have satellites reconfigured so he can track a cell phone. Interesting, but not what I’m familiar with in my day to day existence. Those sorts of scenarios don’t occur in my books.

In Merlot, there’s a guy with business debt planning a bank robbery, but he doesn’t have much of a plan and it’s complicated by his falling for one of the bank tellers. Finder’s Keeper’s has two brothers planning a petty crime that gets way out of hand. End of the Line has a down on his luck businessman making a bad decision that puts him in with the wrong crowd. These are all plausible scenarios, the sort of thing you might read in your local paper, shake your head and ask “What in the world were they thinking?”

There is one other common denominator in my tales, a woman more or less saves the day after the guy has screwed things up. It isn’t intentional; I don’t set out to write that sort of scenario, but it’s become a common thread. Based on experience that seems to be life, too.

Bite Me, the third book in my Dev Haskell series has just been released, Bombshell is due out this August. Dev is a wisecracking, somewhat lazy sort of PI who routinely makes bad life choices. He misreads women on a regular basis and runs with the sort of crowd your mother might caution; “You are known by the company you keep.” Dev is the sort of guy who would be fun for that secret getaway weekend not even your closest girlfriend would know about. But rest assured, it won’t go the way you want.

He works with a foot on both sides of the law. There’s a bit of the end justifies the means to his methods, rarely if ever does he get a big pay off, at least one he can keep. The situations he finds himself in are, at base, due to bad decisions. But then, like I said before, bad decisions make for interesting tales.

I hope you’ll take a look at my Dev Haskell series as well as my other books and come to your own conclusion… “What was I thinking?” Many thanks, Mike Faricy

Thanks so much for joining us today, Mike!

Three lucky winners will win a Kindle Gift of Mike's latest crime fiction thriller, Bite Me. 

Another Dev Haskell tale, they can be read in any order you wish. Wise cracking, back slapping, wrong thinking PI Dev Haskell has just landed his dream job, providing security for people who don’t need it in the first place, until someone shoots at them in broad daylight. Things quickly fly out of control and Dev suddenly finds himself under the police microscope, literally tied up in a relationship and dodging a growing pile of bodies that all seem to be linked to him. Another in the entertaining Dev Haskell series from Minnesota’s Master of the Bizarre, Mike Faricy.

Buy Link: Amazon Kindle

To enter the giveaway, you must complete the Rafflecopter entry form below.

This giveaway is open worldwide to anyone who can receive a Kindle Gift from Amazon. The contest will close at 12:01 AM EST on June 23, 2012.

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