So Rick Murcer‘s book Caribbean Moon, the first book in the Manny Williams series, has been on my Kindle and iPhone for a long while now. The other day (while I am in the middle of The Templar Salvation by Raymond Khoury) I started reading it and I didn’t put it down until it became book 29 for 2013. You can pickup the e-book at Amazon for 99 cents and I tell you it’s well worth it and a lot more! Murcer has nor always been a full-time writer’ He lost his job in 2008 due to the crashing of the economy. He then sent out over 600 resumes and still was unable to find employment. So with unemployment benefits waning and savings nearly depleted he decided to become a full-time writer!! From his biography at his website:
I’m an older writer. I started about eight years ago and got the first story I ever wrote, Herb’s Home Run, published in Writer’s Journal. Since then, I’ve been hooked.
I lost my real job two years ago, and after 550 resumes with no luck, decided I was going to make it as a writer, and here I am. Caribbean Moon was a labor of love, and writing it taught me more about myself than I cared to know. (My wife thinks I should keep my mind a secret!)
In his quest to become a writer, he defied conventional wisdom about self publishing and took his work to Amazon in e-book form, and there he became a sensation! Caribbean Moon, Deceitful Moon, and Emerald Moon sold more than 300,000 copies between April and October 2011. Two books of the books were in Amazon’s top ten for many weeks. He has gone on to become both a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author! Way to go Rick!!
But back to Caribbean Moon Manny Williams, a Lansing Michigan homicide detective, and a group of his associates, go on a cruise with the newly married son and daughter of his boss Gavin Crosby. But the cruise is anything but a honeymoon because bodies soon start piling up on the ship, and around the Caribbean. The victims include two members of Manny’s group. The victims mostly women are in most cases are strangled and their bodies are badly mutilated. The MO is similar to a serial killer, Robert Peppercorn, who the group sent to prison a while back. Can it be Peppercorn committing these heinous crimes? Wasn’t he reformed?? Manny and the gang have to act quickly to end this brutal murder spree and the question soon becomes:What is the objective of the murderer!
The book is a light quick read with enjoyable well-developed characters including: Manny, his partner Sylvia Lee the rest of his co-workers, and of course the killer!! So check it out – I’ve already started the second book Deceitful Moon, which costs a whole $2.99!!.