Mystery Novel Month: Gravedigger's Open House by Frank Scully

All Mike Johnson wants is a little time to think, but he is about to find out that life is what happens while you’re making other plans. It delivers what is available. What you do with it depends on your character and attitude. Fortunately for Mike, attitude comes naturally.

It’s a rule of nature that trouble gravitates toward the person with the time and ability to handle it. Mike does not want any more trouble in his life but won’t shrink from it when it comes. And it does – from two directions. Real Estate agents are being killed, and his next door neighbor, who also happens to be a real estate agent, is entangled in a major league real estate scam. While looking into the murders, he discovers the dead agents and the scam are tied together in a twisted scheme of lethal revenge that almost ensnares Mike and his son and daughter in a web of big money and dead bodies as he follows the clues from Southern California to Phoenix and Las Vegas. Slick con artists, racist killers, beautiful strippers and a nutty neighbor keep Mike occupied as he wrestles with the question of what to do with the rest of his life. As the chase progresses, he discovers as much about himself as he does about the cons, the crooks and the crimes that have always been so much a part of his life.

Along the way he collects more bruises and broken bones than he does answers, but it isn’t his nature to quit no matter what the obstacle or the risk. Soon he is in so deep, he becomes a suspect in several murders with his picture on the front page and both the police and the killers hot on his trail. His only hope of salvation is to get the evidence that will prove his innocence.

Inspiration behind Gravedigger's Open House by Frank Scully

I knew after writing Dead Man's Gambit that I wanted to use Mike Johnson in another book. And I wanted it to be in a story where he could really let loose. I wish I could say that I knew exactly what story I was going to tell when I sat down to start Gravedigger’s Open House, but I didn’t even know the title of the book at the time. All I had was a general idea. It is often as much of a mystery to me what is going to happen as I hope it is to the readers.

What I did know is that Mike had moved from River County to the Sacramento area and was at loose ends not knowing exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life after the events in Dead Man’s Gambit knocked him out of his comfortable rut. In my mind I ran through a number of scenarios to construct around him. Nothing fit until I hit on the little old lady aspect of the neighbor. Once I had her and her son, Buster, in place along with a few of the other characters, the story began to develop on its own.

Some of the story and bits and pieces of the characters came from my own experience in real estate while most came from my imagination. Murder, blackmail, and revenge beget revenge, murder and blackmail in a big money scam. It was easy enough to get Mike entangled in it and the story wrote itself after that.

I don’t write from an outline. I do establish the primary characters early on and have a general idea of the plot and setting but after that it is all “seat of the pants” writing. The characters acting in the events dictate where the story goes. Often it takes off in directions I never anticipated. That can be quite an “aha” moment that leads to more revisions that improve the storyline in order to keep the characters true to themselves and to the plot. In order to do this I have to be able to bury myself in my characters and the story. It has to be real to me in my mind.

I enjoy getting into Mike Johnson’s character and I hope readers enjoy him as much as I do.

PURCHASE GRAVEDIGGER'S OPEN HOUSE AT: 

MuseItUp Publishing

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Frank Scully was born and raised in a small town in North Dakota and received a Bachelor’s degree in History with Phi Beta Kappa Honors and a Juris Doctor degree in Law from the University of North Dakota. He then served more than five years as a Judge Advocate General Corps Officer in the U.S. Army in the U.S., Vietnam, and Thailand. After that he attended the prestigious Thunderbird School and received a Masters in Business Administration with honors. In his professional career he has worked as an executive with large aerospace and defense manufacturers and also owned his own small business.


Depending on the vagaries of the universe he has been well off at times and broke, but never broken at other times. Blessed with an understanding wife who gave him twin sons, he has remained through it all a dreamer whose passion is writing stories that will entertain readers.


Visit Frank online at www.frankjscully.com. 

Book Spotlight: Empty Time by Frank Scully

Jim Lang’s life sputtered into a workaholic rut on a middle rung of the corporate ladder while his colleagues, using his business plan, became the international business titans he once aspired to be.

Bad memories of busted marriages and broken promises are all that keep him company in his personal hours so he is more than willing to sacrifice that empty time to his job to make the corporation grow. His bosses have one more sacrifice in mind for him. To die for them.

Deceived, betrayed and framed for murder and massive stock fraud, his bosses plan for him to die and disappear. Disappear, he does; die, he doesn’t.

Lang must face and conquer his old fears and guilt, and live up to the potential within. To save the people he loves he must put his life on the line to turn the tables on his former colleagues in an inter-continental, multi-billion dollar, fast paced and lethal game of corporate intrigue and treachery with bloody traps and deadly counter traps.

Read an excerpt!

He walked in the center of the street away from the trees and the gloom that surrounded them. The low drone of a car’s engine coming up the street reached him before he could see anything. He stepped out of the street and into the shadows that now became his friends.

A taxi cruised past him casually and over the bridge before stopping at the apartment building. One person got out. The car door slammed, and the taxi moved away.

Lang moved back into the street and hurried to catch up to the figure on the other side of the bridge. He called out softly, “Mimi! Mimi!”

Whether it was his muted calls or the sound of his stumbling, pained steps that she heard he didn’t know, but she stopped and turned to face him. He waved. She waited.

He was on the bridge now. She was standing on the stoop to her apartment building. The light illuminated her face. He thought he saw her smile, and it lifted his spirits.

“Herr Lang.” A soft voice called, freezing him in mid-stride. It came from just behind him.

He turned his head and saw Two walking toward him. His steps were a confident march, and his expression as arrogant and smug as ever. Where had he come from? Two closed the distance until he was less than arm’s length away.

As if he could read his mind Two answered, “You were easy to follow. I could have killed you many times. I just wanted to know where you were going. Now I know. Maybe I’ll keep your appointment for you. She will appreciate having a real man.” His voice was thick and heavily accented, but the slow mocking tone translated perfectly.

Lang could see a gun in Two’s right hand. He held it down by his side casually as if daring Lang to try for the gun in his pocket. Their eyes were locked in a challenge only one could walk away from. Lang knew he had no chance and no other option. His first move would be his last. And no move would be to surrender and die.

“Was ist los? What’s the matter? Who is this?” Mimi asked as she walked closer. While they had been engaged in their face off, she had approached them until she was only a few steps away.

Two reflexively raised his pistol in her direction. Lang took advantage of the opportunity. His hand dove into his pocket, his fingers closed around the pistol as he stepped closer to grab Two’s arm. Two jerked his arm away before Lang could get a grip, and swung to hit Lang.

Lang pulled the trigger on the gun in his pocket that he had rammed into Two’s stomach. It jumped in his hand and a gust of air burst out of Two’s mouth. The sound of the shot was bizarrely muffled by Two’s body. The loudest sound came when the bullet exited Two’s back, leaving a large hole. Lang stepped back from Two who stood oddly askew before he stumbled back toward the bridge railing where he hung for a moment before slumping down to kneel on the roadway. He tried to raise his gun once again to shoot at Lang.

Lang felt paralyzed as he watched Two struggle to bring the gun in his hand up. Inch by inch, through sheer will power, Two overcame his wound. His jaw was set in fierce determination. Before he could get it level, Mimi delivered a hard kick to Two’s side, forcing him to crumple, the gun fell from his hand as he toppled over to lay flat.

“Pig,” Mimi cursed at the fallen man in a mix of German and English. She came over to Lang and inspected him closely. His pocket was still smoking from the second hole he had put in it. His eyes were glazed, and he stood stiffly transfixed. She put her hands to his face and forced him to look at her.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

The words took a few moments to filter through. He shook his head.

“Good. We must move quickly,” she said, turning back to Two. “You lift his shoulders over the rail.” She grabbed Two’s feet.

Lang couldn’t move. What was she doing?

“Schnell!” she commanded forcefully, breaking his trance.

He grabbed Two’s shoulders and they hoisted him up to the bridge railing. He wasn’t dead yet, despite the hole in him and all the blood loss. He groaned out a few words that Lang couldn’t decipher. Mimi could, she answered back in the same German dialect with venom in her voice.

Once they had him on the top of the wide concrete bridge railing Mimi pushed his feet over. Lang still held his shoulders and hesitated. Mimi reached out and shoved Two out of Lang’s arms. Two grabbed on to Lang’s coat with surprising strength as he fell. Only the bridge railing and Mimi holding onto his arm saved him from being pulled over into the water with Two.

Two looked into his eyes with an intense hatred right up to the moment that his grip weakened, and he slid away to fall into the water ten feet below.

The water accepted him with little splash; Two did not appear again. Mimi pulled on Lang’s arm impatiently. When he looked at her he saw that she had picked up Two’s gun.

PURCHASE EMPTY TIME AT MUSEITUP PUBLISHING, AMAZON, BARNESANDNOBLE.COM AND SMASHWORDS!

Frank Scully was born and raised in a small town in North Dakota and received a Bachelor’s degree in History with Phi Beta Kappa Honors and a Juris Doctor degree in Law from the University of North Dakota. He then served more than five years as a Judge Advocate General Corps Officer in the U.S. Army in the U.S., Vietnam, and Thailand. After that he attended the prestigious Thunderbird School and received a Masters in Business Administration with honors. In his professional career he has worked as an executive with large aerospace and defense manufacturers and also owned his own small business.


Depending on the vagaries of the universe he has been well off at times and broke, but never broken at other times. Blessed with an understanding wife who gave him twin sons, he has remained through it all a dreamer whose passion is writing stories that will entertain readers.


Empty Time is his latest release.
You can visit Frank’s website at www.frankjscully.com.

Mystery Special Feature: Dead Man's Gambit by Frank Scully

A game of real life Monopoly between bitter rivals becomes deadly as one side ups the ante and plays for keeps, but even death can’t stop the game.

Detective-turned-Assistant DA, Mike Johnson finds himself living in a comfortable rut. That is, until Warren Rogga, a friend he helped convict is murdered in prison, leaving only a last request: Protect his family.

Mike owes Warren more than he can repay but is about to find out what it will cost him. It had been an ugly case and is going to get uglier as it draws Mike back into its tangled web of sex, politics, greed, big money and cold hearted killers.

The evidence against Warren, a rich and powerful man, was overwhelming. His mistress and illegitimate child were murdered. He was there that night. They had argued. The murder weapon was found hidden on his property. An open and shut case. Mike couldn’t ignore the evidence he had collected and Warren went to prison.

When he starts to look into the case again, the justice system turns on him. Forced out of his job as a DA, investigated by the police, hounded by the media, and manipulated by powerful people, Mike and his family and friends find their lives in danger as Mike becomes a player in the elaborate game of real life Monopoly played by a masquerade ball coterie of rich men, political power brokers, and an assortment of other crooks and criminals. There is only one rule in the game. Winner lives, loser dies.

Read an excerpt!


For more than seven years he sat in a prison cell, counting each day, planning each measure of retribution for each and every person who had a hand in putting him there. Seven years of waiting, knowing that death could be just around the corner; that the next person who jostled him might stick a knife in his ribs. He carried a scar from a sharpened spoon that just missed vital organs. There was never one moment in those seven years when he felt safe. But he survived in a jungle full of lethal predators. Prison society has its own rigid set of rules. The penalties for not obeying, or even for not knowing, are serious and sometimes fatal.

If he could make it just eight more months and get past the parole board, he might get out. But that wasn’t going to happen. They weren’t waiting.

He knew who they were, even if he had no proof. That didn’t matter. He would mete out his own punishment in his own way.

A shoe scraped down the hall. His stomach tightened. He took a deep breath. The fear could not be denied, but it could be conquered.

And if he didn’t get out, well, he made arrangements for that, too.

Read the reviews!

"Frank Scully crafts a clever whodunit. I could not put the book down. The ancillary characters are as interesting as the main characters. And the twists and turns as he searches for truth and justice make one want to get in there with him and ferret out truth and justice. Wonderfully written! Enjoyed it totally."

--FMAM, reviewed by Dr. Cynthia Lea Clark, Psy.D. MHt.

PURCHASE A COPY OF DEAD MAN'S GAMBIT AT MUSEITUPPUBLISHING.COM OR THESE ONLINE RETAILERS:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

OmniLit

Frank Scully was born and raised in a small town in North Dakota and received a Bachelor’s degree in History with Phi Beta Kappa Honors and a Juris Doctor degree in Law from the University of North Dakota. He then served more than five years as a Judge Advocate General Corps Officer in the U. S. Army in the U. S., Vietnam, and Thailand. After that he attended the prestigious Thunderbird School and received a Masters in Business Administration with honors. In his professional career he has worked as an executive with large aerospace and defense manufacturers and also owned his own small business.

Depending on the vagaries of the universe, he has been well off at times and broke, but never broken, at other times. Blessed with an understanding wife who gave him twin sons, he has remained through it all a dreamer whose passion is writing stories that will entertain readers.

Visit Frank online at www.frankjscully.com.  

Author Spotlight: Frank Scully and Resurrection Garden

Jake Turner, a scarred veteran of the charge up San Juan Hill, has been a lone drifter through much of the settling of the west. Opportunity was growing out of the newly turned sod of the North Dakota prairie in 1904 when he stopped to take a part time job as a Deputy Sheriff, expecting to move on again when the dark parts of his past catch up to him.

An investigation into a murder of a man hated by everyone has threads that lead to his best friend, Isaac. Jake is ambushed and almost killed, but is nursed back to health by Isaac. While Jake follows the clues into a labyrinth of hatred, sordid crimes and missing money he becomes attached to an eight year old orphaned boy named Andy and falls in love with Isaac’s sister, Alice. After being alone for so long with no hope or care for what tomorrow might bring, Jake finds it difficult to accept these new emotional attachments.

Jake believes in Justice, but before he had only his own life on the line. When Andy is kidnapped and almost killed, Jake knows the killers will do anything to stop him. In order to protect Alice and Andy, he must break their hearts and leave them and North Dakota behind.

Jake knows he’ll be back. So do the killers. Trap and counter trap are laid. Jake knows there will be graves. He just doesn’t know who will be in them.

Read an Excerpt!


The sheriff joined me in my contemplation of the body. It wasn’t pretty. Thor had never been handsome and the ravages of being frozen under the snow for the winter and having birds and other animals picking away at the skin as the snow thawed and exposed the body made what was left of him downright disgusting.

One thing was evident though. He hadn’t died easy. Freezing to death is relatively painless. Wander out in the cold, get lost, fall asleep and don’t wake up. That wasn’t what happened to Thor.

“What do you think? Shotgun, maybe?” the sheriff opined.
“At least,” I answered. The hole in his chest was big enough to put a fist through. “But why? He musta been dead already when he was shot.”

“Yeah, first someone beat him to a bloody pulp, then gutted him and slashed his throat. And then shot him. Ain’t that what you said, Doc.”

“Looks that way to me,” Doc answered. “Can’t tell you much more until he thaws out all the way.”

“Somebody wanted him deader than dead,” the sheriff shook his head.

“Takes some hate to do all that,” Doc commented. “Got any suspects?”

Doc and the sheriff both turned to face me.

I let out a deep sigh. “I suppose you want me to find out what happened to him."



Read the Reviews!

“I love mysteries and usually am not a fan of the western genre, but I enjoyed the Resurrection Garden. There was just the right combination of the Old West meets mystery with a wee bit of romance thrown in. Mr. Scully’s written word allows one to feel the dust as the characters are riding away, feel the hardness of the wood beds, see the tumbleweeds roll around us. I felt as if I was right in all of the action as I was reading Resurrection Garden, whether I was recouping with Jake, or investigating. Mr. Scully’s secondary characters are fun. He provides strong visuals as well as he stimulates other senses, for example: You can even smell Andy from the months without a bath.


Resurrection Garden is both a charming western and mystery. Thumbs up!”

–Cynthia Lea Clark, Psy.D.

“…people from rural areas that have lived when life was harsh or been told stories of that time will especially enjoy this book.”

–Amazon reviewer

“I would definetely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery.”

–Amazon reviewer

PURCHASE YOUR COPY TODAY FROM MUSEITUP PUBLISHING! ALSO AVAILABLE IN A KINDLE EDITION!

Frank Scully was born and raised in a small town in North Dakota and received a Bachelor’s degree in History with Phi Beta Kappa Honors and a Juris Doctor degree in Law from the University of North Dakota. He then served more than five years as a Judge Advocate General Corps Officer in the U. S. Army in the U. S., Vietnam, and Thailand. After that he attended the prestigious Thunderbird School and received a Masters in Business Administration with honors. In his professional career he has worked as an executive with large aerospace and defense manufacturers and also owned his own small business.


Depending on the vagaries of the universe he has been well off at times and broke, but never broken, at other times. Blessed with an understanding wife who gave him twin sons, he has remained through it all a dreamer whose passion is writing stories that will entertain readers.

Resurrection Garden, a mystery novel, is the first of five books Frank has under contract with MuseitUp Publishing.
You can visit Frank’s website at http://www.frankjscully.com/.