AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.
Dear Reader,
Today's guest author, Christi Daugherty, writes...
As a newspaper reporter, I began covering murders at the age of 22. I worked as a journalist for years in cities including Savannah, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. Eventually my work took me to England, where I wrote my international bestselling Night School series under the name CJ Daugherty.
The Echo Killing was the first novel in my Harper McClain Mysteries series. A Beautiful Corpse book two in the series (set in Savannah), was just released.
Email me at: [email protected]
The Night of the Sniper
When I was a crime reporter in Savannah, I had a unique ability to stumble into the middle of the crime scenes I was trying to cover. This was never better illustrated than the night of the sniper.
Quick backstory: I was twenty-two and extremely earnest. I climbed over fences to get closer to house fires, trudged through hypodermic needles to get a good look at drug dens. I was 'dedicated.'
And when police reported a man with a hunting rifle shooting from the roof of a Victorian row-house downtown, I was ready.
A photographer and I raced through the rain to the scene only to find we couldn't get near the action. Police had taped off dozens of blocks.
For a while we sulked, listening to our scanners. But then the photographer thought of something. Motioning for me to follow, he walked off. A block away he turned into a dark alley.
"It occurred to me they wouldn't think to crime tape the alleys." He shot me triumphant look. "I was right."
Soon, we could hear the crack of gunfire, and the occasional thudding of feet as police ran in one direction or another nearby. The only problem was, we couldn't see anything, and we had no idea where we were. Alleys don't have street signs and we'd been walking quite a while. After a while, we separated. He went out to the main street, I stayed in the alley, looking for the main crime scene.
As I walked in the darkened lane, the gunshots, grew louder and louder. In the canyon of buildings, it was difficult to tell where they were coming from. They seemed to be all around me. Suddenly, without warning, someone grabbed me around the waist and dragged me into the shadows behind a row of garbage cans.
Terrified, I struggled, finally twisting around to see that I was being held by a SWAT officer, dressed in all black, and glowering at me.
"Are you trying to get your ass shot?" he demanded.
"Of course not!" I replied. "I'm a reporter."
"Well you were nearly a dead reporter." He pointed up.
I looked where he indicated. A police spotlight was trained on the top floor, almost directly above our head. In its glow I made out the line of a rifle barrel.
No one died that night. The police talked the man down. The crime tape kept the public safe. The police chief personally complained to my editor about our invasion of the crime scene.
The editor complimented me on getting a great story.
And so it goes.
-- Christi Daugherty
[email protected]
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
** AUTHORBUZZ **
WORTH FIGHTING FOR (Fiction) by Laura Kaye
Imagining meeting someone with whom you have an immediate connection, one so intense you share a scorching hot night together. And then you find out that you now work at the same job--a job that both of you prize as your chance for a fresh start. That's Jesse and Tara's standalone love story, and it's so sexy, fun, and emotional! And watching them give in and fight for what they've found is so very satisfying!
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on WORTH FIGHTING FOR to read more and to email author Laura Kaye, you'll get a reply.
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT, by Sally Roesch Wagner, with an introduction by Gloria Steinem. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading today and enter for your chance to win.
Comments