Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The White Devil of Dublin

I am nearly finished with the sequel to The Tempest Murders, and my publisher has registered the name for it: The White Devil of Dublin.

If you've read The Tempest Murders, you'll recall that Detective Ryan O'Clery is investigating a string of murders that bears a striking resemblance to a serial murder case a distant ancestor worked nearly two hundred years earlier and half a world away - in Ireland.

The suspect in Ryan's case is described as a South African native named Diallo Delport. He is six feet, four inches tall and weighs 245 pounds. He is an albino with alabaster skin, white hair and eyes a light periwinkle color. But perhaps the most startling physical characteristic is the scar that begins just below one eye. It is raised and prominent, and ends on his cheek in another, teardrop-shaped scar.

Each of the women killed had her throat slit cleanly from one ear to the other. There was no sign of a struggle, but each woman's eyes were open and filled with horror and terror - expressions that remained after their deaths.

Ryan O'Clery's great uncle five generations back was Rian Kelly, a man for whom he was named. In 1839 Ireland as Rian tried to solve the serial murder case, he lost his own lover and soul mate to the killer. His case was never solved... or was it?

In The White Devil of Dublin, due to hit the bookstores this fall, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian contacts Ryan with information regarding his ancestors - and a mysterious albino from the 12th century. When Ryan shows up at their agreed-upon meeting, he finds the historian murdered, her throat slit from one ear to the other.

The case takes Ryan on a whirlwind investigation that leads not only to the present-day killer...

But to 12th century Ireland, where it all began.