Book in the Spotlight, Peculiar Activities by Mark Edward Jones

Please join me in welcoming author Mark Edward Jones. Peculiar Activities looks like a great option for anyone looking for a new mystery to read.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Title: Peculiar Activities

Author: Mark Edward Jones

Genre: Mystery

BLURB:

Henry Ike Pierce is a junior detective in Alexandria, Virginia, newly hired to reassess cold-case killings. On the third day of his new job, a body appears in a local park. The corpse’s desecration is like slayings from over two decades ago, and his boss assigns Henry to his first investigation. He must uncover the present-day killer while his boss pushes him to resolve crimes from the past. Rumors point to a killer called ‘the hooded one.’

Henry seeks a killer within a community of rival ethnic groups, refugees from the 1990s Balkan wars. The recent murder in the park triggers the old passions, leading again to central Europe and a tangle of new intrigue. Money can smooth old hurts, manipulate feelings, and alter allegiances, but finding the guilty is a hopeless task if discoveries are unwelcome.

Distrust, betrayals, conspiracies–the young man from western Virginia’s coal country discovers that ‘trust’ has a flexible definition.

AUTHOR BIO:

Mark retired in 2017 after thirty-three years working in higher education finance and wanted to try writing again. The Wild Rose Press released Peculiar Activities on October 6, 2021, the first book in the Detective Henry Ike Pierce series. This manuscript won first place in the mystery category of the 2019 Oklahoma Writers Federation annual contest.

He signed a contract for the second in this series called Shadowed Souls, currently in an editing phase with a release date in the late summer of 2022.

Mark is one of thirteen authors bringing together thirteen mystery/suspense/horror stories for a Friday the 13th series to be released on May 13, 2022. Mark’s short story is A Gentleman from the Darkness.

His flash fiction piece called “Alone in Warsaw” was published in the Autumn 2019 edition of the U.K. publication, Painted Words.

Mark grew up in Duncan, Oklahoma, then attended the University of Oklahoma, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science and public administration.

He and his wife have three grown children and celebrated their fortieth anniversary in November 2021.

Mystery/suspense/international intrigue novels are his favorite reads, and he’s found a niche with medieval murder mysteries, noting it’s interesting to see the lifestyles from other eras and how crimes were solved.

His favorite music includes Elvis, Chicago, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Boz Scaggs (among many others).