Interview with crime thriller author Gregory Delaurentis

Today is a virtual book tour stop for Gregory Delaurentis and his novel Cover of Darkness.

Gregory will be giving away a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card to a lucky commentor. You can enter for a chance to win through the form below. To increase your chances of winning, visit other tour stops and enter there, too. 

Blurb about Cover of Darkness:  

A high profile murder of a Wall Street executive in Westchester pits three people against the criminal underbelly of Manhattan nightlife. The key players are two ex-cops turned private investigators—Kevin Whitehouse, whose sharpest tool is his keen analytical mind, and David Allerton, a former Special Forces operative—and Margaret Alexander, Kevin’s lover. In their search for a killer, they are forced to travel to the edge of sanity and morality, while stumbling onto their own confusing secrets as well. The Cover of Darkness is a gritty noir saga that untangles a web of deceit in the course of tracking down a brutal murderer.

Excerpt from Cover of Darkness:

David first opened the door to a closet on the left, searching it with the gun muzzle, before approaching the door at the end of the hall and kicking it open. An angry, naked man stood on the other side, his anger changing to fear in seconds once he beheld the gun pointing in his direction.

“Get back into bed,” David ordered.

The pale-bodied man responded as he staggered backward. The foot of the bed struck the back of his knees, sending him seated on the mattress. The woman on the bed had by this time covered herself with the sheets, and curled her legs up.

While Kevin stood nervously in the doorway, David searched the room and the closets, the muzzle of the shotgun again serving as a probe, but found no one.

“What the…?” Chase asked David.

After searching through the room, David tossed the shotgun to Kevin.

Suddenly, Chase went white-hot heat, crawling backward into the arms of his woman in sheer panic screaming, “What do you want?!”

“I want information,” David demanded, going to the foot of the bed, standing before them with Kevin directly behind him. “I want to know who whacked Osterman.”

“How am I to know?!” Chase shouted back. His hair was a wild tangle, his eyes wide as saucers with fright.

“Don’t yell at me,” David said calmly. “I want answers. I’m not interested in killing you.”

“You bust into my crib and start throwing guns around. You’re crazy, man, what do you think I’m thinking?”

“You were moving dope for Osterman,” David persisted, ignoring Chase’s remarks.

“Osterman! He jerked me.”

“With the Colombians.”

“Damn right.”

“And you didn’t like that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“So, you had one of your soul brothers do him in.”

“Oh hell, no. My people don’t kill. We don’t mess with weapons like you do.”

“And the reason for that?”

“More jail time . . . What are you? A cop?”

“Don’t worry about what I am,” David growled back. “You are moving weight. I want to know what happened after Osterman jerked you.”

“He jerked me. That’s all.”

“That’s all? You didn’t go to the Colombians? Liar!”

“Yes, yes, I did that!” Chase corrected. “I went to the Colombians as soon as I knew he jerked me. I begged them to give me another chance. They said they would, if I replaced their one hundred kilos. One hundred kilos! How do I do that?”

“Put bullets into Osterman for revenge.”

“How is that going to get me my one hundred kilos?”

“Let me explain it to you, genius. The Colombians trust Osterman enough to give him a heavy shipment. You find it, whack him, and take his shipment back to the Colombians. Paid in full.”

Chase thought that over for a second or two. “But that’s not what happened.”

“Convince me otherwise.”

The word “Freeze!” were suddenly heard from the doorway. David frowned as he glanced over his shoulder to see a scruffy looking black male, armed with his own shotgun.

Author information:

Gregory Delaurentis spent his adult life roaming from job to job, working for Lockheed in California, various law firms in New York, and financial firms on Wall Street. Throughout this period of time, he was writing—unceasingly—finally producing a large body of work, albeit unrecognized and unpublished . . . until now. Cover of Darkness is the first in a series of upcoming books that include Edge of Darkness, Pale of Darkness, and Cries of Darkness.

These novels follow the lives of three individuals who do battle bringing criminals to justice, while they struggle to understand the complex relationships that exist among themselves. This intriguing trio has absorbed the attention of Mr. Delaurentis for the past year and a half, so much so he decided to self-publish their stories to bring them to a wider audience.

[AUTHOR’S DISCLAIMER: These are works of fiction. Name, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.]

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What are four things you can’t live without?

One, my laptop; two, my diabetic gear; three, my Playstation 3; and four, my Galaxy Note II smartphone. I think I can survive anything with just the above. I might switch my terabyte drives for the Playstation 3 if they are not counted with the laptop. I have a lot on those things.

What is the sweetest thing someone has done for you?

When I was just married, I worked as night security, and the guards would gather before a large television set and play with a Playstation 2. It was infinitely fun, and I found myself addicted. I couldn’t wait to get to work to get my hands on a controller and spend the night, not thwarting crime but instead playing this game and that.

One night, on a weekend that I didn’t have work, I went over to my brother-in-law’s home for a dinner party and while there he showed me his new Playstation 2 and I was so excited for him. I sat down with him and showed him how to use it, but more than that I played with it as much as I could. Suddenly the party surrounded me, and I honestly thought they were interested in my skill at playing the game, but my brother-in-law turned to me and stated that it was my game.

My wife had bought it for me. I was both awestruck and swept away on a tidal wave of joy. I jumped up and hugged and kissed her tenderly, thanking her for my gift. It was the most wonderful thing that anyone had ever done for me, and the most thoughtful.

If you could be any character, from any literary work, who would you choose to be? Why?

That would be Sheriff Brody from the book Jaws by Peter Benchley. I felt he had the most idyllic life that I had ever encountered. He lived in a modest home in Amityville Long Island in a beachfront community. It was a small town where everyone knew everyone—you know, the fishbowl effect. He had a wonderful sexy wife and obedient, well as obedient as young people can be, children. In the mornings he would make a thermos of coffee, his wife would make a bag lunch and he would hop into a jeep and drive to the town precinct, greeting everyone he passed. Once at work he would greet his half-witted but honest hearted deputies and then oversaw the simple, petty squabbles of the townsfolk. At the end of the day he most likely sat back in his chair in his office with his feet on his desk, watching as the sun settled on the flat ocean horizon.

How would you spend ten thousand bucks?

I would spend ten thousand bucks quite quickly in fact. I love computer applications, peripherals, gadgets, games, and books. I buy them to an overabundance now and given the opportunity I think I would buy a third laptop, more monitors, another cable internet connection, more terabyte hard drives, better computer speakers and then go app cruising for the neatest, coolest applications I could find. Yeah, I guess you can imagine already that I’m a geek.

What are 5 things within touching distance?

Easy, a 21 inch HD computer monitor, my 17 inch laptop, two terabyte drives, and my cable box.

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