Interview with author Rick Sulik

Author Rick Sulik joins me today and we’re chatting about his new mystery, Death Unmasked.

Bio:

Rick Sulik was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. After completing high school in Boardman, Ohio, he enlisted and served four years in the United States Air Force Military Police. After receiving an Honorable Discharge, he worked three and a half years with the Houston, Texas Police Department, twenty-two years with the Pasadena, Texas Police Department, and ten years as a courthouse bailiff with the Gonzales County, Texas Sheriff’s Department, before retiring in 2013.

Welcome, Rick. Please tell us about your novel, Death Unmasked.

A reincarnated evil is stalking the women of Houston. With each murder, the madman quotes an excerpt from the Oscar Wilde poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” A huge smokestack belching smoke, a ragged flea market double-breasted wool coat, and an old antique picture frame, bring the distant past back to haunt Houston Homicide Detective, Sean Jamison. With those catalysts, Jamison knows who he was in a past life and that he lost the only woman he could ever love. Searching for his reincarnated mate becomes Jamison’s raison d’être as he and fellow detectives scour Houston for a brutal serial killer. The memory of timeless love drives Jamison’s dogged search for a serial killer, determined to finish what he started decades earlier.

Each clue brings Jamison closer to unmasking his old nemesis. Tenacious police work, lessons learned in the past, and intuition may be the only weapons he has in preventing history from repeating itself.

What inspired you to write this book?

These three inspiring and entrancing songs dramatize the storyline in Death Unmasked: 'Greensleeves,' by Mantovani; 'Think of Laura,' sung by Christopher Cross; and 'Mary in the Morning,' sung by Al Martino, along with Oscar Wilde's disquieting poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol (Jail).”

Excerpt from Death Unmasked:

"I just want to know your feelings about death." 

"Well, I'll unmask it for you. I don't fear death. Death is a natural occurrence. We're no strangers to death, Paula. We lived and died before, and we'll live and die again. Death smiles at all of us. All a person can do, is smile back when death comes calling. Loneliness, is what I fear..."

What exciting story are you working on next?

Death Unmasked took a lot of thought-provoking and deep inner energy to write, and, at the moment, I do not plan on writing another.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I found it a real challenge to be able to switch from 'descriptive' police report 'fact' writing to 'creative' and colorful story-telling 'novel' writing.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Ever since being a big fan of The Mod Squad TV series (1968 - 1973), I wanted to be a police officer.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Death Unmasked, is a suspenseful mystery thriller spanning lifetimes, using reincarnation, karma, psychic ability, remote viewing, and out-of-body experience, to out-wit an evil incarnated entity stalking women in, Houston, Texas.

Links:

Amazon | Publisher | Goodreads

Thanks for being here today, Rick.