Interview with novelist Hawk MacKinney

Novelist Hawk MacKinney joins me today and we’re chatting about Deal Gold, Book 4 in the Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series. It’s a mix of action thriller and love story.

During his virtual book tour, Hawk will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Hawk MacKinney served in the US Navy for over 20 years. While serving as a Navy Commander, he also had a career as a full-time faculty member at several major state medical facilities. He earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history. He has taught postgraduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem, Israel.

In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate neuroembryology, Hawk has authored several works of fiction—historical love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers. His titles are not genre-centered, but plot-character driven. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his serial protagonist in the Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series—murder and mayhem with a touch of romance. Hidden Chamber of Death, the first book in the mystery series, was followed by Book 2, Westobou Gold and his latest, Book 3, Curse of the Ancients. All have received national attention. The Bleikovat Event was Vol I in The Cairns of Sainctuarie Science Fiction Series followed by Vol II, The Missing Planets. Vol III, Inanna Phantom is in final galleys.

Please share a little bit about your current release and what inspired you to write this book.

During a Rocky Mountain ski vacation in Aspen, CO, I came across the documented killing of a wild-living hard-partying Olympic skier chasing gold with the other underhanded goings-on, and no one went to jail. Skin and money and payoffs, and all the inspirations of the slugs of humanity fell into my lap and onto my keyboard.

Excerpt from Deal Gold:

Lust, greed and body parts await Craige Ingram when he leaves the comforts of his South Carolina home to visit his former SEAL buddy, Detective Spinner Krespinak. Set in the Colorado underbelly of a sable and faux glitz ski mecca, the instincts of retired Navy SEAL, Detective Spinner Krespinak suspect drugs have become a lucrative industry amid unrestrained wild sex parties in the snowy sordid playground that is Aspen. An Olympic ski hopeful is brutally murdered, Spinner vanishes, and Craige Ingram is shot as events spin out of control with a Catch-22 no one anticipates.

What exciting story are you working on next?

Vol III in the Cairns of Sainctuarie Science Fiction Series is in galley proof edit.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

In the 6^th grade writing serial mysteries for my class newsletter.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

You make/budget time to write full-time. Up 4-4:30 a.m. for two hours with a raw quadruple steamed espresso, black as Marine Corps bilge water. Another hour+, then lunch and to-do lists that have nothing to do with writing… and all the while keeping my eyes and ears on RECORD. When I take a break, it is with a good non-fiction…quantum physics or biographies.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I find it fun doing in no-good SOBs that hurt for no reason other than being lazy. They provide endless stories for my imagination to plunder.

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

Probably a cowboy…

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Feed and care for the 12-year old and the dreams that still live inside you—the child in us needs TLC and daily encouragement. After that, it’s ALL uphill.

Links:

Website | YouTube

Thank you for being a guest on my blog!

…and thank you for hosting me and Dead Gold, my latest title in the MOCCASIN HOLLOW MYSTERY SERIES.

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New interview with thriller author Hawk MacKinney

Welcome, Readers. Thriller author Hawk MacKinney is visiting again. This time we’re talking about his new suspense, Westobou Gold.

During his virtual book tour, Hawk will be awarding one $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Internationally acclaimed author and public speaker, Hawk MacKinney began writing for his school newspapers. Since retiring from over 20 years in the US Navy Reserve and a tenured faculty member at several state medical facilities, teaching postgraduate courses in the United States and Jerusalem, Israel, Hawk has authored several novels that have received national and international recognition. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel, was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award. This was followed by the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. Volume 1 - The Bleikovat Event began his science fiction series, The Cairns of Sainctuarie, and was followed by the release of Volume 2 - The Missing Planets. Hawk’s latest project focuses on The Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series—Book 1 in the series, Hidden Chamber of Death, and Book 2, Westobou Gold, a 2016 release. The third title is in the works.

Welcome back to Reviews and Interviews, Hawk.

Thank U…It’s nice to be here and see familiar faces.

Please tell us about your newest release.

Westobou Gold is a mystery thriller about a legend of the hidden treasures entrusted to an Indian queen determined to protect it. The legend stirs the weak-brained greed and warped blinding madness into a reality unto itself. Treasure hunters following long-dead Spaniards are desperate to find the golden hoard. Centuries pass; empires rise & fall, but the whispers grow faint…the hunt for the treasure lurks. Burial mounds are plundered, no treasure ever found; yet the legends persist.

The lavender fragrance of grey-green wisteria and crisp Turkish coffee permeated the mist-shroud lowlands between the bayous and the river of the Westoes. Moccasin Hollow lazed in the creeping twilight dawn. Beyond the kitchen door Lucky, Craige Ingram’s German shepherd gnaws a favorite bone. Looted burial mounds seem to belong to another world. But they aren’t. Fresh ransacking on Moccasin Hollow land brings amateur archeologist PI Craige Ingram into the crosshairs of kidnapping and stealthy hideaways concealed in the revolutionary grottos river-dug in the basements of colonial Ardochy plantation. Sex-tape sex-ring blackmail, and thrill killings on federal land spurs a medical examiner’s preliminary postmortem to more than a hired mercenary cleaner’s quickie cover-up passed off as drug deals gone sour. In a witch’s tangled pigswill of illicit affairs and murder-to-hide-murder, shady investigators and shadier politics go awry with unforeseen consequences as greed and madness ensnare the lives of those at Moccasin Hollow in a spiteful plot with ex-SEAL Ingram dead center.

What inspired you to write this book?

Some surviving historical book-wormy libraries full of disintegrating historical originals, plantations, unstable rat and spider tunnels along a very deceptively sluggish river, and backwater bayou ‘gator homes…it was tale waiting to be spun.

Excerpt from Westobou Gold:

Leeza picked one of her days off when Crawforde was out of town. She second-guessed herself as she thought how to go about it, and found herself making the turn onto the curved weeded Ardochy drive and parked next to the old granite buggy steps. She walked around to the front door and turned the ornate brass bell ringer; listened to its clang-ding echo. Waited. Nothing. She gave the brass knob another twist.

The door opened a crack, “Who’re you? What you want?” The door opened slightly more, “What you doin' on this property? Radcliffe and Ardochy is closed for renovation. Won’t be open till restorations are complete.”

The gruff bushy-brows startled her. A bit of sweetness couldn’t hurt, “I wanted to visit Ardochy.”

“Both are private property. I asked you what you were doin' here?”

“Are you the caretaker?”

“I don’t see that’s none of your business. Ain’t your place to ask questions. You’re on private property.”

“I’m doing a research paper for my history professor at the university in Columbia about the confederate battles near Aiken.”

“The Battle of Aiken?” The door opened wider.

“The McGiffern family and the name of Ardochy has come up several times. The university librarian told me most of the McGiffern papers were still in Redcliffe and Archochy.”

“Far as I know they’re all still on the shelves, but they’re book-wormed and full of silver fish. Pages are rotten. Fall to pieces in your hand. Ink faded, barely readable. I think the fellow handling the McGiffern properties is making arrangements to move them.”

“I’d be ever so grateful if you could show me. I know it’s imposing, but I won’t take long.”

Grumpy face disappeared; the door opened, “Only for a few minutes. I got things to do.”

Leeza gushed, “Thank you ever so much.” In the stifling afternoon humidity she felt a twinge uneasy as she followed him up the age-worn creak of solid wood stair steps that spoke of by-gone years. The long hallway talked to her, and she caught the slow steady tick-tock of a great clock somewhere.

“Library is right in here,” the caretaker ushered her in.

The moment she walked into the smaller room Leeza was bewildered, near to the point of being overwhelmed. Crawforde’s office had nothing like this. The narrow shelves were crammed with frayed folio volumes and stacks of handwritten papers and letters. “I expected this room to be bigger.”

He said, “This isn’t the main library. This room was Miss Theosia’s. Where she took her afternoon tea and sit and read.”

On the small desk with its rickety chair lay large leather-bound volumes, one trimmed in blue. Too big for her to hide and sneak out, “All these books and papers.”

“Still laying right where Miss Theosia last left them. Nothin’ fake about this place. Old man Virgil told me once when the landings flooded and the river got high, how he saw pottery and bones sticking out along the washed-out river banks. When the water went down Virgil went back and reburied the bones. Never told nobody what else he found. If he found anything he wouldn’t have told nobody. Folks talked about him. How Virgil was a dumb field hand. He wadn’t one bit dumb. Times when Redcliffe was a workin’ plantation and when the field bell rung after supper, I’d often see him sitting in that very chair with one of these books on his lap, readin’ away. He read every one of these books, sometimes more’n once.” Quick look at the shelves, “Some got wet during times they was hid in the tunnels and caves along the river ’twixt here and Savannah. Tunnels are older than Redcliffe. Indians likely lived in the first ones. McGiffern's been hiding things in the tunnels since before this place was built.” With a wicked chuckle, “Early on it was corn squeezin’s bein’ shipped to Savannah Towne. Ain’t safe to go in them no more. All soggy when the river’s high. Timbers gone rotten. Most clogged with cave-ins. Lots of critters, turtles and snakes. Easy to get buried; no one’d ever know. Mud an’ river an’ rot can make a body disappear real quick if’n gators don’t take it first.”

“I’m terrified of snakes.”

He said, “Plenty of them about.”

Leeze recalled what her fifth grade teacher once said—how a book's value comes from what’s inside. Leeza said, “One of my teachers knew about some of the tunnels.”

What’s the next writing project?

Final edits of the galley manuscripts in the Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series and the sci-fi The Cairns of Sainctuarie.

What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (Or the biggest challenge with this book)

New book or this book…thank the powers that be that my editors are relentless in spotting my challenges/stumbles incorporated in the outlines/plots/characters, and quickly let me know, “Do something.” I trust them totally. Wrong character, wrong setting, dead people speaking…it’s not easy keeping up with gory murder and who done in whom, but it’s sort’a fun when you resurrect them.

If your novels require research – please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?

Yes – on the research. Usually done at the same time…however…during the first two or three draft edits, when the early smoothness of flow and transition is scrutinized. Should a scene/character/section need deeper additional research, that part of a draft is coded for reference/research. The internet is a great tool, and, of course, everything on the net is factual since it wouldn’t be there otherwise…and down that black hole we go. It’s a real caveat in the field of science fiction where quantum physics and the large hadron collider are changing things almost by the hour. Reference librarians with their antique equipment of a pencil and note pad are gems among the smart-phone clutter. They must be aliens from an advanced society

What’s your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.

My writing space where I put the freight train with its passengers through twists and double-twists is the usual writer’s space…one window behind me – the rest of the room full of notes and manuscript edits. No music, no distractions, no interferences with the fantasies. A given definition of a writer: a person alone in a room full of paper.

The muse is always hyperactive, resulting in some rude social behavior when I get lost in my radar of people/crowds/settings etc. while in a public place with guest AND totally ignoring them. It’s totally unintentional but nevertheless quite inexcusable. I love the habit of it…ooo…that is bad.

What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?

Historical nonfiction. - the unabridged Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, Kosovo, Midway, Battles of Leyte Gulf. Stuffy boring stuff except to those of us who are bookworms with a penchant for things dun Gone with the Breezes.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?

Keep guessing the who-dun it and the how-dun it. I’ll keep trying to elude the readers with blind end stumbles until the last chapter. Ain’t it fun…kind’a like chess with pawns and knights and bishops went and gone someplace else.

Links:

Website | Facebook | Goodreads

Thank you for coming back to Reviews and Interviews!

It a genuine pleasure to interact with readers/hosts, along with a sincere thank you, Lisa, for hosting Westobou Gold, Book 2 in the Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series. The galley for Book 3 in the series is in final edits as well as a sci-fi title also in galley. An earlier historical romance, Moccasin Trace, establishes the bloodline(s) of Craige Ingram in the Moccasin Hollow Series.

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Interview with author Hawk MacKinney

Today’s special guest is author Hawk MacKinney. He’s chatting with me about his new mystery/suspense novel, Hidden Chamber of Death.

During his virtual book tour, Hawk will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Internationally acclaimed author and public speaker, Hawk MacKinney began writing mysteries for his school newspapers. Following graduation, he served in the US Navy for over 20 years. While serving as a Navy Commander, he also had a career as a full-time faculty member at several major state medical facilities. He earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history. He has taught postgraduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem, Israel.

In addition to professional articles and texts on fetal and adult anatomy, Hawk has authored several novels that have received national and international recognition. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel, was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award. This was followed by the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. In a change of direction, October of 2012 saw the release of Hawk’s first science fiction novel, The Bleikovat Event, in The Cairns of Sainctuarie series. Volume II in The Cairns of Sainctuarie series, The Missing Planets, was released in 2014 with Volume III in the works.

Hawk’s latest project focuses on The Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series. Book 1 in the series, Hidden Chamber of Death, was just released, and Book 2 in the series, Westobou Gold, will be released in the fall.

What comes first: the plot or the characters?

Depends on how/when an idea strikes me. Title-plot-setting-character(s)…I carry a notepad with me night or day. Never know when resolution to a plot or an idea will hit.

What genre do you write and why?

The Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series

The Cairns of Sainctuarie Series - sci-fi

Historical romance

A reader identifies with the tale and the characters…sci-fi, thrillers, and the special lure of romance, which motivates the whole churn of it. Genre doesn’t exist. It’s a gimmick established in ancient Greek literature…so ancient it’s modern and meaningless. Genres are for bookstores & websites. In reality, each book combines all of these elements.

Please tell us a little bit about Hidden Chamber of Death.

Hidden Chamber of Death is a compelling tale of intrigue, murder, deception and suspense that leads retired Navy SEAL/part-time private investigator Craige Ingram in search of the connection between seemingly random murders and a banking conspiracy. Working with the local homicide investigator, who just happens to be a former Navy buddy, Craige Ingram's attempts to protect a lonely widow and solve the case before another person dies are only thwarted by a psychotic killer whose motivation is based on pure depraved pleasure. In this first book of the MOCCASIN HOLLOW MYSTERY SERIES, the instincts and skills Ingram and his buddy acquired as Navy SEALS are tested to their limits.

Excerpt from Hidden Chamber of Death:

The battered, green side door with its peeling, leprosy paint framed one small window with smudged shattered wire-glass. The door cracked just enough for a pair of bright blue eyes to peek out at him.

A voice said, “That you, Mister Craige?” The grey head was hardly visible.

“Yes,” Craige said. “Sallie Mae, that you?” Got no answer, and she didn’t come out.

The door left ajar; rusty hinges squeaked as Craige pushed against it and stepped into a vacuous, black void, the air heavy with a peculiar, stale warmth. He was more than queasy. It had the makings of a perfect ambush layout. Talk about the perfect setup. If Zeb hadn’t OKed the time and place, he would’ve been out of there. Except for jumbled, grimy clutter and vague outlines in a trashed yawning interior, he could make out no details. As his eyes adjusted, Craige found himself facing two frail figures who’d been standing there the whole time.

“Sallie Mae?”

With a fragile movement Sallie Mae said, “Right here. A’gatha Ruth here’s not too pleased about Zeb tellin’ you where to find us.”

“Don’t like this a darn tootin’,” Agatha said. “Nobody’s bizness.” She was testy. “Plenty robbin ‘n ‘killin’ to be took care of ‘stead of cops pokin’ in folk’s private matters. Botherin’ folks what druthers be left alone.”

“I don’t work for the police,” Craige said.

Agatha continued, “Fiddle-de-dee, who you think you’re foolin’? Tain’t a mite of difference twixt you and MacGerald ‘cept he calls it what it be—cop.” She had wizened, bottomless eyes. “Claimin’ we make corn squeezin’s.” Her ire rose. “Don’t try puttin’ no lyin’ to me. I know what the likes of you is after. Them bunch of scallywags wants you to help take away Sallie Mae’s croup potions.” Wiped her mouth with her hand. “That’s what, you’re after Sallie’s makin’s.” She didn’t care for him one bit.

“We been run out from lots’a places,” Sallie Mae said. “Lord knows, these old bones don’t take up much room, and these empty buildings ain’t no use fer nothin’ much.”

Craige interrupted, “Zeb told me you saw the killing in the bank’s garage.”

“Both of us seen it,” Agatha said. “What you want to know for anyhow? We ain’t talkin’ to no cops. Might as well git that out on the table right now. They throw us in jail, say we the ones what did it till we tell where our still wuz.”

“You see who did it?” Craige asked.

“‘Course we seen the man who done it,” Sallie Mae said. “Didn’t see no face, saw his big black car, the kind what rich folks drive.” She shook her head. “Lordy mercy, that poor woman didn’t have no chance.”

Agatha nodded, “Skeer a body plumb to death. Gives me chill blains jus’ thinkin’ on it. Like some animal, like he wadn’t mad. Jes took o’nry mean pleasure beating her.”

Craige asked, “You know it was a man?”

“Jesus my all!” Agatha Ruth spit snuff juice into a paper stuffed big peach can. “You ain’t much good at detecting if you cain’t tell whether a body be man or woman. Maybe you need readin’ glasses. Gettin’ a mite blurry myself, but I don’t have to see a body close-up to tell it was a man, and sure didn’t want that one close-up no how. Tell by the way he hit. He was hefty enough he didn’t have to put much swing to it. Kept whackin’n’whackin’, blood everywhere. Even after she mostly quit moving, he kept hittin’n’hittin’, her legs just’a jerkin’.”

Craige made a mental note to check with Fred if any clothing, gloves, anything showed DNA different from any of the victims.

“Awful!” Sallie Mae shivered. “We hunkered down so he wouldn’t see us.” The filtered light framed Sallie Mae’s dignified, wrinkled face, ancient beyond years with a proud reserve.

Agatha said, “Even after the police got there, we never told them what we seen.”

When did you start writing?

As a kid sitting on the back stoops with Grannie, counting lightnin’ bugs, lis’nin’ to her create bogdacious (bodacious) tales of haints and stars and worlds…it was endless.

Do you listen to music when you write and if so, what kind of music?

The great classics, Chopin, Beethoven, Sibelius, Smetana’s Má vlast, the great Russian composers, from the romantic period/The Beach Boys/ABBA. If it distracts…my man-cave is silenced.

What is your next project?

The Cairnes of Sainctuarie Series sci-fi…Vol 3

The Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series…Book 3

What helps overcome writer’s block?

Give the manuscript a rest. Give your brain/fantasy/imagination a rest. Put the working draft away. Work on something else AND let the ‘bother’ sit on the shelf WITH a notepad forever handy. Stuff your mind/imagination/characters & plot with another work you’re puzzling together…let the bother become dust-ware. You’ll go back with a fresh view of it.

Your books are set in many places. Have you ever been there?

Set in South Carolina and Georgia, Colorado, other states of the lower 48, Scotland, England, Israel…vacationed/lived in most all. Most of the settings still exist…& most of those living thereabouts know nothing of the secrets lurking so close.

Links:

Website | Trailer | Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Thanks for being here today, Hawk!

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