BooksChatter: ☀ Checkmate: The Harry Starke Novels [4]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Checkmate, a Hard Boiled Mystery by Blair Howard (17 February 2016, Blair Howard, 284 pages).

This is the fourth stand-alone book in The Harry Starke Novels series. Grab the first instalment, Harry Stark, FREE when you sign up to Blair Howard's Newsletter!!

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below, as well as details of the other books in the series. Read the first three chapters with Amazon Look Inside.
Checkmate is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Author Blair Howard will be awarding one signed copy of Harry Stark (Book 1) to two randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

They found Angela Hartwell lying in the shallow waters beside the golf course. There was not a mark on her, yet she was dead, strangled. How could that be?

Once again, it’s up to Harry Starke to find out. The investigation takes him into a world he’s very familiar with, a world of affluence, privilege and… corruption.

To solve the mystery, he must deal with three murders, a beautiful used car dealer, her lovely twin sisters, and a crooked banker. Not to mention Burke and Hare, two crazy repo men who will stop at nothing to protect their employer’s interests.

There's also the matter of an ingenious, sadistic killer. But nothing is ever quite what it seems....

Teaser: Excerpt

     Judge Strange was teeing his ball when we heard a shout.
     “Hey Harry! Over here!” It was Greg Holloway. He was standing by his cart on the right side of the seventh green, in the rough close to the river’s edge, waving both arms over his head. I figured he must have put his ball in the water. I waved back, then turned to watch the judge make his shot.
     “Harry! Harry Starke!”
     What the hell? I turned again. He was still waving his arms.
     “C’mere, Harry. Now. We’ve got a body in the water!”
     I turned to the others. “Did he say ‘body?’”
     “I think he did, “August said. “Better go take a look.”
     We ran to the carts, threw our clubs into the bags, and raced off down the fairway toward the still-waving Greg Holloway.
     “Over there.” He pointed as he ran toward the water’s edge.
     “Hey. Whoa,” I yelled. “Don’t go down there, Greg. Stay away. Don’t disturb anything.”
     The woman was just a few feet from the riverbank, lying on her back in six inches of water. She looked peaceful, but there was no doubt about it: she was dead.
     At first glance she appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She was wearing dark blue shorts and a white, long-sleeve shirt over a black bra, and a wrist watch—no shoes. From where I was standing, there didn’t look to be a mark on her. No cuts or bruises. Her skin, a dirty gray color, told a story all its own. Oh hell, what a way to go…. Hang on. I think I know her.

Checkmate
Available NOW!

The Series: The Harry Starke Novels

˃˃˃ Who is Harry Starke?

Harry Starke is a private detective, a big fish in a small pond. He's a tough individual with a past, a conscience, and friends in high places. He’s single, successful, wealthy, and he loves beautiful things, especially women. He's well educated, and he will hurt you if he needs to.

All novels in this series can be read stand-alone; they are FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

[1] | [2] | [3] |

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Harry Starke [1]

**FREE when you sign up to Blair Howard's Newsletter**

Why Did Tabitha Willard Throw Herself off the Walnut Street Bridge?

It's almost midnight, bitterly cold, snowing, when a beautiful young girl, Tabitha Willard, throws herself off the Walnut Street Bridge into the icy waters of the Tennessee. Harry Starke is there, on the bridge. Wrong time, wrong place? Maybe. He tries, but is unable to stop her.

Thus begins a series of events and an investigation that involves a local United States congressman, a senior lady senator from Boston, a local crime boss, several very nasty individuals, sex, extortion, high finance, corruption, and three murders. Harry has to work his way through a web of deceit and corruption until finally....

Well, as always, there's a twist in the tale, several in fact.

[Published 7 September 2015, 275 pages]

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Two For The Money [2]

Who Killed Tom Sattler? Who Stole $350 Million from New Vision Strategic Investments?

It's up to Harry Starke to Figure it out

The call came on a Tuesday evening in the middle of August at around nine-thirty. It was from an old school friend that Harry Starke hadn't heard from in almost five years, and he hadn't thought about him in almost as long. Tom Sattler wanted to meet with Harry urgently, and it wouldn't wait until morning. When Harry arrived at Sattler's luxury home less than an hour later, he found him dead, lying in a pool of blood, a single gunshot wound to the head, and .22 revolver lying close to his hand.

Suicide? If he was going to do that, why the hell did he call me?

The search for an answer to that question starts Harry on wide ranging investigation that involves murder, corruption, organized crime, and, deception.

[Published 22 October 2015, 355 pages]

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Hill House [3]

For more than ten years, she lay beneath the floorboards of Hill House. For more than ten years, she waited. Who was she? Who put her there? Why?

Harry Starke vows to find the answers to those questions, but to do so he must embark upon an investigation that will put him and those close to him in deadly danger, take him deep into the underground city, the Dark Web, murder, organized crime, prostitution, and human trafficking.

One by one, he peels back the layers, and with each one, he sinks a little deeper into the morass, the seamy underbelly of a world few know of, and even fewer want to be a part of.

Hill House has many doors. None of them lead anywhere but into darkness and despair.

[Published 15 December 2015, 330 pages]

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About the Author

Blair Howard is from a small town in England, near Stratford-upon-Avon, on the edge of the English Cotswolds.

He is Kentucky Colonel, an honor bestowed upon him in 2008 by the then Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Steven L. Beshear.

Until 2015, he wrote sweeping historical epics, and is the author of five historical novels.

In July of 2015 he decided to try his hand at writing mystery novels, thus we have Harry Starke. The first in the series, Harry Starke, was released in mid-September 2015. The second novel, Two for the Money, was released October 19 the same year, Hill House, in mid-December 2015, and Checkmate in February 2016, and there are more to come.

Blair is the author of more than 40 books and more than 4,500 magazine, newspaper, and web articles. His work has appeared in many national and international publications, including Delta's Sky Magazine, PHOTOgraphic magazine, The Mail on Sunday, The Walking Magazine, Petersen's Hunting Magazine, The Boston Herald, The Detroit Free-Press, The Anchorage Times and many more.

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