Forensic scientist Sean McKinney has been asked by his daughter's college roommate to help find her missing sister. It's his daughter's first year at Tulane, and single father McKinney is having a tough time adjusting to being an empty nester. He heads down to New Orleans to lend a hand in the investigation, but when his own daughter is kidnapped the gloves come off. Now, the forensic scientist must put down his microscope and venture into the Louisiana swamps for a showdown with a crazed killer. Part crime story, part historical fiction, The Blue Silence moves from modern day Chicago to Reconstruction Era Louisiana and back to the bayou where the most dangerous animals aren't the gators.
Tim Chapman is a former forensic scientist for the Chicago police department who currently teaches writing and tai chi chuan. He holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Northwestern University. His fiction has been published in The Southeast Review, the Chicago Reader, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal, and the anthology, “The Rich and the Dead.” His first novel, “Bright and Yellow, Hard and Cold,” was a finalist in Shelf Unbound’s 2013 Best Indie Book competition. His short stories have been collected under the title, “Kiddieland and other misfortunes.” In his spare time he paints pretty pictures and makes an annoying noise with his saxophone that he claims is music. He lives in Chicago with his lovely and patient wife, Ellen, and Mia, the squirrel-chasingest dog in town.
Here's hoping your holidays are happier than Justine's. Excerpted from "The Blue Silence: Murder New Orleans Style."
Book Excerpt
The Blue Silence
I hoped the baby would arrive on Christmas day, perhaps as a symbol that God was welcoming my child into the world, but luck was against me again, and the boy was born several days before. Mathieu Peter Boisseau was born on December the twenty-second in the year eighteen ninety-one. Even naming my baby Mathieu, my father’s given name, couldn’t soften his heart. He saw it as a trick and refused even to be in the same room with the child, for fear he would grow to love him.
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