New Mystery Releases Today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Mystery Skewers Tourist Town Personalities

(Williamsburg, VA • July 1, 2010) Cherokee McGhee Publishing announces the release of Greg Lilly’s newest Derek Mason Mystery – Scalping the Red Rocks.

The novel is set in Sedona, Arizona, one of the top tourist destinations in the United States. Sedona is known for the breathtaking natural beauty of the red rocks; its vibrant arts community; the rich Native American, pioneer, and western movie culture; a variety of hiking trails, Jeep tours, and journeys into the New Age movement; all topped with world-class resorts and restaurants. These unique elements contribute to the lively real estate market and spur the story’s beginning.

In Scalping the Red Rocks, the town’s inhabitants are divided by urban growth. Some entrepreneurs try to make a quick buck by selling out the very aspect of the town that drew them: the awe-inspiring views and natural beauty. Spirited, passionate, and a bit mettlesome, Derek Mason helps his aunt Ruby find her place in the New Age haven, but instead they discover her real estate agent scalped in an empty condo. The crafty real estate agent had intended to sell off part of the pristine landscape, to scalp the land to the highest bidder, but someone scalped him first.

Derek meets Myra and Topher, best friends with a shared secret from Devil’s Bridge; Kimbo Blue, a former child star from Hollywood with a eunuch-ness that defies his adult persona; Clarity Received, the New Age girlfriend of the victim; and Tricia, the diva ex-wife. Along with a troupe of paranoid art gallery owners, gossipy sales clerks, sexy day laborers, and a Jeep-driving Yavapai-Apache, the quirky characters of the resort town hamper Derek’s attempts to expose the killer.

Small town secrets, shady deals, and serial arsonists threaten to throw Derek off the trail. The destructive power of greed materializes in the idyllic setting, and Derek struggles to keep his sense of self-value over the immediate gratification of self-indulgence. Temptation from his past jeopardizes his future, unless he can tame his libido and focus. Or will he lose his head too?
“I lived for five years in Sedona, Arizona,” author Greg Lilly says. “The story could only happen in that setting, in that culture.” Lilly had lived for several years in Charlotte, North Carolina before moving to Arizona for a “simpler life.” In the city, he had written the first Derek Mason Mystery that dealt with a large family-owned business. His second novel, Devil’s Bridge, follows characters who tire of the city and end up in Sedona ─ just as he did. “The novel Devil’s Bridge foreshadowed my own escape from the city,” Lilly explains. “So, with this latest mystery, I had to bring those characters into the tale to show the dream versus the reality of a resort town life.”

The early reviewers praise Scalping the Red Rocks for its setting, plot, and characters. "Greg Lilly gives us some unforgettable characters and his ability to create them is amazing,” says Amos Lassen of Literary Pride book reviews. “The residents of Sedona are the kind of people you will never forget."

Author Keith Pyeatt (Struck, Regal Crest Enterprises, 2009) added, “The characters are diverse and real enough to touch, the story is set so firmly in Sedona, it couldn't take place anywhere else, and the varied agendas and motives keep you wondering whodunit to the very end."

Sedona resident and award-winning mystery writer Kris Neri (Revenge for Old Times’ Sake, Cherokee McGhee, 2010) calls the book “A winner!” Then adds, "With eco-terrorists, wildfire and a shocking scalping, Greg Lilly’s Scalping the Red Rocks rips the mask off the superficial New Age haven of Sedona, Arizona, to reveal its darker side, in a don’t-put-it-down mystery that will keep you guessing right up to its stunning climax.”

Echo Magazine’s book critic Bob Lind rates the mystery “five full stars out of five.” Lind, an Arizonan, adds, “I can tell you that Lilly has absolutely nailed the prevailing mindset of many longtime residents of that town (Sedona), making the mystery even more realistic to me... an exciting, well-written page-turner, which will keep you guessing as you slowly learn more about each of its colorful, complex characters.”

Although the book skewers some attitudes and personalities of tourist towns, Lilly says he feels the murder mystery creates a fast-paced story to entertain readers, all readers ─familiar or not with a small town dependent on tourists. “Hilton Head, Williamsburg, Taos, Asheville,” Lilly lists. “These are places with a lot of deals going on behind the scenes. That can make for some interesting characters and situations.”

Scalping the Red Rocks – A Derek Mason Mystery is available now at bookstores and on-line at Amazon.com and BN.com. More information about Greg Lilly and his novels can be found at www.GregLilly.com.

New Derek Mason Mystery releases in July

The new Derek Mason Mystery is going to the editor next week. The title is SCALPING THE RED ROCKS and it is set in my former hometown of Sedona, Arizona – hence the red rocks reference.

If you've never been to Sedona, you need to add it to your list of places to see. There is too much to cover here, and there are plenty of websites, guide books, magazines, and blogs to tell you to visit the places that advertise with them. So, if you decide to go, let me know and I'll give you some tips on places to go and places to stay away from. You see, after five years there, working and knowing people in the workforce, I know the businesses and people that are true and the ones that are out to make a fast buck.

Funny, how businesses will spend thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising an image that their employment practices destroy with the locals. The locals are the workforce, so my advice to the businesses (not just in Sedona, but everywhere) is to treat employees fair because that's a brand you can't buy your way out of.

With that bit of opinion on business operations, I want to say that it does factor into SCALPING THE RED ROCKS. Here's the backcover summary:

SCALPING THE RED ROCKS – a Derek Mason Mystery

Something's askew in the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona. The town's inhabitants are divided by urban growth. Some entrepreneurs try to make a quick buck by selling out the very aspect of the town that drew them: the awe-inspiring views and natural beauty. Spirited, passionate, and a bit mettlesome, Derek Mason helps his aunt Ruby find her place in the New Age haven, but instead they discover her real estate agent scalped in an empty condo. The crafty real estate agent had intended to sell off part of the pristine landscape, to scalp the land to the highest bidder, but someone scalped him first.

Derek meets Myra and Toper, best friends with a shared secret from Devil's Bridge; Kimbo Blue, a former child star from Hollywood with a eunuch-ness that defies his adult persona; Clarity Received, the new-age girlfriend of the victim; and Tricia, the diva ex-wife. Along with a troupe of paranoid art gallery owners, gossipy sales clerks, sexy day workers, and a Jeep-driving Yavapai Apache, the quirky characters of the resort town hamper Derek's attempts to expose the killer.

Small town secrets, shady deals, and serial arsonists threaten to throw Derek off the trail. The destructive power of greed materializes in the idyllic setting, and Derek struggles to keep his sense of self-value over the immediate gratification of self-indulgence. Temptation from his past jeopardizes his future, unless he can tame his libido and focus. Or will he lose his head too?

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The landscape is spectacular, but the dynamic that makes Sedona memorable is her inhabitants. Like most resort/tourist towns, the place has some eccentric characters. One disclaimer that I'm sure I'll have to issue over and over:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or events is entirely coincidental.

Really.

No, REALLY.

Please look for SCALPING THE RED ROCKS this July.

Historical Fiction Represents Culture?

One person said that historical fiction doesn’t represent the culture of a place.

Then what does?

Historical fiction is fiction, but the culture of the time and place the novel is set plays a huge role. The setting becomes a character. In Under a Copper Moon, I researched the people, the town’s history, the attitudes, the food, the fashion, and the laws that dictated how a character would live and work and love.

All the bigotry, prejudices, and narrow-mindedness revealed itself just as the kindness, justice, goodwill, and caring trumped those lower, petty attitudes. It reminded me a lot of current culture – good and bad are present and celebrated by different groups.

You can read historical accounts, old newspapers, diaries and journals of the people who lived during the time. I did. But to take it a step further, to parallel what our ancestors struggled with and how they coped in their lives, to parallel that with our own requires imagination and literary license that binds the storytelling of true non-fiction.

The fun part is to look back with 20/20 vision. I could visualize the culture of Jerome in the Arizona Territory in 1894 and I could experience it today. I pulled the types of events and characters that would have led the town to its current way of life.

The key is reading historical fiction with an adult view and bringing your own experiences to the story along with the recent history of the setting. From my past in corporate instructional design, I realize that adults bring experience with them to everything they do (unlike children who seem to need more details and repetitious, routine, rote learning) and this allows an author to use a phrase that brings more to the table than the mere words. For example: “those people.” An adult sees the words and knows it is something uttered by a person who sees himself as superior to another group of people, usually by race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical abilities, etc.

Novels embrace you and your willingness to ‘walk in the shoes’ of another. Some readers find this difficult and remain outside the characters and plot while others immerse themselves and their lives in the fiction with the added reward of seeing a different place and time in the context of their own lives.

Historical fiction gathers up the culture of a certain place and time and stirs it with our own. It represents the culture of a place more than facts and dates; it adds the spice of knowing the future and framing the past to help illustrate how we made it here in one piece.

Dolly’s influence

I found an old album I had back in high school: Dolly Parton's "9 to 5". As I listen to it now, some of the songs have the style of the times, but others...others that stuck with me are classic stories with timeless arrangements.

"Dark as a Dungeon" hit home since I grew up in Southwest Virginia near the coal fields. I remember liking the song and the mood and the story it told. I can see it in Under a Copper Moon. Maybe that is why the ghost town of Jerome, Arizona had a pull on me.

Thanks Dolly.