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It's Sizzlin'Summer
Contest Time
Let's temper the
temperature with some cool stuff. The release date
for the fifth Greg McKenzie mystery, A
Sporting Murder, has been moved up to
September 15. That means it's time to award some
prizes to four of my faithful readers. Check 'em
out:
● Your Name used
for a character in my next mystery.
● A signed copy of A
Sporting Murder.
● A free download of any
three of my books in the ebook format of your
choice.
● Your choice of one of
the first four Greg McKenzie Mysteries.
No need to do anything.
You're automatically entered in the contest. The
winners will be drawn on September 15th.
"Once Again, Campbell
Has Hit the Mark"
That's how Larry Chavis
winds up his review (the first) of A Sporting
Murder. Writing for The GenReview, he says:
"His writing is clean and
spare, giving us enough sense of place and character
to feel as if we've settled in with friends, and
then in turn ratcheting up the tension and suspense.
Greg McKenzie is not a hard-boiled private
investigator, but he's tough and smart, well aware
of the qualities Jill brings to the partnership. The
way the case plays out against the backdrop of their
lives gives them a genuineness that makes the reader
feel these would be good folks to spend an afternoon
with - or to have along in a gun fight."
Movin' On
We've done some
interesting traveling the past few months. In June
we signed books at the RC Cola-Moon Pie Festival in
the small town of Bell Buckle, TN. Writer colleague
Beth Terrell and I manned a booth among dozens of
vendors selling just about anything you could
imagine. The hat booth next to us did a great
business in the sweltering heat. One booth sold
(what else?) RC Colas and Moon Pies.
 They
started the morning with a 10-mile run (we skipped
that) and wound up the day cutting the World's
Largest Moon Pie. From our booth, we could view one
of the contests, the Moon Pie Toss. They sailed over
the crowd like small chocolate Frisbees. It was a
fun day with a crowd put at 10,000.
A couple of weekends ago, we signed at the Tennessee
Antiquarian Book Fair. While my mysteries aren't
exactly antiquarian, except maybe the subject of
Secret of the Scroll, I was invited down by my
niece, Caroline McGee, and her husband, Tom. He put
the show together and had book dealers and similar
exhibitors from across the South.
For this one, we ventured a bit farther south to
Cowan, TN. It sits at the foot of a range of hills
known as Monteagle Mountain to drivers between
Nashville and Chattanooga. The CSX Railroad rumbled
through town on on off, with two diesel units in
front and two in the rear to boost the boxcars over
the mountain.
A Time for Memories
The weekend after next, we're headed for an event in
Knoxville that will be filled with nostalgia. While
working at The Knoxville Journal in 1950, I
joined a new Air National Guard outfit, the 119th
Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron. That was in the
early days of radar air defense. The unit was called
to active duty the following year for the Korean
War. After a couple of months at Otis Air Force Base
on Cape Cod, two other officers and I were pulled
out and sent to the Far East. My year in Korea at
Headquarters, Fifth Air Force, was an unforgettable
adventure.
The 119th is still an ANG unit at Knoxville's McGhee
Tyson Airport, though it is now designated as the
119th Command and Control Squadron,. assigned to the
Air Force Aerospace Command. I was contacted
recently and invited to the unit's 60th Anniversary
celebration. So far they've found only three of the
original members, another lieutenant (as I was then)
and a sergeant. It should be an interesting time.
Stay cool.
Chester
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