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Today, we meet Mac Faraday!
Here's Lauren's ideal Mac:
Who wouldn't love this series? I know! Awesome! Let's meet Mac!
Guest Post: Meet Mac Faraday
By Lauren Carr
Archie told me that I had to write this article for some
blog (What’s a blog anyway?) for a friend who loves mysteries. So, where do I
start?
I guess I should start at the beginning.
It all started two years ago. Truthfully, it started much
before that, but for me, it started two years ago.
One day, I came home from working eighteen hours on a case
as a homicide detective in Washington, DC, to find that my wife of more than
twenty years had thrown my stuff out in the yard. That was when I found out
that she was leaving me for her lover, District Attorney Stephen Maguire. The
next thing I know, I’m living in a third-floor walk-up apartment while
Christine is living in the three-bedroom, two-bath home that we had built
together. Through Maguire’s influence, on the day of the divorce, she got it
all.
That is why I hate lawyers.
But life is ironic.
Here it is the last divorce hearing. The judge, a good buddy
of Maguire, pounds the gavel to end our twenty year marriage. I’m trying to not
strangle my divorce lawyer who chose then to wake up to hand me his bill, when
this little silver-haired man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit comes through the
crowd to grab my arm.
“Mr. Faraday? Mac Faraday? I need to talk to you.”
Seeing yet another lawyer, who had to be another friend of
that skunk Maguire, I replied, “No habla English,” and ran in the other
direction.
Would you believe he chased me for three blocks? I think he
would have continued chasing me if I didn’t start feeling sorry for him and
stopped to ask him what he wanted. I
braced for the subpoena notifying me that I was being sued for whatever.
He slipped a business card into my hand and introduced
himself as Ben Willingham, the senior partner of Willingham and Associates,
only the biggest law firm in DC.
This is not going to be good, I thought.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Ben caught his breath before
reaching into his briefcase. “Do you know Robin Spencer?”
“No,” I answered before remembering the name. “Famous
writer. She writes murder mysteries. We met a few years ago when she
interviewed me for research for a book she was writing. She was creating a new
detective.”
He took a folder and a book out of his briefcase. “Do you
know that she died six weeks ago?”
Sorrow overtook my anger. I had only spent one day with this
woman. I had seen all of the movies based on her detective, Mickey Forsythe, a
rich man whose hobby was going around solving murder mysteries in his fancy
sports car. I expected to meet a glamorous woman dripping in jewels and furs.
Instead, she was dressed in slacks, cracked bawdy jokes, and reminded me of a
Sunday school teacher I had as a child.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him. “I liked her. She was
a very nice lady.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” Ben smiled at me. “Because
you’re her heir.”
Do you know when people say that they can’t believe their
ears? Well, at that moment I could not believe what I heard. I really thought
that I was hearing things. This little man in a sweaty ten-thousand dollar suit
was telling me something other than what I was hearing because it could not be
real. It just didn’t make sense. He had to tell me four times before I believed
what I was hearing.
Still, it did not make sense.
“Robin Spencer has left you her entire estate,” he
explained. “Roughly, it is valued at four-hundred-and-seventy million dollars.”
“Why me?” I found my voice to ask. “I barely knew her.”
“You were adopted … as a baby.”
I nodded. As numb as I felt, even that was so far in the
past I barely remembered that I had been adopted. As a child, it had been a big
deal. My adoptive parents wanted to me know that they had chosen me. I was
wanted. Otherwise, my childhood was so normal, as normal as it can be for the
son of an engineer who worked for the government chucking engineering in favor
of being an underpaid homicide detective.
“You are Robin Spencer’s son,” Ben Willingham announced.
“She was only seventeen years old when she had you. Her parents, your
grandparents, being socially prominent and wealthy, kept your birth a secret
and had you put up for adoption. Robin never forgot you. She hunted you down,
got a sample of your DNA while interviewing you a few years ago, confirmed that
you were her son, and made you her beneficiary. She left you everything.”
He handed me the folder and book, which it turned out to be
Robin Spencer’s journal. “Congratulations, Mac Faraday, you are now a very rich
man.” He leaned in to whisper to me, “And your EX-wife has no right to any of it.”
Ben then uttered the same evil chuckle that I think they
teach lawyers in law school. Don’t get me wrong. I like Ben. I think it’s
because he now works for me.
So, that is how it all began.
Robin, my mother, explained the circumstances of my birth in
her journal, even giving me the name of my birth father, who was now deceased.
Patrick O’Callaghan and Robin were teenaged lovers. He had
graduated from high school and went off to the police academy when she got
pregnant. They wanted to get married, but her parents refused to permit it and
sent my mother away to have me in secret.
Years later, after she had become a best-selling mystery
author, Robin returned to Spencer where my father was now the chief of police,
and married to another woman. He also had another son, David, my half-brother.
Yep, I have a brother. He’s working in law enforcement, too.
Now that I know it runs in the blood, I don’t feel so weird. I always wanted a
brother and now I had one. I also had a mansion on the shore of Deep Creek Lake
in Spencer, Maryland, named after my ancestors.
So, with my newfound wealth, I retired from the police
force, packed up my few belongings, and headed out to my new home on Deep Creek
Lake.
That was where I met Archie Monday. Who’s Archie Monday? She
was my mother’s research assistant and editor. She came with the house. It’s
complicated.
I also met Gnarly, another part of my inheritance. My
mother’s German shepherd seems to think that the estate is his and he’s only letting
me live here. That’s complicated, too.
How was I to know that my move into the life of the rich and
famous went launch a roller coaster ride of murder and mayhem? But you know
what … I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
All books are just $.99, and don't forget. ALL WILL BE FREE October 31!
Tommorow, ALL LAUREN CARR BOOKS FREE & It's MUSIC DAY!
October 31 - All Books Free on Amazon
Lauren
Carr fell in love with mysteries when her mother read Perry Mason to her at
bedtime. The first installment in the Joshua Thornton mysteries, A Small Case of Murder was a finalist
for the Independent Publisher Book Award. A
Reunion to Die For was released in hardback in June 2007. Both of these
books are in re-release.
Lauren
is also the author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep
Creek Lake, Maryland. The first two books in her series, It’s Murder, My Son and Old
Loves Die Hard have been getting rave reviews from readers and reviewers.
The next book in this series, Shades of
Murder, will be released May 2012. This will be Lauren’s fifth mystery.
Lauren’s
sixth book, Dead on Ice, will be released
in Fall 2012. Dead on Ice will
introduce a new series entitled Lovers in Crime, in which Joshua Thornton will
join forces with homicide detective Cameron Gates.
The
owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant,
editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors.
This spring, two books written by independent authors will be released through
the management of Acorn Book Services.
Lauren
is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on
author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her
years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in
community education classes.
She
lives with her husband, son, and two dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Author C.P. Bialois
Author Jamie White
Author Ronda Caudill
and Author Michelle Cornwell-Jordan
Here are just a few of the Event Participants! 
Author Raine Thomas
Author Laura Deluca
Author A.M. Hargrove
