Kathie Fuston

Winners—No Losers at Book Signing

The book signing event at the Franklin Art Crawl on Friday, August 1st,
was a great success. A good many fans stopped by the signing location at the law firm of Stites & Harbison that is located in historic downtown Franklin at 604 West Main Street.  In addition, an impressive number of new mystery readers purchased their first Mark Rollins adventure—a signed hardcover copy or the new audio edition.

Ed Binkley won the drawing for a 28-year-old claret from my private cellar. Two people won the opportunity to have a character named after them in my next mystery, Nancy Hagen and my friend Janet Jones.  If my memory serves me correctly, both Ed and Nancy purchased the audio edition of The Claret Murders during the event.  Janet is a long time friend and the wife of Ray Tarkington.
Previous character name winners at other signing events include:
Connie Maynord
Kathie Fuston
Mick Hendrickson
Edwin Myers
Sue Hadfield

Connie Maynord has a busy career as an actress and model. This past month, her on camera roles have ranged from a fun loving mature age Aunt Jackie, to a ghost/wife who has come back to a husband who is dying, to a happy Golden Girl!  She has been cast in the upcoming productions S.O.U.L. as Nurse Hazel and Candles as a News Reporter, and Connie is also an associate producer on Candles. In addition, Connie has had several appearances in commercials.  To learn more about Connie Maynord check out www.conniemaynord.com.

The new mystery is about one-third complete and has the working title Diversion. Diversion deals with drug diversion -- legal medications diverted for illegal purposes and all the bad things that surround addiction and drugs. Our character winners could be drugged out teenagers or just someone who can't get off their pain medication and has no way to get them except on the street -- from very unpleasant people. Alternatively, the winner could be a DEA hero who saves a teenage druggie from a horrible life or an undercover cop posing as an unpleasant person on the street selling happy pills. They might turn out like Kathie Fuston who in the early draft is a pregnant, unwed mother in the visitor section of the Manchester Jail waiting to find out if her man is going to be released.

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Tom Collins’ books include his book on leadership, The Language of Excellence, and his mystery novels including Mark Rollins’ New Career, Mark Rollins and the Rainmaker, Mark Rollins and the Puppeteer and the newest mystery, The Claret Murders. For signed copies, go to the author’s online store. unsigned print and ebook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. For an audio edition of The Claret Murders go to http://amzn.com/B00IV5ZJEI. The ebook edition for the iPad is available through Apple iTunes’ iBookstore.