Chris Redding, Author: ExcerpTuesday

W.S. Gager shares with a us part of her new release, A Case of Infatuation.

Here is the exerpt from Chapter 2 of the book:

A woman’s hand jutted off the front porch. The rest of the body was concealed behind the white railing. The long fingers were as smooth and well manicured like a hand model on a photo shoot. It didn’t fit the neighborhood. My instincts went into overdrive telling me this was an even bigger story. I pulled a small digital camera from my leather coat pocket and snapped some shots. Reporters and cameras weren’t supposed to mix. The digital photos easily shot in low-light without a flash helped me later to vividly describe a crime scene. Most reporters couldn’t be bothered to take photos, but I was different. The photos rarely graced the printed page but were invaluable to me during the writing phase. I also used them to create follow-up articles giving rehashed information a fresh spin.
Detective Dennis Flaherty came out the front door and caught me replacing the camera in my pocket. Frowning he approached, stepping wide of the visible hand and grimacing.
“No photos.” His voice was stern but the Irish detective knew I wouldn’t print anything that would hurt a police case.
“Whatcha got, Dennis?”
“Who’s the skirt?” he asked, nodding to my appendage whose skin glowed in the morbid scene of strobe lights.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “An intern they’ve stuck me with for the night. Nothing big.” I gave him a look that said give me a minute.
I turned to Patrenka. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and interview the neighbors? See if you can get some info on the kind of people who lived here.”
Her eyes flashed and I saw a glimmer of her temper. She shrugged, smiled flirtatiously at the detective and left. No stomping, no voiced recriminations. Nothing. I had to admire that.
I turned back to Dennis. “So what do we have?”
“Follow me,” he said. Dennis and I had worked dozens of cases over the years and knew each other’s limitations. His mission was to solve crimes. I had pointed him in the right direction on a couple high-profile cases that resulted in his latest rank advancement. We’d developed an easy banter and helped each other through the years. We were friends as much as two people on opposite sides of the fence could be. I followed him back up the porch steps and got a good look at the woman’s body attached to the hand hanging off the porch. Boy, what a looker! Perfect blonde locks I doubted were natural, but were as close as you could get out of a professional’s bottle.

Synopsis
Crime Beat Reporter Mitch Malone's rules are simple: He never lets the blood and guts he covers bother him. He always works alone. And he hates kids. Mitch breaks all three rules when he unwittingly agrees to smuggle a potential witness out of a suburban Michigan home while police investigate a mob-style hit that's left two dead bodies. Mitch sends his intern (a real hottie, but nonetheless an interloper) to interview neighbors, hoping to throw her off, but when he finds the pint-sized survivor the killer overlooked, he decides she might be helpful. When the FBI accuses him of the murder, Mitch goes into hiding with the bombshell intern who doesn't talk and the precocious preschooler. Mitch works his contacts to regain his freedom from his roommates only to find they each hold keys to a bizarre story of disappearances, terrorists and the perfect hamburger recipe.Review“Great combination of gritty prose and sparkling dialogue along with a most intriguing and unusual plot makes W. S. Gager's debut crime novel a true page-turner. Highly recommended!”
F. M. Meredith, author of No Sanctuary

“I loved the characters in this book, particularly protagonist Mitch Malone. He's a reporter who manages to not only get mixed up in the crime he's reporting, but manages to implicate himself as well. Mitch is an unlikely hero, but one I rooted for until the end. The plot was intriguing, a murder mystery with a child witness nobody knows about and who Mitch ends up taking care of. If he can figure out what the child knows, he might just solve the mystery. An extremely entertaining novel that was difficult to put down, and great first book by W.S. Gager.
Holli Castillo, author of Gumbo Justice