Where
the Bodies Are
The
McAllister Series Book 1
by
L.V. Gaudet
Genre:
Psychological Crime Thriller
Step
into the twisted mind of a serial killer in this disturbing
psychological thriller.
Dead
bodies are being left where they are sure to be found. But, the
killer made a mistake; one victim left for dead survived.
Kept
in a medically induced coma while she recovers, they can only watch
her and wait for the killer to come back for her.
While
Detective Michael Underwood protects their only living witness,
Detective Jim McNelly and his reporter friend Lawrence Hawkworth are
determined to find the killer and bring his killing spree to an end.
Instead, they discover a bigger mystery.
The
killer's reality blurs between past and present with a compulsion
driven by a dark secret locked in a fractured mind. Overcome by a
blind rage that leaves him wallowing in remorse with the bodies of
victim after victim, he is desperate to stop killing.
After
learning of his victim’s survival, the killer sees it as a sign
they are meant to be together. Threatening her tenuous grip on life,
he is determined to take back his prize while he continues kidnapping
and murdering young women.
Accustomed
to a life of abuse, one victim’s experience becomes her refuge in a
desperate bid for survival.
Instead
of killing her, he keeps Katherine Kingslow imprisoned in the dark
while he continues plotting to take back the Jane Doe in the
hospital. How long can Kathy survive and will she lose her own
mind?
The
search for the killer will lead to his dark secret buried in the
past, something much larger than a man compelled to kill again and
again.
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The
McAllister Farm
The
McAllister Series Book 2
Step
back in time to learn the secret behind the bodies in Where the
Bodies Are in this disturbing look at the boy who will grow up to
create the killer.
1981
Meet
David McAllister, the boy who will grow up to create the killer.
In
1981 there was a man who lived on a farm. William McAllister was a
private and reclusive man who, above all else, did not like to have
attention drawn on his family.
He
wanted only to be left to mind his own business and family and for
the world to do the same. But that very reclusiveness fosters
contempt and suspicion in the people of the small farming community
his family has called home for generations.
William
McAllister has a son, Jason McAllister. Jason is a troubled boy.
Growing up under his father’s strict rules and isolated from the
normal childhood relationships, he is left to explore his darker
inclinations. Seeing the darker side of Jason, William tries to rein
his son in by bringing him into the family business.
Just
then a serial killer starts preying on local young women. The
McAllisters quickly find themselves drawn into the spotlight when the
town decides William McAllister is the killer. As the town’s search
for the killer focuses on the McAllister farm and the woods behind
it, the threat to the McAllister secret grows.
The
McAllister family history is as dark as the secret hiding in the
woods. The attention is a threat to both William McAllister's
profession and his family. He has no choice but to find the killer
himself. He might not like what he learns.
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Hunting
Michael Underwood
The
McAllister Series Book 3
Step
deeper into the twisted mind of a serial killer as he slips further
into madness in this disturbing psychological thriller.
Hunting
Michael Underwood follows on the heels of book one, Where the Bodies
Are, bringing the first two stories and their characters together as
the search for the killer continues.
Michael
Underwood has vanished and everyone is searching for him. Detective
Jim McNelly is determined to not stop until he finds him. Working
with the detective, Lawrence Hawkworth is still chasing the bigger
story he knows is behind the bodies. Jason McAllister knows he must
stop the killer he created before he goes too far. He may be the only
one who can stop him.
Unable
to let go of his barely remembered past and the search for his
sister, the killer goes looking for Jason McAllister’s past and his
family.
*****
Detective
Jim McNelly is furious. Detective Michael Underwood disappeared
without a trace with the only living witness to the McAllister
murders. Worse, Michael is not who he pretended to be. And then the
other shoe fell.
Jason
T. McAllister, tried and convicted of the kidnapping and murders of
multiple women and the prime suspect behind the bodies discovered in
the woods behind the McAllister farm, is being inexplicably set free.
He will not spend the rest of his life in prison.
Jim
is determined to find Michael Underwood, bring him down, and discover
the truth about who he really is and what his connection to Jason
McAllister is.
Working
with his long time friend, the notoriously unscrupulous investigative
reporter Lawrence Hawkworth, Jim will not stop until he finds Michael
and the answers to the bodies found in the mass graveyard in the
woods behind the McAllister Farm.
Jason
McAllister knows he must stop the real killer behind the murders he
was convicted for. As the killer spirals further into madness, Jason
is the only one who can stop him. But, he needs help. He is going to
have to talk to his father, William McAllister, the man who taught
him how to hide the bodies.
Michael
Underwood and Katherine Kingslow are on the run. A victim of domestic
abuse and only known survivor of the McAllister Farm killer, Kathy
has lapsed into Stockholm syndrome. Now she is torn between her need
to be with her captor and fear of his escalating psychotic
episodes.
Everyone
is hunting for Michael Underwood.
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Killing
David McAllister
The
McAllister Series Book 4
Everyone
wants to kill David McAllister in this explosive conclusion.
David
McAllister must die.
Crazy
comes to a head in this disturbing psychological thriller.
When an
unbalanced serial killer sets his sights on a little girl, there is
only one way it can end. Someone will die.
Sometimes
the only way to stop a monster is to kill it. He has gone by many
names, but he was raised as David McAllister, and finding what he is
looking for is not enough to quiet the darkness inside him.
The
organization ordered the cleanup of the entire McAllister family.
The job
was given to Sophie McAllister.
While
Detective Jim McNelly and his reporter friend Lawrence Hawkworth
continue to hunt them down, the McAllisters move into hiding.
David
McAllster’s psychosis continues, but now Sophie’s daughter is in
danger. He believes she is his tiny sister Cassie.
The
presence of his now adult sister Cassie does not stop his dead little
Cassie from tormenting him.
***
Sometimes
the only way to stop a monster is to kill it. He has gone by many
names, but he was raised as David McAllister, and finding what
he is looking for is not enough to quiet the darkness inside him.
David
McAllister must die.
While
the McAllisters move into hiding, Detective Jim McNelly and his
reporter friend, Lawrence Hawkworth, continue to pursue them. Jim and
Lawrence split up to follow their own leads, routes that will take
them each on their own path to discover secrets behind the
McAllisters.
Anderson
and William are trying to keep the group together and ahead of the
detective hunting them while trying to resolve the issue of what to
do with David, Kathy, Rose Bheals, and the boy Jason brought, Billy.
Kathy
is becoming increasingly fearful both for and of David and wants out,
but feels trapped. She is certain death is the only way out.
Cassie
swore to kill David for what he did to Connie and the others. Torn by
memories she does not have and the knowledge of the dark hole this
life will bury her in, she needs to escape.
Sophie
has been ordered to kill David and Kathy. She may have to kill her
own brother, Jason, too. When the time comes, she’s not sure if she
can do it.
With
Marjory’s lapses into the foggy confusion of Alzheimer’s, nobody
believes her when she really needs them to, when Sophie’s little
girl’s life is at stake.
David
is slipping further into madness and, convinced she is the little
sister he lost so many years ago, he is going to take little Lauren
with him. Having his now adult real sister, Cassie, there is no help.
Will
someone reach David and Lauren in time as the blackness closes in and
rage takes over?
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GUEST POST
Have you written any other books that are not published?
I have. I have a
number of drafts that need revising and editing. I often write a
story then set it aside for a while to come back to it with fresh
eyes. Some I just never got back to. I should probably focus on that
too, in addition to trying to finish WIPs instead of starting new
ones.
If your book had a candle, what scent
would it be?
Imagine a dreary
dusty 15th
century library, an old man talking to a raven on the windowsill, the
moon hanging heavy and yellowed low in the sky behind it, and ancient
bones hidden behind the thick spines of the heavy tomes on the
shelves. That smell. Or that might just be the candle on my desk as I
write.
What did you edit out of
this series?
I edited out an
unknown character from the first book. The shoeshine boy. He was a
troubled boy with little prospects and developmental delays who
slipped through the cracks of the government agencies that took him
over. He didn’t go to school like he should have, but as long as
Jim McNelly saw him on that shoeshine stand in the precinct lobby he
knew the boy was okay. I also edited out of the first book a group of
young ladies where one almost becomes the next victim – for space
and because it didn’t quite fit. Hunting Michael Underwood I edited
out some of the slaughterhouse scenes. I felt they were too
disturbing for most readers and the story didn’t really need them.
Is there a writer
whose brain you would love to pick for advice? Who would that be and
why?
Stephen King.
Despite being rejected, trying a pen name with limited success, and
finally trying his own name again, he was the same writer throughout.
He pushed on and kept trying and did not let rejection stop him. He
was determined and not to be shut down by publishers not willing to
take a chance on this school teacher from Maine. He did it and went
on to become the king of horror fiction. That, and he’s got some
pretty messed up thoughts in there. Have you read his books?
How long have you been writing?
I have been
experimenting with writing and then more seriously writing since
middle grade school. I also had blocks of years where I quit writing
over the years. Self doubt is a writer’s biggest enemy. And
sometimes life just gets in the way.
As for actually
being published, my first flash fiction stories started being
published in online horror E-zines December 2008. My first short
story published in an anthology was ‘Falling’
published in Mystery in the Wind anthology September 2009, and my
first book was picked up by an Indy publisher and published March
2014.
Do the characters all come to you at
the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?
I might start
with a few characters, but not always. My characters come to me as I
need them while I’m writing the story. Every scene drives the story
forward into that writing void. Invariably, holes come up that need
to be filled with a new character. Sometimes this means going back
and working the character or hints of the character into prior scenes
and chapters.
What kind of research do you do before
you begin writing a book?
None. I research
during and after, not before. I write by the seat of my pants, so I
don’t know what I’m going to need to research until I write the
scene. Then I research anything I don’t know or think I probably
don’t know. Like what really happens when someone is drowning.
Hint: the person flailing and screaming is not drowning (yet). They
are panicking. Actual drowning causes body paralysis as the body
involuntarily tries to save itself, ultimately giving your bobbing
body up to its watery grave.
L.
V. Gaudet is a subjugated cubicle dweller by day and a Canadian
author of dark fiction by night, a member of the Manitoba Writers’
Guild, the Horror Writers Association, and Authors of Manitoba.
L.
V. grew up with a love of the darker side; sneaking down to the
basement at night to watch the old horror B movies, Vincent Price
being a favourite, devouring horror books, and has had a passion for
books and the idea of creating stories and worlds a person can get
lost in since reading that first novel.
This
love of storytelling has L. V. working writing and editing into a
busy life that includes a full time job, family, and doing the little
things to help the writing community including offering encouragement
to others in the online writing community and volunteering time
editing the Manitoba Writers’ Guild newsletter and helping with
their Facebook presence, proofreading for the HWA newsletter, and
visiting schools for I Love to Read month.
L.V.
Gaudet currently lives in Winnipeg with two rescue dogs, spouse, and
kids.
L.V.
Gaudet’s books are available in ebook and print format at online
bookstores.
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