What is Mark de Castrique reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Mark de Castrique, author of The Sandburg Connection.

His entry begins:

I find I have more time in my schedule to listen to books than read them. They make great travel and driving companions, and there is something soothing about having someone tell me a story – a pleasurable experience that goes back to early childhood.

Two authors whose books I always enjoy are Lee Child and David Rosenfelt. Each has developed a character at opposite ends of the Hero Spectrum. Currently I’m listening to Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel, The Affair.

I like Reacher because he’s the contemporary descendent of Raymond Chandler’s knight errant archetype. At six-foot-five and two-hundred-fifty pounds, this mountain of mayhem embodies Chandler’s story title “Trouble Is My Business.” Reacher is a trouble magnet, constantly finding his way in and out of other people’s problems. Chandler writes in the introduction to his short story collection, Trouble Is My Business, “There are the aficionados of deduction and the aficionados of sex who can’t get it into their hot little heads that the fictional detective is a catalyst, not a Casanova.” Reacher is a catalyst who stirs things up, rights wrongs, and...[read on]

Among the early praise for The Sandburg Connection:

"At the outset of de Castrique's stellar third mystery featuring Asheville, N.C., PI Sam Blackman (after 2010's The Fitzgerald Ruse), Sam and his partner, Nakayla Robertson, are following professor Janice Wainwright to determine if she's really suffering the pain that has led to her $5 million lawsuit against a surgeon, his clinic, and a hospital. The pair trail her to Glassy Mountain, from whose peak she takes a fatal fall. Before expiring, Wainwright mumbles something about "Sandburg's verses." Convinced Wainwright's death was no accident, Sam vows to find her killer. A missing folk song, a buried treasure from Civil War days, and a pregnant goat all play a part in this marvelous blend of history and mystery seasoned with information about Carl Sandburg's life and times on his Asheville farm and the National Park Service's current operations there. This strong regional mystery should resonate with a much wider audience."
--Publishers Weekly

Learn more about the book and author at Mark de Castrique's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sandburg Connection.

Writers Read: Mark de Castrique.

--Marshal Zeringue