about the book
Truman Tucker can’t wait for his butler, Carstairs, to leave. With his parents on an extended trip, Carstairs is the holdup on asking his girlfriend, Natalia Rostov, over. With Carstairs off to Los Vegas, Truman has a special dinner…and a little more…planned for tonight.
By 7:30, he’s got dinner in the oven and the table set for a romantic dinner. By 8:30, he’s getting a little miffed. Where is she? By 9:00, he’s angry and he trashes the dining room. At 11:00, he’s drunk himself into a stupor. At 7:30 the next morning, he wakes to pounding on the front door. Two homicide detectives, Janz and Ridgeway, have questions. Natalia, just 17, was found violently murdered in an alley. Truman, with no alibi, is the prime suspect.
The police don’t want the parents interfering so they don’t call them. Truman doesn’t call them either, though the police are interrogating him over and over. Realizing that he needs a lawyer and a darn good one, he secures the best attorney he can find.
It’s obvious the police aren’t looking at anyone else, so it’s up to Truman to find Natalia’s killer and clear his own name. Luckily he can turn to his friend Stickly and his lawyer sister and spunky aunt.
But Truman has no clue what he is getting himself into. It quickly becomes apparent that he really didn’t know who his girlfriend was. The more he investigates, the more clues he uncovers, the more truth he reveals, the more trouble he gets himself into. The deeper he gets, the more he wonders why the beautiful girl was interested in him at all!
Hounded by the suspicious detective, he tumbles into the netherworld of illegal immigrants, strip clubs, human trafficking, forced sex workers, and Russian mobsters. They are not happy he’s butting his nose into things best left alone!
Undeterred, Truman keeps hunting for that one thing that will blow this whole case open!
about the author
Norah McClintock has always loved reading crime novels. When she was a child, her mother brought home a complete set of Nancy Drew mysteries, which Norah quickly devoured. Then she read her brother’s Hardy Boys books, and then the Brian Benton books, which she loved. What better career path to follow than writing her own crime novels?
Coming up with ideas for each novel can be a challenge, but many of Norah’s novels find their “spark” from stories she reads in the newspaper or sees on the nightly news. Norah’s imagination takes over once she has the initial idea. To date, she has written more than sixty books which have been translated into sixteen languages. What she likes best to write are fictional young adult crime mysteries.
Norah was born and raised in Point Claire, Quebec, and is a graduate of McGill University. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Source:
Author website
Author biography: Scholastic
Book page: Amazon
Also by Norah McClintock:
I, Witness. Orca Book Publishers. 2012.
about the illustrator
Growing up in Ontario, Steven Hughes read a lot of comics. He really liked the idea of telling stories through illustrations and making a living off it. He decided early on that he wanted to get into the comic industry, so he started to draw…a lot! He went on to study comic illustration at Sheridan College, (a real eye opening experience, according to Steven), and from then, it has all been about putting in the hours, learning the craft, and getting his art work out there.
His illustrations are all computer-generated and he excels at faces. Not only are his portraits dead on, he has a way of capturing emotions very well. For Norah McClintock’s Tru Detective graphic novel, Steve zeroed in on a black and white palette that still supports the noir elements of the author’s story. There is a real cinematic quality to the perspectives, angles, and action. Steve also includes flashes of wit and sly humor into the panels.
Steve currently lives in Montreal, Quebec, in Canada, with his fiancée and their two dogs. When he isn’t busy pounding away at his graphics computer, he will be reading, travelling, or teaching classes at Northern Michigan University..
Sources:
Illustrator website
Illustrator website: Primary Hughes
Illustrator interview: The Artfuls
read more!
I, Witness by Norah McClintock
After Boone and his friend Robbie witness a murder and flee the scene, they vow to say nothing about what they saw. The murderers, however, come after them anyway. Though his friends Robbie and Andre are killed in the process, Boone remains committed to staying silent until another life is taken.
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
Derf Backderf, a classmate and acquaintance of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, tells the story of how he had befriended Jeffrey, the loneliest kid you’d ever meet, in high school. Using a wide variety of sources to chronicle Jeffrey’s life though his high school years in Ohio in the 1970s, Backderf explores Jeffrey’s personality, anti-social behavior, and his downward, dark spiral into murder. A brutally honest story, it makes for some disturbing reading.