All Things Slip Away (Avalon Mystery) - Hardcover

Griffith, Kathryn Meyer

4.41

846 ratings by Goodreads

9780803497597: All Things Slip Away (Avalon Mystery)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803497598 ISBN 13: 9780803497597

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer, 2005

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Ten years ago Frank Lester, a Chicago homicide detective, though he had rid himself forever of the Mud People Killer who'd kidnapped and murdered six people. Frank had shot him as he'd fled through a snowy night, and he believed, had killed him, though a body was never found.

But the killer wasn't dead. He'd only been waiting to take his revenge on Frank and those he cares about now...ten years later. Frank retired early and is living back in his hometown of Spookie (a quaint throwback of a place in the woods) when the killer resurfaces to take up where he left off. Kidnapping more innocents and tormenting Frank and the people he cares about.

Unless Frank and his artist girlfriend, Abigail Sutton, can find and stop him before he kills any more people, them included.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Author:

The Story of Scraps of Paper & All Things Slip Away
The Spookie Town Murder Mystery series by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

I've been writing now for over forty-four years and have had 22 novels, 2 novellas and 12 short stories published since 1984 with Leisure and Zebra Paperbacks, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books and Eternal Press...and now, along with writing new books, as I reclaim the rights to each of my novels I'm self-publishing them to Amazon Kindle KDP. I'm known as a horror writer but I've also published suspense, romantic time-travel and murder mysteries. My novel The Last Vampire-Revised Author's Edition was a 2012 Epic eBook Awards Finalist in their horror category and now my Dinosaur Lake is a 2014 Epic eBook Awards Finalist in their Suspense/Thriller category.
In 2002-2006 I wanted to try something different and I wrote a murder mystery and its sequel set in this quaint, quirky little town I tongue-in-cheek called Spookie. Most of my books before had been horror novels, so the town's name was a tip-of-the-hat to my horror roots. They were my first ventures into that genre, which I'd always loved. Sherlock Holmes, Murder She Wrote, Inspector Morse and Miss Marple were some of my favorite mystery series.
I'd written the first book, Scraps of Paper, and then, soon after, a second I called All Things Slip Away (continuing the adventures of Frank and Abigail, this time on the trail of a serial killer) for Avalon Books. I got a small advance up front for each one.
It was 2002. I'd come out of a lengthy publishing dry spell. My seventh paperback novel, Zebra's The Calling, a ghost story with an ancient Egyptian theme, had come out in 1994. Then they dumped a lot of us mid-list horror writers, me included, saying horror was dying; and for eight years I didn't write or sell another book. Well, living my life got in the way during some of that time. I'd lost my long-time good-paying graphic artist job in 1994 and had to find another one. The pay was a lot less. No good for my budget or my standard of living, which really fell. I went from one of five bad jobs to another over the next six years...each worse and lower paying than the one before; each more demanding. I needed to make money. No longer could I live with pie-in-the-sky literary dreams. I had to face reality. So I stopped writing for a while.
When my life finally settled down and allowed me to return to my writing again I decided to pen something different...a mystery. I'd always loved mysteries. I began writing Scraps of Paper. About a woman, an artist named Abigail Sutton, whose husband has been missing for two years, and who's just learned he's been dead all that time-a victim of a gone-wrong mugging. She begins a new life and moves to a small town full of fog, quirky townspeople and mysteries. And right away she's drawn into one of her own when she buys, renovates, a fixer-upper house and uncovers hidden in it scraps of paper written by two young children who once lived there with their mother, and who supposedly drove away thirty years before and were never seen again. The town thought they simply went somewhere else; began a new life. But Abigail suspects they never left the house; suspects they'd been murdered. Then she finds three graves in the back.
Of course, with her history of a missing husband she develops the overpowering urge to find out what happened to them. The scraps of paper she continues to find makes the bond, the desire, stronger. She forms a friendship with an ex-homicide cop, Frank, and together they try to solve the mystery. Only thing is there's someone still living in the town that just as desperately doesn't want them to. Someone who'd kill to keep the murderer's identity secret.
When done I was proud of it. Thought it was good. I sent it to Avalon Books in New York. They loved it and bought it. I signed the contract, though I didn't like some of the things in it. It was a ten year contract. That's a long time to sell off a book's full rights. But I hadn't had a book published in a long time and, as my mom always said, beggars can't be choosers.
I sold them the second in the series, hoping it'd help sell the first. All Things Slip Away zeroed in more on Frank, the ex-homicide detective, when a serial killer from his past threatens their peaceful town of Spookie and both their lives. They got great reviews. But I came to regret signing both those contracts more as every year went by.
Then Avalon Books sold themselves lock-stock-and-barrel to Amazon Publishing in June of 2012 and, without their authors' knowledge or permission, including mine, sold away their authors' contracts from under them as well. Scraps of Paper's contract had run out so I took the book back and self-published it, but was allowed Thomas & Mercer (the mystery imprint of Amazon Publishing) to publish the second in the series, All Things Slip Away.
Then in January 2014 I also got the full rights back to Scraps of Paper's sequel All Things Slip Away, revised it and had my fantastic cover artist, Dawne Dominique, do a stunning new cover for it; then also self-published it to Amazon KDP. I've very proud of both books and hope to someday write a third.
But, all that is in the past and my rewritten Scraps of Paper-Revised Author's Edition and its sequel All Things Slip Away are both now available, both on sale for $3.99 at Amazon Kindle here: amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Kathryn%20Meyer%20Griffith
Now there's even a third book...Ghosts Beneath Us, where the elderly of the town are harassed by what they think are ghosts. Are they ghosts or killers?
And I hope people will like and enjoy them.

About the Author:

About Kathryn Meyer Griffith...
Since childhood I've been an artist and worked as a corporate graphic designer and for newspapers for 23 years before I quit to write full time. I began writing novels at 21, forty years ago, and have sixteen (eleven romantic horror, one historical romance, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel and two murder mysteries) previous novels and twelve short stories.
I've been married to Russell for thirty-four years; have a son, James, and grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and live in a small quaint town in Illinois called Columbia, which is across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo. We have three quirky cats, ghost cat Sasha and live cats Cleo and Sasha (Too), and the five of us live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I've been an artist, and a folk singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I'll probably write stories until the day I die.

My books Revised and all out again from Damnation Books (damnationbooks.com/people.php?author=79)and Eternal Press. (eternalpress.biz/people.php?author=422): Evil Stalks the Night-Revised Author's Edition; The Heart of the Rose-Revised Author's Edition; Blood Forge-Revised Author's Edition; Vampire Blood-Revised Author's Edition; The Last Vampire -Revised Author's Edition; Witches-Revised Author's Edition; The Nameless One short story; The Calling-Revised Author's Edition; Scraps of Paper; All Things Slip Away; Egyptian Heart; Winter's Journey; The Ice Bridge; Don't Look Back, Agnes, novella; In This House short story; The Nameless One, erotic short story; Always & Forever, erotic contemporary novella; BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons; The Woman in Crimson; The Guide to Writing Paranormal Fiction: Volume 1 (I did the Introduction);Dinosaur Lake; and four 99 cent each SPOOKY SHORT STORIES on Kindle. ***

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