gerrieferrisfinger.com

Kings River Life says:

The debut of this series, THE END GAME, won the author the St. Martin’s Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel and four novels have been published since, the latest will be released in February 2015. The entire series continues to prove that Ms Finger was completely deserving of that honor.

Dru’s voice wields an occasional black humor ... and one can completely believe that she has the skills to disarm an attacker and proves herself as a very competent and capable investigator. Her love and need to protect children is entertainingly ... unforgettable. The novels at their heart prove to be noir mysteries that demand a reader’s full attention. Dru and her team are a winning combination. -- Kings River Life

Please click on each title page for a complete synopsis of all the novels.

Buy online or at major book stores

Murder as Performance Art

MURMURS OF INSANITY

The Story

Moriah Dru, a former Atlanta police officer who now runs Child Trace, walks out of court and into trouble. She’s searching for Johndro Phillips, a teen whose drug dealer boss is acquitted when Johndro doesn’t testify. After Dru is shot at on her way home, she moves into the well-protected home of her lover, Atlanta homicide detective Richard Lake, who wants her to look into a problem his ex-wife’s half brother Baxter Carlisle is having. Cho Martine, a mysterious young woman whose boyfriend, Damian, is missing, has accused Baxter of stalking her. Baxter is a charming, handsome, wealthy man with a reputation for liking much younger women. Once she’s met him, though, Dru is convinced he’s no stalker. The computer wizard who works for Dru discovers that Cho is really an alias for someone who’s forged the paperwork needed to get into the University of Georgia. But her boyfriend, Damian, is all too real and all too missing. Baxter hires Dru to clear his name and tells her that Damian and Cho, whoever she is, are heavily involved in the performance art scene. So when some of Damian’s possessions turn up in weird places along an Atlanta hiking trail, Dru has to wonder if the clues are all part of an elaborate piece of performance art. Meanwhile, Dru’s search for Johndro involves her and Lake in a shootout with gang members. The bodies start to pile up as Dru struggles to discover the real reason for Damian’s disappearance. -- Kirkus Reviews

THE DEVIL LAUGHED

Third in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Series

The Story

Moriah Dru, owner of Child Trace, and her lover, Richard Lake, an Atlanta police lieutenant, have been invited to Lake Lanier in the mountains of North Georgia for the scorcher of a 4^th of July holiday. There, Dru discovers the stern of a boat protruding from the waters in a cove. It’s the sailboat Scuppernong, missing nearly four years and uncovered by lake evaporation.

Two couples – Johnny and Candice Browne and Laurant and Janet Cocineau – were on the boat the day they and the sailboat disappeared – partying, drinking, getting thrown out of a marina restaurant. Johnny’s body was discovered in the water with his head bashed in. The other three have never been found; gone without a trace. There are theories. From Candice and Laurant skipping to Rio to they’re all in a trunk at the bottom of the lake. Once the sailboat has been examined and no bodies found in it, a cadaver dog is brought to the scene. The body she discovers is not one of the boaters, but a woman from Yarrow (fictitious) a small Georgia mountain town on the lake.

Candice’s daughter, Evangeline, wants to hire Dru to find her mother. Evangeline is a thirteen-year-old prodigy who Dru has dubbed Princess Pita – pain in the ass. Portia Devon the juvenile judge prevails upon Dru to take the case. Since she first discovered the sailboat and since Portia is her childhood friend, Dru agrees to work for a child to find an adult, instead of the reverse. The fee is enormous to discourage Evangeline and her uncle, but they’re very wealthy. Dru goes to work, aided by Lake and Webdog, her computer hacker.

..."Since no bodies can be found aboard the craft, Dru and Richard head for the small Georgia mountain community where it was last seen. At a diner there, Dru meets a very young girl whose mother has also vanished. All too soon, the police find the mother's body in the lake. The Browne and Cocineau families who were partying on the sailboat when it disappeared had been at odds over a vineyard in Cape Fear, N.C. When Dru follows the trail there, her visit leads to another death and uncovers money laundering and other criminal doings. When all is said and done, however, it is the closemouthed, closely knit mountain community that holds the answers. Dru's third (The Last Temptation, 2012, etc.) provides plenty of quirky characters and surprising revelations." - KIRKUS REVIEWS

Moriah Dru, an ex-cop, has her own detective agency, Child Trace, and specializes in finding missing children. Her boyfriend, Richard Lake is a detective for the police department in Atlanta. Sometimes their cases intersect and they find themselves working together.

Murmurs of Insanity is the fourth installment in the series written by award-winning author Gerrie Ferris Finger. Dru’s best friend, Portia, is a judge (who refers missing children’s cases to her) and asks her to locate Johndro Phillips, a teenager who is missing. Johndro witnessed a drug deal and murder while working for a dangerous and ruthless drug dealer. Johndro’s life is in danger, since the drug dealer often eliminates witnesses so they can’t testify against him. Dru is also hired by Lake’s ex-wife’s wealthy half-brother, Baxter Carlisle, a successful restaurateur, to find a missing young man, and gets involved in a bizarre sphere of the art world, putting not only her life, but the lives of several others, on the line.

Being a foodie, I appreciate the fact that several places where Dru attends dinner with Baxter and eats at his restaurants, the food is described in detail; the mouthwatering dishes made me hungry and it was tempting to stop reading and get something good to eat. - Bella Online