by Neil Turner
“Amen,” I say as I kiss her and Becky goodnight.
“Good luck with that,” Jake tells Penelope as he casts a skeptical eye on me. “Trouble seems to follow your partner around.”
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THE END
The Tony Valenti Thrillers
All Tony Valenti wanted was a chance to rebuild his shattered life in the refuge of his beloved childhood home. Instead, his father is arrested for murdering a cop, an unseen hand is maneuvering to condemn that very home… and now his ex-wife is threatening to take his teenage daughter away.
Determined to defend his father with whatever snippets of the criminal code and courtroom tactics he remembers from law school, Tony recruits a public defender and a local newspaper reporter to help unravel the truth. But nobody witnessed the shooting and Papa isn’t talking. As Tony digs deeper and becomes a target himself, his initial bewilderment grows into a towering rage that fuels his drive to get to the bottom of what really happened… regardless of the risks and ultimate cost to himself.
Unemployed, short of funds, and desperate to maintain custody of his daughter, Tony is forced to confront his insecurities and limitations as he struggles to surmount one crisis after another. Can he save his father? The family home? Himself?
“Compelling… fast-paced… a suspenseful and heartfelt thriller” SPR Reviews
BUY IT HERE!
* * *
A Case of Betrayal
Coming in September 2021!
When a woman is brutally slain in a crime with no witnesses, suspicion immediately falls upon her ex-husband. But should it?
As the evidence against him mounts, the suspect’s brother—a friend who recently helped save Tony’s father’s life—turns to Tony Valenti for help. The case is a bewildering maze with multiple suspects and a mountain of contradictory evidence that points both to and away from his client. What is the truth? Even Tony isn’t sure of his client’s innocence.
Tony is already overwhelmed by a case in which nothing is as it seems when a lethal terror from his past surfaces to shake his faith in himself… and to threaten those dearest to him. Suddenly in a desperate race to find the truth of the crime and to protect himself and his family from a mortal threat, Tony fears that he’s in danger of being pulled in too many directions to save anyone.
Afterword
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read Plane in the Lake, the second book in the Tony Valenti Thriller series. Look for A Case of Betrayal in September, followed by The Fox and the Heir in December. We’re on a roll!
Do you wish to be among the first to hear about upcoming releases, giveaways, contests, and get a FREE BOOK? If so, please join my exclusive Reader’s Club here. Your email address will not be shared or used for any other purpose. Promise! While you’re on the website, feel free to poke around a bit to learn a little more about me and the upcoming releases.
If you enjoyed Plane in the Lake, I would greatly appreciate you taking a moment to leave a review at your favorite book retailer at the end of your book or at Goodreads here. Reviews are invaluable to authors, particularly those of us who have chosen to publish independently. The review doesn’t need to be anything elaborate, just a brief line or two about why you enjoyed the book. It would mean the world to me. A final tip about reviews: Please don’t include any spoilers that give anything important away!
My sincerest thanks again!
Take care, be well,
Neil
Acknowledgments
As always, there are a great many people to thank for helping to make this book possible. My thanks to Susan Turner, Kyle Turner, Tamara Miller, Monica Furness, Tina Raymond, Mary Ann Tippet, and Erin Scothorn, who read and commented on my working files along the way. Your input was invaluable and made the book immeasurably better. As I said in the acknowledgements of A House on Liberty Street, while writing can be a solitary endeavor, generous souls such as yourselves ensure that it need not be a lonely journey.
My gratitude also to a pair of amazing professionals who helped to ensure that A Plane in the Lake was as good as I could possibly make it. Leighton Wingate did a terrific job proofreading the manuscript so that it reads far better than it did when he took on the arduous task of cleaning up after me. The talented David Prendergast has once again designed a stunning cover. I hope the inside of the book is as good as its cover.
As for the portions of the story pertaining to aircraft, flying, and accident investigations, any mistakes in technical information are my responsibility—as are decisions to take artistic license in crafting events in service to the story. I’m a fiction writer, after all. It’s my job to make things up!
About the Author
Neil discovered the thrill of losing himself in the pages of a book as a five- or six-year-old when Beatrix Potter and Thornton Burgess immersed him in the worlds of Jerry Muskrat, Peter Rabbit, and their furry friends. His mother and father had the good grace to indulge his excitement about being able to read them stories, which he thought was pretty darned cool. He’s been reading and writing one thing or another ever since, but it was many years before the audacious idea of writing a book wormed its way into his head. He’s lived throughout Canada, spent three years in Europe, and lived in Chicago and Arizona, somehow managing to squeeze a career in banking and finance into his travels. After doing an apprenticeship reading, reading, reading, taking courses, attending seminars and conferences, and churning out some truly atrocious manuscripts, he began writing and stockpiling the Tony Valenti series of thrillers. The series will total four published novels by the end of 2021, plus a free prequel novella for members of my exclusive Reader’s Club. There will be more titles to come in 2022 and beyond, probably at the rate of two or three per year . Stay tuned!
Neil lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.