Special Guest – Peter Leonard – Back From The Dead Virtual Book Tour (Giveaway)

This is the 3rd Peter Leonard novel I have had the pleasure to review.
I am thrilled to have him here today as my guest.

Lori thought you would like to hear about how I research a book so here’s a bit of my process.

Research

I do most of my own research. For Voices of the Dead I visited Dachau concentration camp, which is a depressing experience, and walked the streets of Munich, trying to get a feel for this city I was going to use to stage parts of my story. I also spent three weeks at the Holocaust museum in Farmington Hills, Michigan, reading about the extermination of six million people from different points of view: survivors, Nazi top brass, camp guards and ordinary Germans.

Online I found maps and photographs of pre-World War II Munich. I researched Jewish neighborhoods, and found out where people bought their eggs and milk and where they bought their meat and vegetables, the names of the stores and the streets they were on. I found out where the Munich Jews worked and where they went to school, and what they thought as Hitler emerged on the political scene,initially as a curiosity and later as a threat to their very existence.

I finished Voices, and a week later I thought of an idea for a sequel. I wrote one-hundred and forty-three pages of Back from the Dead, and put it aside because I had a chance to hang out with Detroit Police Homicide. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. For about a month I talked to homicide investigators, visited crime scenes and read old cases that had been solved. Based on those experiences I came up with another idea for a book called Eyes Closed Tight. The main character is a retired homicide detective named O’Clair from my second novel Trust Me. O’Clair buys a motel in Florida, and one morning finds the body of an attractive young girl on the beach in front of his property. The girl was killed in a way that reminds him of a murder case he had solved years before. I wrote one-hundred and fifty pages and my editor e-mailed and asked how I was coming on the sequel to Voices of the Dead. So I put Eyes Closed Tight down and finished Back from the Dead.

To research All He Saw Was The Girl, I rented an apartment in Rome two blocks from the Spanish Steps. I brought my son Alex along and we walked around the city looking for locations. Alex took photos and I made notes. We would stop for lunch and have pasta or grilled fish and a glass of wine. At some point it occured to me that what I was doing was work and I was getting paid for it.

Most of what I’m looking for I find online. Things like how to steal a car, how to get out of handcuffs, the Arizona prison system, bow-hunting, white supremacists, the U.S. Secret Service, firearms and more.If you write about guns make sure you get it right, or some gun expert will tell you about it.

~Peter Leonard

To find out more about Peter Leonard and his books visit his webpage here.

Back from the Dead
Sequel to Voices of the Dead
Suspense Thriller
Published by The Story Plant (January 22, 2013)
Trade Paperback: 282 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1611880632
E-Book File Size: 594 KB
ASIN: B00AJVIXB8

Holocaust survivor Harry Levin and Nazi death angel Ernst Hess are back in this conclusion to the story that started in Voices of the Dead. We travel from the Bahamas to Florida, Michigan and Germany as Levin learns that Ness is still alive it is up to him to make sure this time Ness does not come Back from the Dead.

Dollycas’s Thoughts
I must say I was surprised that this sequel was written because Voices of the Dead was a great stand alone but  this book is jammed back with the action and suspense that I expect from this author and it was totally believable the Hess was back.  I did feel bad for Harry as it seems he still has not been able to grieve the loss of his daughter. This story picks up shorty after the last one finished in 1971.

The characters again came alive on the page and traveled the world at top speed. Quite a game of cat and mouse with the players constantly changing places. The pages kept turning through some mind-boggling incidents. Leonard writes those edge of your seat moments that suspense readers enjoy so much with ease. 

I recommend you read  Voices of the Dead before reading Back from the Dead.  I did like the first installment just a bit better than the second.

I have 1 copy to giveaway!!

U.S. and CANADIAN RESIDENTS
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Followers Will Receive 2 Bonus Entries For Each Way They Follow.
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Contest Will End March 21, 2013 at 11:59 PM CST
Winner Will Be Chosen By Random.org
Winner Will Be Notified By Email
and Will Be Posted Here In The Sidebar.

CLICK HERE FOR ENTRY FORM

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”