After losing his leg in Iraq, former army criminal investigator Sam Blackman figured civilian life would be a battle all its own. But even he's unprepared when fellow vet Tikima Robertson turns up dead near the legendary Biltmore estate... and leaves him a priceless heirloom.

Blackman's Coffin

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mark De Castrique

Mystery

Worldwide Mystery

A Conspiracy Of Genes

Gene Adamson thought he knew the answers. He thought he'd cracked the conspiracy wide open. He was so wrong.  As a young girl's life hangs in the balance, seventeen-year-old Gene Adamson stumbles into a conspiracy so deadly the very knowledge of its existence marks him for death. . . . . . "The suspense builds to a brilliant conclusion ... This work is storytelling at its best totally drawing you into every event happening ... a great read and I give it a high recommendation." —Shirley Johnson, Senior Reviewer, MidWest Book Review

A Conspiracy of Genes

Quiet Storm Pub Group

In Asheville, North Carolina, the Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency faces a disturbing reality – no clients. Sam Blackman finds inactivity intolerable. So when partner Nakayla Robertson suggests a mushroom hunt on the site of an historic, freed-slave commune called The Kingdom of the Happy Land, Sam reluctantly agrees. When he stumbles across a skeleton, his adventure mushrooms into a case of murder. But it isn’t his case. He has no client, and the local authorities tell him to butt out.\nThen Marsha Montgomery comes to the office asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a burglary at her mother’s home. Someone stole a rifle and a photograph of Marsha’s mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renowned photographer Doris Ulmann. The site of the photograph is The Kingdom of the Happy Land. The date of the burglary, 1967. Marsha’s visit is no coincidence. Sam’s being played. But why?\nWhen Marsha’s eighty-five-year-old mother Lucille is arrested for murder, Sam has his answer and his case. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang, Marsha’s white father and her mother’s lover, who disappeared in 1967 right after interracial couples were allowed to marry in North Carolina? Jimmy’s brother says no. Jimmy left to seek his fortune after Lucille rejected his marriage proposal. But others stood to gain from his disappearance. A veil of betrayal and deceit hides a killer desperate to protect a dark secret, and no one, not even Sam, is safe from the deadly consequences of a murder in passing.

A Murder in Passing

Worldwide Library

The Singularity Race

Worldwide Library Suspense

[Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.][Read by William Dufis] Sam Blackman is an angry man. A Chief Warrant Officer in the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the U.S. military, he lost a leg in Iraq. His outspoken criticism of his medical treatment resulted in his transfer to the Veterans Hospital in Asheville, NC. Disillusioned with the military, grieving over the recent death of his parents, and at odds with his brother, Sams life is in shambles. Then an exmarine and fellow amputee named Tikima Robertson walks into his hospital room. Tikima hints she has an opportunity for Sam to use his investigative skills if he can stop feeling sorry for himself. But before she can return, Tikima is murdered, her body found floating in the French Broad River. Sam was the last person to see her alive. Tikimas sister, Nakayla, brings Sam a journal she finds in Tikimas apartment. A note stuck to the inside cover reads For Sam Blackman. The volume dates to 1919 and contains the entries of a twelveyearold boy who accompanies his father, a white funeral director, as they help a black man, Elijah Robertson, transport his deceased relative from Asheville to a small family plot in Georgia. The link to the present? Nearly 90 years ago, Elijahs body was also found in the French Broad River, a crime foreshadowing the death of his greatgreatgranddaughter Tikima Sam and Nakayla must delve into Ashevilles rich history, the legacy of the Vanderbilts at the Biltmore estate, and of author Tom Wolfe to uncover the murderous truth.

Blackman's Coffin (Sam Blackman)

Literature & Fiction

Blackstone Audiobooks

Sam Blackman is an angry man. A chief warrant officer in the criminal investigation detachment of the US military, he lost a leg in Iraq and has been outspoken in his criticism of his medical treatment. Then, ex-marine and fellow amputee Tikima Robertson walks into his hospital room, hinting that she has an opportunity for Sam to use his investigative skills. But before she can return, Tikima is murdered, her body found floating in the French Broad River. When a journal dating to 1919 is found in Tikima's home, detailing a ninety-year-old crime that foreshadows Tikima's death, Sam must delve into the area's rich history, the legacy of the Vanderbilts at the Biltmore estate, and author Tom Wolfe to uncover the murderous truth.

Blackman's Coffin: A Sam Blackman Mystery (Sam Blackman Series)

Sam Blackman's first client at his new detective agency is a quirky elderly woman with a strange request. She wants Sam to right a wrong she committed over seventy years before, when she stole a manuscript from F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The Fitzgerald Ruse (Sam Blackman Mysteries, Book 2)

Blackstone Audio

Fatal Undertaking (Buryin' Barry Mysteries, No. 5)

United States

The Sandburg Connection (Sam Blackman)

[This is the MP3CD audiobook format.] It was only a simple, routine assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson: follow a history professor, who is suing a spinal surgeon for malpractice, and catch her in physical activities that undercut her claim. When the professor, Janice Wainwright, visits Connemara, the home of the poet Carl Sandburg, in Flat Rock, North Carolina, and climbs the arduous trail to the top of Glassy Mountain, Sam believes he has the evidence he needs to wrap up the case until he finds the woman semiconscious and bleeding on the mountain's granite outcrop. Her final words were ''It's the Sandburg verses. The Sandburg verses.'' As the first person to discover the dying woman, Sam becomes the prime suspect. Now the case is personal. An autopsy reveals painkillers in her blood and solid proof of the surgeon's errors, and Sam is left with haunting questions: Why did this suffering woman endure the climb to the mountaintop? Did she stumble and fall or did someone cause her death? Then a break-in at the Wainwright farmhouse and the theft of Sandburg volumes convince Sam that someone is seeking information worth killing for. But what did Pulitzer Prize winner Sandburg have in his literary collection that could lead to multiple murders? And who will be targeted next? Sam and Nakayla must navigate a convoluted trail of historical facts and mountain legends to arrive at the truth a truth that Carl Sandburg never knew he possessed and a treasure to be had for a song.

The Sandburg Connection (A Sam Blackman Mystery, #3)

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Books by Mark De Castrique