Created by Lynn Chandler Willis
Las Vegas P.I. GYPSY MORAN is back in his hometown of Wink in West Texas to visit his kid sister Rhonda, when a former student of hers, 12-year-old Tatum McCallen, asks him to look into his father’s alleged suicide, in Wink of an Eye (2014), the winner of the 2013 St. Martin’s Press/The Private Eye Writers of America Best First P.I. Novel Contest.
“My father didn’t kill himself” is a pretty good opening line for a P.I. novel, I’ve gotta admit.
It’s more complicated than a mere suicide, of course. Tatum’s dad was a deputy sheriff, working a case off the books, involving eight missing local girls. Intrigued, and feeling a little sorry for the kid, Gypsy — against his better judgement — decides to look into it. Just a bit. After all, he’s on “vacation.” He sets up shop on Rhonda’s kitchen table.
Gypsy’s an appealing character, a good ol’ boy with a quick wit, a temper that sometimes gets the better of him, and just enough brains and brawn — and pig-headed cowboy stubbornness — to get the job done, and Willis provides just enough gritty West Texas detail to bring it all home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author has worked in the corporate world, the television news business, and the newspaper industry. She was born, raised, and continues to live in North Carolina, within walking distance of her children and their spouses and her nine grandchildren. Her first published novel, The Rising, won the Grace Award for Execellence in Faith-based Fiction, and she also writes a mystery series featuring newspaper reporter Ava Logan. She shares her home, and heart, with with Finn, a rescue border collie, and hopes to one day retire to the Appalachian region she often writes about.
UNDER OATH
- “A compelling debut for a private investigator—part Old West, part modern techie—whose code of honor is all his own.”
— Kirkus Reviews - “P.I. Gypsy Moran’s blasting out of Vegas on the run but finds he can’t escape his past when he returns to his hometown in this high octane tale of hot new love, smoldering first love, murder, and betrayal. Wink of an Eye flies by in the ‘wink of an eye’ in this fast paced thriller set on the hot, dusty Texas plains. I eagerly await Gypsy’s next adventure.”
— Paul D. Marks - “Gypsy is a prize of a guy, and Wink is a Texas town you don’t need to be a Republican to appreciate.”
— Toronto Star - “Small-town Texas, big-time crime. That’s what private-eye Gypsy Moran finds when he comes home to Wink, Texas… Lynn Chandler Willis knows her way around a plot, and her characters and setting ring true. Wink of an Eye is a fine debut, and I hope it’s just the beginning for Willis and Gypsy Moran.”
— Bill Crider
NOVELS
- Wink of an Eye (2014) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- The St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Contest
Winners 1986-2014.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
