About Dying Declaration
Dying Declaration: A Legal Thriller
3rd in Series Setting - Florida
Stony Hill Publishers (November 30, 2019)
Paperback : 248 pages
ISBN-10 : 1670430324
ISBN-13 : 978-1670430328
Digital ASIN : B082733F4W
Purchase Links - Amazon - B&N - Books-a-Million - Bookshop.org
Dr. Catherine "Cat" Powers is FBI Forensic pathologist and special agent with an uncanny sixth sense for bringing murders to justice.
During a vacation in Belize with her young son, Joey, Cat gets a phone call from her boss. Young prostitutes are being picked up, murdered and left for dead in the Florida Everglades. The first victim does not fit the killer’s modus operandi. She was a legal secretary working for the Fort Lauderdale based international law firm, Black and Knight.
As Cat investigates this and other deaths, they lead back to the firm's henchmen and to its partners. With the help of another firm employee, Cat discovers a secret web of murder, illicit drugs, prostitution, sex trafficking, corruption and more. The firm’s partners intend to kill anyone who can lead the law back to them, including Cat.
As the body count grows, powerful people will make decisions that will change lives. Decisions that will destroy families. As Cat uncovers the conspiracy, only one partner, the mastermind, will become Cat’s ally. She will walk away, after seeing that the others are brought to justice.
About Solange Ritchie
BORN ON THE BEAUTIFUL TROPICAL ISLAND of Jamaica to a Jamaican father and a French mother, Solange Ritchie (then Solange Levy) immigrated to the United States at age eleven. Since then, she has become a dynamic force for change. Fed up with thrillers that start with a fizzle and longing to see more powerful women as lead characters, Solange decided to create her own characters. Despite the demands of a busy legal career, she accomplished her ambitious goal by rising each morning to write before work, dedicating her weekends to writing, and even spending her vacation time writing. Solange is fortunate to have traveled to over 19 countries in her lifetime.
Words have always been Solange’s passion – now so more than ever.
Solange achieved a successful writing career while doing “last minute trial,” mostly in Southern California. Dubbed “the Case Saver,” Solange handled intense legal motions that either make or break a case, especially in the areas of business, labor, and employment law. In 2014, she received the State Bar of California’s Solo and Small Firm’s Section’s highest award, the Myer J. Sankary Attorney of the Year Award. It is given to only one attorney each year in California.
When Solange was just thirty-seven years old, her first husband, John, died due to gross medical negligence at a leading Southern California hospital. This life-altering experience helped shape her into the person she is today. She began writing creatively to deal with the stress of his hospitalization and his death.
Solange’s first psychological thriller, The Burning Man, featuring FBI forensic pathologist Dr. Catherine “Cat” Powers was published in 2015. Her second novel in the series, Firestorm, was released to critical acclaim, on May 15, 2018. Dying Declaration is the third novel in the Dr. Catherine “Cat” Powers series. Bomb Blast is Solange’s fourth novel in the series. Solange plans at least two more books in the Dr. Catherine Powers series. A fan of things that go bump in the night, Solange has also penned a Southern Gothic novel called Fiona’s Box, which will be released shortly.
Solange lives in Southern Florida. She enjoys traveling, writing, gardening, time with her family, as well as good food and conversation. Solange is available for speaking engagements. She especially enjoys talking with book clubs. To receive her Sunday blog post, Notes from Solange, just go to her author website, www.solangeritchie.com, and leave your e-mail address. Nothing negative or political is ever posted. Her author website, www.authorsolange.com, includes a blog, reviews, recipes, events, and the latest on Solange’s adventures. Solange welcomes your comments, reviews, and suggestions, and invites you to contact her at:
AuthorCHAPTER ONE
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of Hell, a Hell of heaven.
—John Milton, Paradise Lost.
She has never felt more relaxed than she does at this moment.
Dr. Catherine ‘Cat’ Powers is sitting on a powder white sand beach at X’tan Ha Resort on Ambergris Caye in Belize. A cool, sweet smell perfumes the air. She can’t quite make it out. It is part ocean and hibiscus mixed with the smell of tanning oil. Something soft and sweet and fresh. It lights up her senses and relaxes her even more at the same time. The fine sand makes a barely audible crunch beneath Cat’s toes. The noon sun beats down on Cat, but she doesn’t mind at all. The warmth on her skin makes her feel alive, away from all those dark days in Washington, DC, when rain and snow and cold were her closest companions. Away from her job as head special agent and forensic pathologist for the FBI, a job that takes her all over the United States investigating and solving what she calls “the worst of the worst” criminal cases.
To her left, farther down the beach, Cat sees mansion-sized vacation homes tucked among tall swaying palm trees, their windows and doors closed and covered with hurricane shutters. Soldiers standing guard against the rain, wind and tropical elements when the rainy season comes.
To have a house like that someday.
In this heaven.
It is everything just as it is supposed to be.
Cat watches a sportfishing boat go by out at sea, its engine barely audible over lapping waves. Joey plays on the white sand beach trying to build a sandcastle that keeps collapsing. Each time it does, Joey laughs and laughs and laughs. Belly laughs from Cat’s eight-year-old boy.
Cat loves to hear his laugh. She loves to hear the innocence returning to her child’s soul. Joey’s innocence had been lost because of Cat’s work. His innocence taken by Eric.
It happened because of me.
Would she ever forgive herself for that? Could she ever forgive herself for that?
It does not matter now.
All that matters right now is Joey’s sweet laugh. It rings like a symphony orchestra in her ears. It radiates through her soul.
Cat loves watching as Joey’s innocence returns.
She loves this powder sand, this turquoise green ocean that transitions to deep cobalt blue, this newfound sense of peace and tranquility. In her mind, she wonders, Why can’t it always be like this?
Cat’s cell phone rings by her side and she knows the answer instantly.
It cannot be like this because there is evil in the world.
It is her job to hunt evil down. And to kill it, if need be.
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