Saturday Spotlight: Derek E Dykes

This post may be short since I'm writing it on my cell phone. Yikes. I'm a pro at putting things off, and this is where it's gotten me. So, first of all, I'll have to start out with a little background info on myself. When I read a book, even if the story is amazing, I can't enjoy it unless the author's voice is one I can relate to. Because of that, I hate... I mean DESPISE... buying books directly from the author. At cons, you often meet authors, they're often nice people, and they're usually selling their books (you know, doing their job). When I pick a book in a bookstore, I read passages at random to determine how I think I'd like the book. I'm terribly picky and I most often put the book back. Since I can't even IMAGINE doing that with the person who wrote the book staring me down, I tend to pick one book for con weekends almost at random and just hope for the best. 

Last year I hit the jackpot! An author in a panel for writers mentioned a plot detail and I decided to buy that book. It's called Madness and it's by Derek E Dykes.  Set in the future, it involves mental illness, murder, future tech and pure evil. In the beginning of the book the main character, who's an FBI agent, happens upon a decades-old crime scene.  The victim's DNA shows that she's a positive match for our heroine's maternal grandmother, who died not decades ago but only a year ago.  I don't want to give too much away, but it's really intense and at one point I literally had to put the book down to hyperventilate. 

I actually ran into him at the con today and he very graciously posed for a picture with me.  I was a little disappointed that he didn't have any books with him but not to worry.  He'll have some tomorrow, and you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be there to get the next book; I'll get as many books as there are in this series.  (Two.  There are two more books in this series.  I was being dramatic.  But I am buying both of the other two.) 

I think he actually did the cover art as well

Nice work Derek Dykes, you beautiful twisted freak.