Title: 100 Proof Stud (The
Darcy Walker Series #3)
Author: AJ Lape
Genre: YA/Mystery/Humor
Sometimes life smacks you right in the
kisser with a whole lot of ohhhh craaaaap.
Just ask Darcy Walker.
100 Proof Stud picks up four months after No Brainer's cliffhanger ending, and
Darcy discovers the aftermath pales in comparison to the crisis her heart is
in. All of a sudden it's raining men, and this teenage heroine’s personal life
turns her inside out.
Before she can sort out her feelings, she chases a spray-painting vandal and
stumbles upon a case of identity theft right in her own backyard. Darcy jumps
into the fray headfirst to prove she can hang with the big boys.
But it’s not just to hang…nope, she’s chasing reward money.
Tapping her band of misfit brothers for help, she turns Valley upside down
trying to unearth the criminals. Problem is, the cloak and dagger goes
high-octane, and she raises the bar on “crazy" in the process.
Bullets ring out…dead bodies appear…and Darcy rubs shoulders with the ultimate
sociopath. In the midst of murder and mayhem, will she finally follow her heart
or build a fortress of lies around it? Will she even get the chance?
I squeaked
open the door to the adjacent bedroom and was met with an empty twin bed. A
rumpled white sheet draped the bed, no comforter. Pivoting around, I did a
quick scan of the gray carpet, found nothing overly suspicious or weird, so
moved onto the closet.
By that time, Vinnie nipped at my heels.
“I’m getting a funny feeling, Dolce. We need to roll.”
My thoughts exactly. But when I opened the walk-in closet and
stepped inside, no way in the world would I ever have been prepared for what
I’d find. There’s an idiom about skeletons in your closet. Trouble was, the
skeleton I’d discovered still had meat on it.
“Vinnie,” I whispered, “there’s a skeleton
in the closet.”
Vinnie munched on his moon pie behind me;
I heard the crinkle of the wrapper. “Ha-ha, Dolce. Is this some metaphorical
test I’m supposed to decipher?”
“No, like a real skeleton that I think is
a man.”
Vinnie took one step inside and dropped
the f-bomb. Then added mommy-effer.
“Do you smell that?” I asked.
Vinnie’s inhale was audible. “Yeah, smells
like O-positive to me.” Loosely rolled in a faded navy comforter were the
remains of a man. He lay facedown with a small patch of flesh and short black
hair still clinging to his head. This wasn’t the only dead body I’d
encountered, and neither was the body of a man I’d found in a dumpster last
spring. I, eh, well…I found a head…buried in the sand on vacation in Orlando. I
had a habit of stumbling upon dead bodies and/or body parts. Something the
majority of people could go a lifetime and not have happen once, I’d
experienced one too many times to count. The smell wasn’t as bad as bodies
that’d recently expired, but it smelled like death, nonetheless. Death has a
peculiar smell you never forget. Covering my nose with my hand, I lifted the
tip of my boot and kicked the blanket back, starting at the naked feet. Black
boxers framed femurs that barely had any flesh left, and a plain white t-shirt
adorned the crumpled torso. A vintage concert t-shirt from The Minstrel Cramps,
a local all-girl band popular back in the day, lay beside the corpse’s head. A
memory played in the back of my mind I immediately tried to erase.
A memory that’d haunted me since I was
nine years old.
The Darcy Walker Series:
Book 1 – Grade A Stupid
Book 2 – No Brainer
A. J. Lape is the Amazon bestselling author of
the Darcy Walker Series. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband, two
daughters, an ADD dog, a spoiled hamster, and an unapologetic and unrepentant
addiction to Coca-Cola--and a lifelong love affair with bacon. If the FBI ever
checks her computer, she'll be wearing prison orange due to the various
"wiki" articles she looks up. She swears the dead body, mob, and drug
related stuff is only career research.
Find out more about A. J. at http://www.ajlape.com
Thirteen things you didn't know about AJ Lape
AKA - Ada Miracle Lape
1. I can dislocate my left shoulder on command.
2. My favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life...cry like a baby when George
Bailey starts yelling, "I want to live again...I want to live again."
3. I hate clowns and chicken wings ... not necessarily in that order.
4. I'm a notorious sleepwalker. It happens when I'm troubled. As far as I can
tell, I always have my clothes on.
5. I had an academic scholarship. I know that's shocking, but looking at
homework today, I'm pretty sure I'm tapped out at fifth grade.
6. I like to shoot 9mm guns...look out Target World, every once in a while you
have to walk your inner hillbilly.
7. I started running high school track when I was in the sixth grade. Don't ask
me to run now. After two kids, I pee my pants when I walk across the floor.
8. I'm like Rain Man when it comes to fractions.
9. I used to write and record songs. I won Honorable Mentions in the John
Lennon Song Writing Contest and Music City Song Festival. Verrrry short career.
10. I've cliff-dived off a 40-foot cliff into a lake...wouldn't recommend it
..that sucker can burn.
11. I'm the only human I know that got turned down twice when trying to adopt
handicapped dogs. What the heck...those dogs would've loved me.
12. I would've been a police officer or journalist if life didn't land me where
I am.
13. I occasionally have the foul mouth of a truck driver ... sorry, Mom and
Dad. I try to change it. So far, the message hasn't made it to the execution
part of my brain.
Thank you for the promo!!
ReplyDelete