Silver Moon Rising: Fact vs. Fiction

From autocrats to plutocrats to the guy next door, everyone is lying. ‘What about novelists, AMP?’ Absolutely, without a doubt. But they’re not lying to hoodwink us. Rather, they’re lying to create fiction, to entertain us.

An earlier North Noir post noted that every work of fiction sits on a fact-fiction continuum. On one end of the continuum there is pure fact; on the other, pure invention. Much of any novel sits somewhere in between. Take Silver Moon Rising (Detective Bourque Book Two). What facts bleed into its fiction? The main murderee, Daniel John Fitzgerald (Dan-Dan), is loosely based on John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. (John-John), who died tragically in a 1999 plane crash. Dan-Dan Fitzgerald’s best friend, Chase Heaney, is loosely based on Paul Watson of Greenpeace. However, the resemblances are, as they say, incidental. Fitzgerald and Heaney are characters in a whodunit – aka, an entertainment with teeth.

Silver Moon Rising probes political activism and loss, not only the loss of human lives, but the impending loss of an entire species — the right whale. New Englanders have been coming to terms with whale mortality for centuries, as evinced by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851). In Melville’s tale, when humans and whales collide, things unravel. As they do in Silver Moon Rising.

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Silver Moon Rising nominated for Edgar and ITW Awards

SILVER MOON RISING, Book Two in the Det. Ivy Bourque Series, has been nominated for an Edgar Award (Best Original Paperback) and an International Thriller Writers (ITW) Award (Best Series Novel). I’m over the moon – the silver moon. 😉

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Review of Silver Moon Rising by Ken Haigh, Author of Under The Holy Lake and On Foot to Canterbury

“Book Two in the Lieutenant Ivy Bourque series gets off to a quick start: a sudden violent death on a moonlit ferry crossing on Cape Cod. The victim, Daniel Fitzgerald, is the son of a prominent New England political family turned eco-activist. His abusive social media posts have earned him many enemies, but as Bourque investigates, the potential culprits multiply, and she begins to wonder if the motive for Fitzgerald’s murder is personal rather than political. Bourque is a likeable sleuth, a clever, fair-minded detective operating in a man’s world.

The author, who grew up in Nova Scotia, is particularly good on descriptive detail, capturing the weather and mood of the east coast setting. Potter is also very good on the details of the police investigation. Readers who like police procedurals will enjoy following Bourque as the bodies and the forensic clues multiply. The book is well-plotted, and the story will keep the reader turning pages until the solution is revealed. This is Potter’s third book (the first, also a mystery, was set in Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula region), and each book is better than the one before.  I’m looking forward to the next book in this series.”

Publishing News: Release Date for Bourque #2, Silver Moon Rising

SILVER MOON RISING, the second novel in the Detective Bourque series set in contemporary New England, will be released by Stark House Press on SEPTEMBER 4, 2024.

Lieutenant Ivy Bourque of the Cape & Islands Detective Unit is called to a Martha’s Vineyard ferry at midnight. The estranged son of Massachusetts’ most famous political family is dead.

Was the victim, Daniel John Fitzgerald, murdered, or was he assassinated? Dan-Dan Fitzgerald was a preeminent eco-activist and whale advocate. His death triggers more deaths. Numerous suspects arise, among them the ferry crew, a megalomaniacal State governor, former Marines, a federal political lobbyist, and anti-whale shipping companies.

The investigation falters until Bourque realizes the key lies below the surface of Vineyard Sound, which leads to a tangled web centered on Cuttyhunk Island off Cape Cod.

“Impressive series launch. Fans of intelligent procedurals will hope for a long series run.” – Publishers Weekly on The Color Red, Detective Bourque Book One

Silver Moon Rising, Potter’s sequel to The Color Red (2023), portrays Bourque as an increasingly confident, intuitive detective, giving plenty of room for this burgeoning series to grow.” – Booklist, the best book reviews for libraries, the best books for book clubs, published by the American Library Association (ALA)

Book Two in the Detective Ivy Bourque Series

PUBLISHING NEWS: The second novel in the DETECTIVE IVY BOURQUE series will be published by Stark House Press, CA, USA. RELEASE DATE: September 2024. Title/cover reveal in Summer 2024.

BOURQUE NUMBER TWO: Another son of Massachusetts’ most famous political family is dead: Daniel John Fitzgerald. Enter Lieutenant Bourque of the Cape & Islands Detective Unit. Was Fitzgerald murdered, or was he assassinated? The victim was a preeminent eco-activist and whale advocate. His death triggers more deaths. In Bourque’s domain, most homicides are personal; assassinations, on the other hand, are political. Her team unravels a tangled web which leads to Cuttyhunk Island, Cape Cod.

“Impressive series launch. Fans of intelligent procedurals will hope for a long series run.” ~ Publishers Weekly

Click here for information on the series opener, The Color Red.

Stark House has optioned the third book in the series.