BOOK LAUNCH: DEEP ZERO by V.S. Kemanis
Thanks for
having me back on Out of the Fog,
Connie! From the moment I discovered your books and website, I knew that we had
a lot in common. We’re both lawyers-turned-authors of crime fiction, who love
to create strong female protagonists and throw them into the thick of things!
A lot has
happened since December 2015, when I contributed “The Greatest Challenge” to
your blog (http://thecharitythriller.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-greatest-challenge-by-vs-kemanis.html). At that time, I had written two
novels about prosecutor Dana Hargrove, and now, I’m about to release the fourth
standalone novel in the series, Deep Zero.
Dana strives for justice in every case she investigates, juggling the demands of a high-powered legal career with her loyalties to friends and family. She’s a strong and smart woman, but not without her vulnerabilities. I love to challenge her with dilemmas of ethics and conscience, and many of her thorniest problems involve the intersection of career and family. As I said in my earlier blog piece, the biggest challenge in my legal career was to maintain a balance between the personal and the professional, especially when my kids were young. In the Dana Hargrove novels, I’ve taken this theme a step further, mixing Dana’s family and friends into the legal morass, often unwittingly!
The series
has taken Dana from her rookie days in 1988 (Thursday’s List), into very different stages of her professional
experience and family life (Homicide
Chart, 1994, and Forsaken Oath,
2001). In Deep Zero, it’s 2009, and Dana
is the newly-elected District Attorney of Westchester County. Dana and her
husband, a civil litigation attorney, are raising their two teenage children in
the county where Dana is the chief law enforcement official. Things heat up
very early in her new administration when she’s hit with a tragic cyberbullying
case and other crimes involving teens in the very school district where her own
children are enrolled. She comes under fire in the media for her handling of
these cases, and even for her personal parenting choices!
After
six years and four books, Dana, her family and colleagues, have become a part
of my life. It’s a lot of fun having a second family. They’re an interesting
bunch, and I hope you get to know them.
Book blurb:
It's one a.m. Do you know where your teenagers are? Prosecutor
Dana Hargrove makes it a point to know. But one night, in the dead of winter,
she should have known more.
In February
2009, Dana is the newly-elected district attorney of a suburban county north of
Manhattan, where she lives with her husband, attorney Evan Goodhue, and their
two teenage children. The Great Recession has seen a rise in substance abuse
and domestic violence. It's also the era of burgeoning social media, an
intoxicating lure for wayward and disaffected teens who find new methods of
victimization: a game to some, with no thought of the consequences.
During an
arctic cold snap, the body of a high school student is discovered, lodged in
the ice floes of the Hudson River. People are crying for justice, but there
doesn't seem to be a law that fits. Days later, in one hellish night, Dana's
children are sucked into a criminal investigation against several of their classmates,
making her a convenient target for community outrage.
In Deep
Zero, the fourth standalone legal mystery featuring the dynamic
prosecutor, Dana walks the tightrope like never before in her tricky balance
between professional ethics and family loyalties.
Author
bio:
V.S. Kemanis has had an exciting and
varied career in the law and the arts. As an attorney, she has been a criminal
prosecutor for county and state agencies, argued criminal appeals for the
prosecution and defense, conducted complex civil litigation, and worked for
appellate judges and courts, most recently as a supervising editor of appellate
decisions. Ms. Kemanis is also an accomplished dancer of classical ballet, modern
jazz, and contemporary styles, and has performed, taught and choreographed in
California, Colorado and New York.
Short fiction by Ms. Kemanis has been
published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, The Crooked Road Volume
3, and several noted literary journals. She is a member of the Mystery
Writers of America. Her award-winning short fiction is available in four
collections, Dust of the Universe, Everyone But Us, Malocclusion,
and Love and Crime. Legal mysteries Thursday's List, Homicide
Chart, Forsaken Oath, and Deep
Zero feature prosecutor Dana Hargrove who, like the author, juggles the
competing demands of family with a high-powered professional career in the law.
Links:
Deep Zero on Amazon:
Deep Zero on NetGalley:
Website:
Author video on YouTube, “The Dana Hargrove Novels”:
Amazon author page:
Goodreads page:
Twitter:
Facebook:
