The Granite Moth

About the Book

Title: The Granite Moth

Author: Erica Wright

Genre: Mystery

It begins with a bang: Kathleen Stone is watching her friend Dolly and his fellow drag queens perform at the Halloween Parade when their float explodes. Suspecting sabotage, the club's owner hires Kat to find the culprit. But Kat hasn't given up on bringing gangster Salvatore Magrelli to justice and finds herself pulled between identities. While navigating both the grit and glamour of New York City, she realizes that sometimes love and hate can be hard to tell apart.

Author Bio

Erica Wright's latest book is The Granite Moth (Pegasus). Her debut crime novel The Red Chameleon (Pegasus) was one of O, The Oprah Magazine's Best Books of Summer 2014 and was called "riveting" by Publishers Weekly. She is also the author of poetry collections Instructions for Killing the Jackal (Black Lawrence Press) and All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned (forthcoming, Black Lawrence Press). She is the poetry editor and a senior editor at Guernica Magazine.

Links

Website: www.ericawright.org

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3086310.Erica_Wright

Twitter: https://twitter.com/eawright

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Erica-Wright/e/B00I3PGS7S

Excerpt

When I turned back around to thank Ellis for the information, he had vanished, and I felt my spirits sink in disappointment. Maybe it was unrealistic, but I was hoping to grab a beer like in the old days. “Onward,” I mumbled before standing on my tiptoes to see over the head of a Playboy Bunny who had scooted in front of me while I was distracted. Between her satin ears, I could make out the retreating Pink Parrot float, its red taillights casting an eerie sheen over the jugglers behind. They were dressed like macabre court jesters, their faces painted in green and purple scales. One tossed flaming batons into the air, snagging them a split second before they hit the ground. When he added a fourth pin, the audience added whistles to their applause. He caught it the first time effortlessly, then seemed to trip over something in the street. At first everyone assumed that it was part of the act, but the cheers turned to shrieks when the pin careened forward, way out of his reach, bouncing onto the Pink Parrot's makeshift stage.

“Dolly,” I screamed, but the woman in front of me couldn’t hear, much less the person I wanted to warn. Dolly had started to sing about Mars when he noticed the fire spreading quickly through the streamers and papier-mâché dragons. To his credit, he didn’t panic. Most of the other entertainers ran for the sides, climbing over the railings even before the truck stopped. Dolly grabbed bottled waters and emptied them onto the burning surfaces, but it was hopeless. People started to stampede east, knocking over anyone moving too slowly. I wrapped my body around the 10^th Street sign, determined to help if I could survive the exodus.

Roman candles began careening in all directions, and their high-pitched whine had never sounded less festive. A man fell nearby, his right foot engulfed until someone threw a jacket on top, slapping out the flames. I took a step toward them, then stopped, my eyes on the blue sparks emanating from what looked like audio equipment on the Pink Parrot float. Then the float exploded, a deadly combination of sheet metal, scaffolding, and performers thrown into the night.