Righteous Assassin: A Mike Stoneman Thriller

See more by Kevin Chapman

Available at Select Retailers

About the author

Kevin Chapman

            I am an attorney, and while my whole professional life involves writing briefs and argumentative position statements, my novel-writing career has been a long and slow process.  I wrote my first novel in 1991, after being laid off from my law firm job.  I had time on my hands and a story in my head – a private investigator mystery – which I finished a year or so later (after I was back working).  But, Identity Crisis: A Rick LaBlonde Mystery, was not published until 2003 when my wife paid for the self-publication through Xlibris as an anniversary present to me.  From there, beginning in about 2004, I set out to write the Great American Novel, and over the next ten years or so I did just that, finally self-publishing A Legacy of One in 2016 through Amazon’s Create Space self-publishing arm.  A Legacy of One is a serious work of literary fiction, about identity, self-determination, morality, and the consequences of our decisions, all set within a political drama.  The book was a short-list finalist for the Somerset award for literary fiction (Chanticleer International Book Awards).  The journey to finally publish my second novel, combined with my children growing up and going off to college and their own careers, left me with an itch to keep writing, and enough free time to do it.

            I have written a few screenplay drafts and some short stories, but I set out to write my third novel in 2017 and went back to the detective-mystery-thriller genre, which is frankly more fun (as well as more likely to get read) than serious literary fiction.  My latest novel is, I think, my best effort to date and a truly good read.  The characters are well-developed and have deep back-stories, the interrelationships make a good sub-story to go along with the main plot, and the final plot developments provide a solid basis for the continuation of the characters’ stories into the next book(s).  I’m hoping that enough readers find Righteous Assassin that there will be interest in the next Mike Stoneman thriller.