The Runner and the Robber by Robert Sells Review, Book Sale, Excerpt & Giveaway

The Runner and the Robber

by Robert Sells

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GENRE: Young Adult

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BLURB:

His father is dead. Grandfather has Alzheimer’s. Mom can just pay the bills. And, Bill Taylor can’t run track and cross-country anymore. Could it get any worse? How about being threatened by an ex-con, fighting with a football player twice his size, and being involved with two murders?
One day, running back home from school Bill was nearly run over and accosted by a strange man. “Tell the old man he damn well better give up some of that the money. I want my cut and I’m coming to get it.”

Thus begins a search for three million dollars missing from a Brinks’ robbery twenty years in the past. Billy makes friends with Sarah Seeley, a classmate as impetuous as she was attractive. Sarah and Bill put the pieces of the puzzle together relying on a few clues and the fragmented memory of the addled brain of Gramps. Billy’s life gets even more complicated after encounters with the mafia who also have an interest in the money. Then there’s this problem with a serial killer. Billy is faced with one paramount question: will he and Sarah be the next victims?

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Excerpt One:

The librarian, an ancient creature with white hair, cleared her throat and glared at us over her glasses. The library had always been a quiet place to study, for decades apparently.

“No, read right here.” I whispered.

Sarah pressed against my shoulder looking at the page. I didn’t scoot away.

“Cool, maybe the missing money was buried somewhere around here.” Sarah said excitedly. The librarian cleared her throat again.

“Buried money? Why did you say that?” I whispered, pretending to look at the screen.

She thought a moment and then answered so quietly that my head inclined closer to her. “I don’t know. A robbery, missing money. A buried treasure is cool, I guess.”

I turned to her.

“Buried treasure?” I shook my head. “Sarah, it was an armored car robbery.”

Her brow furrowed (very cute).

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot the rules. If it was an armored car robbery, then criminals aren’t allowed to bury the money,” she hissed.

“No. Yes. All right, maybe. But unlikely. It’s more likely some criminal has the money and probably spent it all.”

“Did it say that in the article?” Her voice might be audible to the next table (no one was there), but who knows what the white-haired crone forty feet away could detect. She was watching us, a hawk studying mice.

I shifted in my seat and coughed. At the end of the cough, I whispered, “Not so loud.”

Sarah was quiet.

 “The mafia was involved and the article implied that someone in the mafia might have taken the money,” I whispered barely moving my lips.

“Then how do you know it isn’t buried?”

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I attended college at Ohio Wesleyan where I struggled with physics. Having made so many mistakes in college with physics, there weren’t too many left to make and I did quite well at graduate school at Purdue.   

I worked for nearly twenty years at Choate Rosemary Hall, an exclusive boarding school in the heart of Connecticut. More often than not, students arrived in limousines. There was a wooded area by the upper athletic fields where I would take my children for a walk. There, under a large oak tree, stories about the elves would be weaved into the surrounding forest.

Returning to my home town to help with a father struggling with Alzheimer’s, the only job open was at a prison. There I taught an entirely different clientele whose only interaction with limousines was stealing them. A year later Alfred State College hired me to teach physics. I happily taught there for over ten years.

My wife’s boss, the superintendent of a rural school in western New York, begged me to teach physics and earth science. Helping young high school students was particularly appealing to me at this point in my career and the salary was more than reasonable, so I find myself happily teaching at Mt Morris Central School.

Five years ago, my wife pestered me about putting to “pen” some of the stories which I had created for the children and other relatives. I started thinking about a young boy and a white deer, connected, yet apart. Ideas were shuffled together, characters created and the result was the Return of the White Deer. This book was published by the Martin Sisters.

Years ago I gave a lecture on evolution. What, I wondered, would be the next step? Right away I realized that silicon ‘life’ had considerable advantages over mortal man. Later this idea emerged as the exciting and disturbing story called Reap the Whirlwind.

Two years ago I stumbled upon an old article in the local paper about a Brinks’ robbery in 1992.  Apparently over ten million dollars were stolen and most of it was never recovered. Although the mafia was peripherally involved in the heist, it was unlikely they took the missing millions. This was the seed which has now grown into the young adult novel, The Runner and the Robber. 

I have many other stories inside my mind, fermenting… waiting patiently for the pen. Perhaps someday I will even write about those elves which still inhabit the woods in the heart of Connecticut.

The Ebook can be purchased for $0.99 during the tour.

http://www.amazon.com/Runner-Robber-Robert-Sells-ebook/dp/B00YHWZYK8/

http://www.robertsells.org/

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My Review:

Every once in a while I read a book, and I think to myself, what a great idea for a mystery. Missing money, and a witness with Alzheimer's. As bodies piled up, Bill got closer to the truth, but when was it too close to the mob? There were times in the book when I was really worried, like the snake bite. I kept guessing where the money could be as well. I really enjoyed how Bill thought that the fates were making knots in the fabric of his life. It made me giggle. The ending was good, and I liked how the author tied the last line back to the mob. I also found the information on Alzheimer's and the letters from the author informative. I am giving this book a 4/5. I was given a copy to review, however all opinions are my own. 

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Robert Sells will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway