ABOUT ROGER JOHNS

ROGER JOHNS is a former corporate lawyer, retired college professor, and the author of the Wallace Hartman Mysteries from St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books: Dark River Rising and River of Secrets. His short fiction has been, or is soon to be published by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, the Mystery Weekly Magazine, Dark City Crime & Mystery Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, Black Beacon Books, Yellow Mama, and in Viral Literature: Alone Together in Georgia. He is the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year (Detective·Mystery Category), a 2018 Killer Nashville Readers’ Choice Award nominee, a 2018 and 2019 Finalist for a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, runner-up for the 2019 Frank Yerby Fiction Award, the 2019 JKS Communications Author-in-Residence, and the 2019 Finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year (Detective·Mystery Category). Roger is a frequent speaker at conferences, literary festivals, and writers’ organizations on the subjects of mystery writing and career management for authors, and his articles and interviews about writing and career management for new authors have appeared in Career Authors, Criminal Element, Killer Nashville Articles, the Southern Literary Review, Writer Unboxed, and Southern Writers Magazine. He belongs to the Atlanta Writers Club, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Mystery Writers of America and, along with several other crime fiction writers, he co-authors the MurderBooks blog at www.murder-books.com. He currently serves as the 2020-2022 Vice President of the Southeast Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

ABOUT ROGER JOHNS BOOKS

River of Secrets. Herbert Marioneaux, a Louisiana politician infamous for changing his mind on hot-button issues, has been murdered and his body posed to send a message. Baton Rouge homicide detective Wallace Hartman has to figure out who’s sending that message. DNA points to Eddie Pitkin, a social justice activist who also happens to be the half-brother of Wallace’s childhood best friend. But even with the combative history between Pitkin and Marioneaux, murder seems out of character for Pitkin, whose usual MO is to confront the wealthy and powerful with their inconvenient past. As Wallace digs deeper, she unearths a possible alibi witness, along with evidence of a deeply troubled relationship that points the finger of suspicion at Marioneaux’s son. While Pitkin’s supporters are convinced of his innocence, his enemies are equally certain of his guilt. Under pressure from all directions, Wallace pursues her investigation into the dark heart of the political establishment as Baton Rouge falls under the shadow of escalating violence. When it appears a police department insider may be sabotaging her efforts by leaking information about the case, and after menacing messages are left for her and her loved ones, Wallace is forced to untangle a trail of old and disturbing secrets unaided by those she most needs to trust.

Dark River Rising takes you into the dangerous world of Wallace Hartman, a female police detective in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She’s smart and fearless, and when the lives of those she cares about are put in jeopardy by the cleverest, most violent criminal she’s ever pursued, she is unstoppable. Forthcoming from Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, in 2017.

ABOUT WILLIAM RAWLINGS

If you ask William Rawlings where he lives, you will likely be told “in the Center of the Universe.” The thought comes from Lewis Thomas, the talented physician, scientist and essayist who compared a writer’s world to a universe swirling around the tip of his pen. Indeed, for an author and a physician, there are few richer sources of inspiration than that of a small, rural Southern town.

Rawlings was born, raised and still lives on the family farm in Sandersville, Georgia, where he is the son, grandson, nephew and brother to physicians who have served the area for more than a century. He was educated at Emory University in Oxford and Atlanta, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Society. He earned his Doctorate in Medicine and a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology at Tulane University in New Orleans. Completing his postgraduate medical training in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, he returned to Sandersville to practice medicine with his father. He has received numerous awards and accolades over the years, including the award of an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Mercer University in 2011.

Writing is an interest that developed relatively late. “Unlike a number of other authors, I didn’t grow up with a burning desire to be a writer.” Rawlings says. “But sometimes you have a story that just needs to be told, and so I hammered out my first book. To my great surprise, it was quite successful, and now writing occupies much of my free time.” Working first in the genre of “Southern suspense,” his first five novels were commercially successful, earning positive reviews and interest from Hollywood. More recently he has turned to writing non-fiction, for the most part Southern history, and is an occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines.

A Killing on Ring Jaw Bluff (Mercer University Press, 2013), Rawlings’s first non-fiction book, is in part the tale of a infamous 1925 murder, and in part a history of the crash of the cotton economy in Georgia in the 1920s, an even that forever changed the demographics, economics and politics of the state. The book was commercially successful, going through a second hard cover printing before being released in a softcover edition. it was named Finalist in History for the Georgia Author of the Year Awards in 2014.

Rawlings's next non-fiction book, The Second Coming of the Invisible Empire (Mercer University Press, 2016), is a definitive history of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. The Klan was, for a brief moment in time, one of the most powerful social and political organizations in the United States, boasting as many as five million members. "It's a fascinating study in sociology," Rawlings says, "and the Klan's self-destructive decline was as rapid as its rise to power."

The Strange Journey of the Confederate Constitution, Rawlings’s eighth book, was released by Mercer Press in late summer 2017. It is an anthology of shorter pieces on Southern history, ranging from the governmental corruption that led to the Great Yazoo Fraud and the Pine Barrens Speculation of the 1790s, to the abortive uprising of freed slaves in the 1870s with the intention to set up a black republic in Georgia, to the fictitious discovery of oil in the state after World War I.

With his ninth book, Rawlings returns to his writing roots with a mystery set in Savannah titled The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes, published by Mercer Press in September 2019. Six Inches Deeper, a truer-crime account of a horrific murder that took place in south Georgia in 1972 was published in 2020. The spring of 2021 saw the publication of Lighthouses of the Georgia Coast, an illustrated history of the state's five existing lighthouses, important structures in Georgia's maritime and economic history.

Rawlings's forthcoming book, to be published in 2022 by Mercer University Press is a nonfiction true-crime account of the infamous Columbus Strangler, a serial killer who terrorized the city of Columbus, Georgia in the late 1970s. Rawlings says "It's a saga that spans nearly half a century, and certainly one of the most complex and complicated writing projects I've ever undertaken. With that said, it's also one of the most fascinating, with unexpected twists and turns that rival those of a crime novel.

Outside of his literary career, Rawlings has multiple business interests, as well as an addiction to travel, especially in Central and South America. “I think I inherited that from my grandfather, a country doctor who had a real fascination with Latin America and traveled there many times from the 1930s through the 1950s,” he said.

Rawlings is married to the former Elizabeth Dunwody of Macon. They have two daughters, both of whom have chosen to pursue a career in law. Now retired from the practice of medicine, he divides his time between attending to his business interests, travel and writing.

ABOUT WILLIAM RAWLINGS BOOKS

HISTORY AND TRAVEL

The Pig Monument of Washington County: Read the most interesting story of a poor farmer and his pig in the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s. A heartwarming tale!

Gutzon Borglum and the Lost Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial: The monumental carving that adorns the side of Georgia's Stone Mountain today is a mere wisp of the one originally planned. It was to have as many as two thousand figures, and was to cover the entire north face of the granite wall. It was never completed for various reasons including money troubles, squabbling amongst the promoters and possibly because of internal divisions among members of the Ku Klux Klan. Read this article to learn the definitive truth.

Reign of Terror--The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s in Macon, Georgia: The history of the KKK in Macon is an amazing one, and speaks to the error of the stereotype of this organization. Organized in 1915 as a "beneficial fraternal order," the Klan went bad when it assumed a self-annointed role of judge, jury and enforcer against things it considered morally wrong. Kidnapping and flogging everyone from doctors to bootleggers, for nearly two years it terrorized the city until the ringleaders were arrested and put on trial.

The Drum Comes Home: This is the fascinating story of a drum made on a Georgia plantation in 1861, carried off to war, lost and finally returned to its home county. A bit of personal history of the Civil War.

The Freedmen's Land Insurrection: In August 1875, near the end of the Reconstruction Era, freed slaves plotted a bloody insurrection that was to encompass a twenty-odd county area of east central Georgia. The plan was to kill all the whites and set up a black mini-state known as Freedmen's Land. The plot was discovered and thwarted before the slaughter began, but the tale is one of the most interesting in Georgia history. Click on the title to read the article that appeared in Georgia Backroads magazine.

The Myth of the Boll Weevil: It is pretty standard history that the boll weevil wiped out the cotton economy in Georgia in the 1920s, resulting in dramatic changes in the economics, demographics, and politics of the state that would last for most of the twentieth century. No so, or so say I. It was the economy that wiped out the economy! Yes, the weevil was important, but it was other factors that did the damage. Read my essay and form your own opinion.

The Strange Journey of the Confederate Constitution: The original Constitution of the Confederate States of America reposes deep in a secure vault in the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia in Athens. How it go there is an exciting tale. Read it here in this article from the Winter 2014 issue of Georgia Backroads magazine.

Ashantilly--The Unfinished Legacy: Ashantilly, the winter home of Thomas Spalding near Darien on the Georgia coast, later became the home of Bill Haynes and the award-winning Ashantilly Press. It is one of Georgia's true hidden treasures, full of history that stretches back some 200 years. Read more and plan a visit.

The Second Coming of the Invisible Empire: The name "Ku Klux Klan" evolks images of cross-buring racists, but in the 1920s the Klan was a manstream organization in American life, with wide political, social and moral influence in all of the then 48 states. It was, at the time, primarily a northern mid-western organization, with fewer than one out of eight members in the traditional Southern states. Moreover, its explosive growth in the 1920-25 period represented one of the most successful marketing efforts in American history. Read more and learn.

A Vast Pool of Oil: In 1919, the potential discovery of a massive amount of oil hidden under the soil of rural Washington County, Georgia was announced by a group of prominent businessmen. Everyone was sure to get rich, provided they bought in "on the ground floor." But a few folks, like the State Geologist, were not so sure....

A Killing on Ring Jaw Bluff: This was the original work on which the book of the same name was based. It concerns chiefly the killing of Gus Tarbutton that took place on Ring Jaw Bluff in February 1925.

The Genius of Georgia Architect Charles E. Choate: Choate was one of the state's premier architects and builders from about 1890 until the 1920s. An unusallly fine collection of his structures is located in Washington County Georgia.

Georgia's Official Historical Plates: Few may be aware of it, but there is an official state plate made by the English firm, Wedgwood. Here's the tale of how the idea got started in the 1930s.

Behind the Bars at Sandersville's Old Jail: An interesting look at a marvelously well preserved jail dating from the early 1890s--now a genealogy museum.

The Great Yazoo Fraud: The tale of one of America' first national scandles, and the reason that the state of Georgia no longer stretches from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.

The Lost Confederate Treasure: When Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Government fled Richmond in April 1865, they took with them the contents of the Treasury and the local banks. Six weeks later when Davis was captured, the money was missing. What happened?

The Old Rail Station in Tacna, Peru: An amazing bit of railroad history in the Peruvian desert.