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Mary Anne
Temp
Like Me
Are
sinister activities occurring in the temporary employment industry? At
companies where temps are utilized, do full-time employees treat the temps like
second class citizens? Can a senseless murder be solved?
Following
a homicide in Willam Johnson’s own family, he is determined to use his
investigative and acting skills to find the killer. He has a lead and goes
undercover in the world of Day Labor to find the murderer and see that justice
is served. This story takes profit-sharing to an entirely new level. During
this journey, he also discovers something unexpected--a new respect for people
who are down on their luck, treated disrespectfully, and live daily with
extreme prejudice against them.
Written
in first person, in Temp Like Me we
always know what Willam is thinking, viewing and digesting. We know his every
thought about his lovely partner in life, wife Kathy. This is an intriguing read that digs far
more deeply than simply solving a murder mystery. It introduces us to a man
whose southern roots have formed a typical habitual bias and how his undercover
temp experience enables him to view, on multiple levels, life from a very
different perception.
In
my own southern lineage, I recall hearing relatives make racist comments that
were unnecessary and horrifying as I consider their words today. Author, Gary
Lucas, reminds us that it’s always enlightening to, even figuratively, walk in
someone else’s shoes for awhile.
Book Description:
A
murder in the family makes it personal. What slows down the chase is being
caught between a small change robbery and a shot from a small caliber handgun
that ends with debilitating consequences for Willam. Against everyone’s best
advice, he is up and about too soon, but not soon enough for Willam, as the man
he now knows is the killer stays just out of reach.
Enter
the Temp business, where the killer has a past, sidekicking with someone who
has a talent for making temps work for more than daily pay. Under the cover of
a day laborer, Willam’s plan is to work and wait. But someone else has a creative
plan, too. And yet another person thinks he’s the one with a plan. Now there
are too many people who want to temp in Willam’s P. I. shoes, and he’s had
enough. After all, there can only be one Temp Like Me. Or maybe…
Getting to know Temp Like Me:
In
the words of Gary Lucas, the background
of this book is:
“One
of my clients, for whom I did sales training for their staff in 18 markets in
the southeast, was a temp agency who recruited and placed day laborers and some
skilled and semi-skilled workers into day, short term, long term or permanent
positions. I'd had many years experience in the staffing industry and had seen
everything from fights to car theft in and around the waiting rooms (halls) to
the same and more from workers at jobsites.”
Gary’s
answer to my question that asks about the uniqueness
of this book:
“The
title ties in the backgrounds of my two protagonists, both from the south, each
having grown up learning different points of view about integration, racial
conflicts and common to one, repulsive to the other, racial epithets. Willam
(no second i), the PI from Asheville, NC has to go undercover to search for
clues about thefts, killings and bribes perpetrated on temp workers, client
company employees, and others from someone on the "inside" of the Day
Labor business. His views are less than contemporary regarding race. His wife
however, who, unknowingly of course, always says the title of each novel
somewhere in the story, explains the realities she'd grown up to know and
respect. She offers her insights and refers to passages in a book titled
"Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin. In it, he exposes what it is
like to be black in the Deep South.
So,
it is, as with all my novels in this series, a who done it, catch the so-and-so
story while enjoying the banter, thoughts, actions and in general the special
relationship between egos, characteristics, perceptions, intuitiveness and
personalities of Willam and Kathy.”
About the Author:
Gary
Lucas has been writing in the advertising business for 30 years. He was born at
the water’s edge in Miami, Florida and has lived both there and in the
mountains of North Carolina his whole life. Professionally, he has traveled
extensively along the eastern seaboard and has included cities and towns he particularly
liked as important locales for his stories.
His
favorite fiction writer is John D. MacDonald who wrote the Travis McGee series.
Taken from years of enjoyment with his writing style, Lucas does not go
overboard with forensics or detailed police procedures in his writing. Instead,
he writes in a fast-moving and easy to read and follow way, developing
compelling characters that readers can get to love or hate.
He
began writing short stories and poetry in the 90’s and in 2000 published his
first novel, Rotten at the Core. He
has since written and published Abracadaver
and Mayhem & Main. This series
features a contemporary private investigator and an intuitive, almost psychic
wife who, many reviewers have said, is the real central character.
Learn
more about Gary and his books at http://www.lucastories.com.
Come on back and see us again soon!
Mary Anne Benedetto
Author, Speaker, Certified Lifewriting Instructor
Founder of Beach Author Network
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