Skip to main content

Mark de Castrique

Biography

Mark de Castrique

Mark de Castrique grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina where many of his novels are set. He’s a veteran of the television and film production industry, has served as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte teaching The American Mystery, and he’s a frequent speaker and workshop leader. He and his wife, Linda, live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Mark de Castrique

Books by Mark de Castrique

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery, Political Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

In a case deciding the future of clean energy, everything hinges on how the chief justice of the Supreme Court will lean. DANGEROUS WOMEN stirs up the perfect cocktail of ingenious spy-craft and the political intrigue of Thomas Perry's THE OLD MAN brightened with the charming, uncanny energy of KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE. This urgent, cleverly plotted high-stakes thriller is set in motion by a botched attack on two law clerks that leaves one dead and the other in a coma. The ensuing cover-up leaves a string of bodies and too many players at cross-purposes. It also leaves Chief Justice Clarissa Baxter with a target on her back.

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery

Former FBI agent-turned-boardinghouse landlady Ethel Fiona Crestwater can outthink and outshoot most men --- and women --- half her age. When someone murders one of her boarders, Ethel springs into action --- much to the surprise of her double-first-cousin-twice-removed, Jesse, who has recently come to stay with her while he attends university. As he watches her photograph the crime scene, conceal evidence and speed-dial the Secret Service director, Jesse realizes that there's much more to Ethel than appearances suggest. When Jesse is assaulted and the gym bag full of cash Ethel had hidden is stolen from the basement, the pair decides it's time to launch their own unofficial investigation.

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery

Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson are hired by the widow of an environmentalist who died while monitoring water quality in the nearby Pigeon River. No soil or water samples were found near the deceased, and his widow doesn't believe his death was an accident. Sam had, in fact, witnessed a public altercation between the man and local mill heir Luke Kirkpatrick just two days prior. Both Luke and his father, Ted, are prime suspects because of the threat that contamination poses to their proposed business expansion. Meanwhile, preparations for a local festival suffer some violent setbacks. Are the events related? And can Sam and Nakayla identify the killer and serve justice before Asheville is threatened once again?

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery

An interracial couple in the new South, Iraq War veteran Sam Blackman and his no-nonsense private eye partner, Nakayla Robertson, deploy humor both to bind them together and to deflect insults. Plus, it helps deal with the tragedies their work uncovers. Such a tragedy interrupts a meeting between the PIs and the neighboring law office when a body is unearthed from the grounds of the nearby Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. It monitored developing space programs during the Cold War, and today plays a vital role gathering weather and climate data. Why would its discovery spark off a new murder in Asheville's mountain music scene, the victim found amid the garbage of dark, dank Rat Alley?

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery

When funeral director and part-time deputy sheriff Barry Clayton and his childhood nemesis, Archie Donovan, Jr., unite to create a fundraising float in Gainesboro's annual Apple Festival Parade, everything goes wrong. First, the Grand Marshal, NC Secretary of Agriculture Graham James, is attacked by a gunman and Barry's Uncle Wayne is critically wounded in the melee. The assailant is killed. Then, when the body of a convenience store owner is discovered less than an hour later with the gunman's food stamp card in his wallet, the case escalates. Two men are dead. What is the connection? Barry and Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins swiftly learn that their small town offers no protection against big-time crime.

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery

When Asheville, NC, private eyes Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson are asked by an 80-year-old client to investigate the suspicious death of her brother, they warn her there is little chance of success. Paul Weaver died nearly 70 years earlier. The only documentation she has is the sole surviving copy of a coroner's report stating his death was caused by an accidental fall while hiking. There's a red flag: local son Weaver knew every inch of the mountain trails. The returning World War II veteran had enrolled at Black Mountain College, which is currently being portrayed in a film being shot on the site of its former location. The plot is based on a book by a local author. The research behind both may provide a lead in the Weaver case.

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Mystery

After the deadly challenges of his last job for a security firm Prime Protection, Rusty Mullins swore he'd stop risking his life on assignments. Then his good friend Ted Lewison, head of Prime Protection, asks him back for a routine mission guarding Chinese scientist Dr. Lisa Li and her seven-year-old nephew, Peter, and Mullins agrees. The conference on Artificial Intelligence bringing Dr. Li to Washington, DC, is barely underway when a team of assassins storms the room. The carnage is great, but Mullins saves Dr. Li and Peter while the attackers kill the two other AI experts, along with Lewison. His widow begs Mullins to uncover the power behind the group claiming credit for the assassinations.

by Mark de Castrique - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

In an age of Wall Street meltdowns and downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, the secretive Federal Reserve is compromised. Rusty Mullins and Amanda Church don’t know whom to trust. Evidence points to an external terrorist attack, but the web of deceit appears woven from within, a web that threatens to destroy the heart of America’s financial system. Twelve targets are known. The clock is ticking. What, or who, is the 13th?