Mark de Castrique is the author of a series of mysteries featuring Iraq War veteran Sam Blackman and his no-nonsense private eye partner, Nakayla Robertson. An interracial couple in the new South, the Asheville, NC pair love their investigations, which always carry a thread from the past. In the seventh installment, MURDER IN RAT ALLEY (which will be in stores December 31st), the Apollo moon missions, mountain music and our nation's weather data collide in their most complex and dangerous case yet. To celebrate the book’s upcoming release, Mark has written a wonderful essay about the inspiration for the series and the significance of William Faulkner’s famous quote in relation to these novels: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

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Mark de Castrique is the author of a mystery series featuring Asheville, NC, private eyes Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson, an interracial couple and co-owners of the Blackman and Robertson Detective Agency. In this piece, de Castrique explains how a story told to him by a 90-year-old man served as inspiration for BLACKMAN’S COFFIN, the opening novel in the series, and the significance of the William Faulkner quote “The Past is never dead. It’s not even past” in relation to the sixth and latest installment, HIDDEN SCARS, which sees Sam and Nakayla enmeshed in the history of the revolutionary Black Mountain College, which was founded in 1933 and attracted world-renowned educators fleeing Nazi Germany.

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