Books with author Robert Trainor

NOTE: This novel can also be purchased with six other novels of mine for $3.49 in an anthology entitled Seven Novels of Murder and Madness. The Dark Side of the Moon is also contained in Dark Tales, which is another anthology of mine that sells for $2.99.Carolyn Black, a twenty-five year-old high school teacher trapped in an unhappy marriage, is attracted to Kevin Snyder, a sixteen-year-old student in one of her classes. Kevin is shy and reclusive and constantly plagued by thoughts of suicide. He also doesn’t seem to realize that Carolyn is attracted to him, but on a cold March day, everything changes when they make love in the back seat of Carolyn’s car. Two weeks later, Carolyn discovers that Kevin is involved in drugs and has participated in a home invasion robbery. She decides to end her relationship with him, but she is afraid that he might seek revenge by revealing their secret, which would ruin her career. However, the day after she tells Kevin that she is ending their relationship, he shocks Carolyn by saying, “You might not believe this, but last night, I went up to my room, took out my gun, and flipped a coin to decide whether I should shoot myself. If it came up heads, I was going to shoot myself in the head, but it came up tails.”“So what are you going to do when you leave here?” said Carolyn.“I’ll probably go home and flip the coin again. Or maybe I won’t bother with the coin because that’s just another thing that’s turned against me. But if I do commit suicide, the last thing I’ll see before my lights go out will be your face. I know you don’t want me to say things like that, but it’s true.”Later that night, Carolyn changes her mind about Kevin and desperately searches for him before he has a chance to harm himself. When she finally finds him in his car behind an abandoned house, he is holding a gun to his head. And then…

NOTE: This novel can also be purchased with seven other novels of mine for $3.99 in an anthology entitled 8 Murder Mysteries. The Trial of Shada King is also contained in 6 Courtroom Dramas, which is another anthology of mine that sells for $3.99.Shada King, a district attorney in Hartford, Connecticut, is charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of Santos Delgado, who had raped her ten days before he died. Shada claims the shooting was in self-defense, and since she was wearing a recording device at the time of the shooting, her claim of self-defense seems to be valid.But why was she wearing the recording device? And why did Shada use a gun to force her way into Santos’s house? The prosecuting attorney, Naomi Campbell, is convinced the crime scene was an elaborate stage production that was intended to deceive those who would be listening to the tape and that Santos was murdered in retaliation for the rape. In her closing argument at the trial, Naomi outlines the case against Shada:“Let’s go back and look at this crime a little bit differently by trying to place ourselves in Ms. King’s shoes. It’s obvious that she was determined to exact revenge on Mr. Delgado. We have no way of really knowing what he had done to her in the past because we have only Ms. King’s say-so in regards to the history of the relationship that she had with Mr. Delgado. But let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that he did rape her and threaten her life, and because of that, she determined that her only defense was to murder Mr. Delgado. “However, being a lawyer, she must have immediately run into the problem of how she could escape punishment for her actions. So she began to devise a plan, and a most diabolical plan it was. In this plan, Mr. Delgado would be shot to death but not before he admitted to having raped her because that admission would at least give her some cover for her actions. Even so, she needed something more than that because although a jury will sympathize with a woman who has been raped, no group of twelve men and woman is going to free a person who kills another out of revenge. “That’s when Ms. King came up with the idea that she would make the killing of Mr. Delgado look like self-defense. What could be better? First, we have a woman who has been raped, and then we have a woman who shoots her rapist in self-defense. It’s almost like a perfect crime, isn’t it? And then, somewhere around this point in her planning of the crime, she must have hit upon the idea of taping the whole thing. The really beautiful thing about this arrangement was that if the tape didn’t back up her desired version of events, she could have just flushed it down the toilet before she phoned 911 to report that Mr. Delgado had been shot. “Please remember that everything on that tape is essentially scripted. Ms. King was the one who dreamed this murder up, and she knew that if she wanted to avoid being prosecuted, certain things had to be said on that tape, and they had to be said at exactly the right moment. We can only imagine how happy she must have been when Mr. Delgado demanded that she give the tape to him. This was exactly the moment that she had been hoping and waiting for because without him saying something like that, she knew it was going to be impossible to make a plausible case for self-defense. But as soon as he said the magic words, Ms. King was more than ready to dramatically yell out, ‘Back up.’ It was, I have to admit, a great performance by her, but it’s important to remember that when all is said and done, it’s still just a performance, a performance that cost a man his life.So what really happened inside Santos’s house that day? Was it murder or self-defense? I’ll let you be the judge and the jury.

NOTE: This novel can also be purchased with five other novels of mine for $3.49 in an anthology entitled Six Novels. The Book of the Dead is also contained in Dark Tales, which is another anthology of mine that sells for $2.99. Death stalks the land in this bizarre tale from the underworld. Most of us worry about death from time to time, especially as we get older. Sometimes, it can seem like we’re on a conveyor belt that’s moving us all towards a giant execution chamber. Those who are young have just been put onto the conveyor belt and have too much drama going on in their lives to be seriously concerned about what awaits at the end of the line. But for those who are older, the execution chamber looms. What lies behind that door that every human being passes through, never to be seen or heard from again? Herein, lies the greatest mystery of them all. And now, it’s finally time…one is being led to the door, and there is no possibility of turning back…no reprieve will be granted…The door swings open, and one steps inside. Will all of our fears about death prove to be real? Will we, to our horror, discover that the theories of religion are nothing but fairy tales and that we’re just a very small part of the evolutionary chain that no longer has any value? Or is death different than anything we could ever have imagined? Welcome to The Book of the Dead.

Shada King, a district attorney in Hartford, Connecticut, is charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of Santos Garcia, who had raped her ten days before he died. Shada claims that the shooting was in self-defense, and since she was wearing a recording device at the time of the shooting, her claim of self-defense seems to be valid. But why was she wearing the recording device? And why did Shada use a gun to force her way into Santos’s house? The prosecuting attorney, Naomi Campbell, is convinced the crime scene was an elaborate stage production that was intended to deceive those who would be listening to the tape and that Santos was murdered in retaliation for the rape. In her closing argument at the trial, Naomi outlines the case against Shada: “Let’s go back and look at this crime a little bit differently by trying to place ourselves in Ms. King’s shoes. It’s obvious, whatever the reason is, that she was determined to exact revenge on Mr. Garcia. We have no way of really knowing what he had done to her in the past, or what she thought he had done to her, because we have only Ms. King’s say-so in regards to the history of the relationship that she had with Mr. Garcia. But let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that he did rape her and threaten her life, and because of that, she determined that her only defense was to murder Mr. Garcia. “However, being a lawyer, she must have immediately run into the problem of how she could escape punishment for her actions. So she began to devise a plan, and a most diabolical plan it was. In this plan, Mr. Garcia would be shot to death but not before he admitted to having raped her because that admission would at least give her some cover for her actions. However, she needed something more than that because although a jury will obviously sympathize with a woman who has been raped, no group of twelve men and woman is going to free a person who kills another out of revenge. “That’s when Ms. King came up with the idea that she would make the killing of Mr. Garcia look like self-defense. What could be better? First, we have a woman who has been raped, and then we have a woman who shoots her rapist in self-defense. It’s almost like a perfect crime, isn’t it? And then, somewhere around this point in her planning of the crime, she must have hit upon the idea of taping the whole thing. The really beautiful thing about this arrangement was that if the tape didn’t back up her desired version of events, she could have just flushed it down the toilet before she phoned 911 to report that Mr. Garcia had been shot. And then, although it would have been a much more difficult case for her, she could have come out with the same story. But the tape! That was really the frosting on the cake for Ms. King. “When you listen to this tape, as I’m sure you will want to do when you go to deliberate, please remember that everything on that tape is essentially scripted. Ms. King was the one who dreamed this murder up, and she knew that if she wanted to avoid being prosecuted, certain things had to be said on that tape, and they had to be said at exactly the right moment. We can only imagine how happy she must have been when Mr. Garcia demanded that she give the tape to him. This was exactly the moment that she had been hoping and waiting for because without him saying something like that, she knew it was going to be impossible to make a plausible case for self-defense. But as soon as he said the magic words, Ms. King was more than ready to dramatically yell out, ‘Back up.’ It was, I have to admit, a great performance by her, but it’s important to remember that when all is said and done, it’s still just a performance, a performance that cost a man his life. So what really happened inside Santos’s house that day? Was it murder or self-defense? I’ll let you be the judge and the jury.

NOTE: This book can also be purchased with four other novels of mine for $2.99 in a book entitled 5 Novels. The Book of the Dead is also contained in Dark Tales, which is a $2.99 anthology of my four most recent novels. Death stalks the land in this bizarre tale from the underworld. Most of us worry about death from time to time, especially as we get older. Sometimes, it can seem like we’re on a conveyor belt that’s moving us all towards a giant execution chamber. Those who are young have just been put onto the conveyor belt and have too much drama going on in their lives to be seriously concerned about what awaits at the end of the line. But for those who are older, the execution chamber looms. What lies behind that door that every human being passes through, never to be seen or heard from again? Herein, lies the greatest mystery of them all. And now, it’s finally time…one is being led to the door, and there is no possibility of turning back…no reprieve will be granted… The door swings open, and one steps inside. Will all of our fears about death prove to be real? Will we, to our horror, discover that the theories of religion are nothing but fairy tales and that we’re just a very small part of the evolutionary chain that no longer has any value? Or is death different than anything we could ever have imagined? Welcome to The Book of the Dead.

NOTE: The Dark Side of the Moon can also be purchased with three other novels of mine for $2.99 in an anthology entitled Dark Tales, The other novels in this anthology are The Book of the Dead, The Book of Dreams, and Blood and Blackmail. Carolyn Black, a twenty-five year-old high school teacher trapped in an unhappy marriage, is attracted to Kevin Snyder, a sixteen-year-old student in one of her classes. Kevin is shy and reclusive and constantly plagued by thoughts of suicide. He also doesn’t seem to realize that Carolyn is attracted to him, but on a cold March day, everything changes when they make love in the back seat of Carolyn’s car. Two weeks later, Carolyn discovers that Kevin is involved in drugs and has participated in a home invasion robbery. She decides to end her relationship with him, but she is afraid that he might seek revenge by revealing their secret, which would ruin her career. However, the day after she tells Kevin that she is ending their relationship, he shocks Carolyn by saying, “You might not believe this, but last night, I went up to my room, took out my gun, and flipped a coin to decide whether I should shoot myself. If it came up heads, I was going to shoot myself in the head, but it came up tails.” “So what are you going to do when you leave here?” said Carolyn. “I’ll probably go home and flip the coin again. Or maybe I won’t bother with the coin because that’s just another thing that’s turned against me. But if I do commit suicide, the last thing I’ll see before my lights go out will be your face. I know you don’t want me to say things like that, but it’s true.” Later that night, Carolyn changes her mind about Kevin and desperately searches for him before he has a chance to harm himself. When she finally finds him in his car behind an abandoned house, he is holding a gun to his head. And then…