LOSSMAN

by D. Guy

LOSSMAN

A STORY OF LIFE AND DEATH AND LIFE

(THE LAFOLLETTE CHRONICLES)

D GUY


LaFollette Tennessee
1958
Two young lovers. A jealous rival who hates both of them. It’s a combination that can, and often does lead to murder!
Vicky Jean Ballard is the beautiful daughter of a LaFollette Tennessee businessman, a man who owns a piece of everything within a fifty-mile radius. Thornton Burrell is the handsome son of a farmer who works for Vicky Jean’s father. Best friends since childhood, the two became much more on prom night.
Vicky Jean is attending Lincoln Memorial University in the fall and is working to persuade her father to buy her a place to live off campus. Unknown to her father, she and Thornton have big plans for the future. Thornton could be her “handyman,” if her father buys a place for her and this would be the perfect cover for him!
But then, while hitchhiking home from work in July 1958, Thornton disappears from the face of the earth it seems.
Five months later in nearby Knoxville, a man wakes from a medically induced coma in a dark hospital room, severely injured and disfigured, and without a clue to his own identity. A detective with the Knoxville Police Department informs him that someone pushed him into the path of a speeding 1958 Dodge Coronet. The detective would like any information that the injured man can provide, but first, Mr. John Doe has to recover enough to talk before he can tell the policeman that he remembers absolutely nothing!
Vicky Jean finally discloses to her parents that she has left school and is pregnant. Her angry father, who can only think of his own public image and seeking to avoid local scandal, is forcing her to marry a man she loathes! In the meantime, where is Thornton? Is he out there somewhere, trying to get back to her?
What of the damaged man and the beautiful widowed heiress who loves him?
Will any of these parallel lines ever cross?
Lossman is the sixth book in the series, “The Lafollette Chronicles.” If you like romantic tales with plenty of twists and turns and a storyline that hooks you from the start, then you’ll love this latest offering from D Guy.

418 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 29, 2018

About the author

D GUY (Douglas Joe Guy,) has an extremely interesting background. Joe is from the small town of LaFollette, nestled in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee. Joe is a military veteran with over twenty years in the U.S. Navy. Thirteen of these years in the Navy were spent at sea. Joe likes to say there are two types of stories in the Navy. One type is called a “sea story,” and these stories may even have a touch of truth to them. The other type of story always start out with the phrase, “Now this is no s**t ….” Naturally, true stories such as these became known as “no s****ers.”
Joe read hundreds and perhaps thousands of book while at sea, and from every genre imaginable. Combine that with the wealth of “sea stories” and “no s****ers” from his days in the Navy, and he has a lot of material to work with. Many of these tales were funny, some were tragic, others were love stories, and finally, some were simply preposterous. After retiring the second time, first from the Navy and then from his Financial Services Agency, Joe needed a way to get out from under his wife’s feet. Therefore, he decided to write a book.
“One of the things I learned early on, from information available on writer’s sites on the web and and from YouTube videos, is that a person should write about what they know. I felt that I knew 3 things: First, I know East Tennessee in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. The second thing I knew was the military. I served for 21 years, 3 months and 6 days (not like I’d been counting) in the United States Navy, retiring as a Chief Radioman. That time included serving sea tours on three ships and 21 months with III Corps in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Finally, the third thing I know is Southern Italy in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. One or more of these three topics are found in all of my stories.
I am from a small town in East Tennessee, called LaFollette. It’s located approximately forty miles north of Knoxville and figures in all of my stories.
I have three cats (all with Italian names). I have three (sometimes) adult children, and I Have five granddaughters (all of which are smart and beautiful).”
My current projects:
“Currently, I am publishing a series on Amazon called “The LaFollette Chronicles.” I have published five of them so far. They are stories that take place in LaFollette and/or Southern Italy The time frames are usually the first sixty or so years of the last century.

I write about life in those years and people in situations they had not planned on. These situation may involve dealing with a cheating spouse or crawling over the dead bodies of friends while storming the beaches during the Salerno invasion in September of 1943. Maybe the story is about falling in love the very first time you see a person, or perhaps fighting for your very life in 50-below-zero weather of Korea at the “Frozen Chosin” Reservoir in Korea during November of 1950.”
Finding Topics/Storylines:
“They just pop up. For instance, I recently watched a forensics show on television and they were discussing blood types and combination. I found out that type O plus type O could NOT produce a type A child. That produced an 83,000 word romance/tragedy/vengeance story. Another story awaiting publication (much too long at 152k words) came to me during a 30-minute nap. I woke up with the story line and protagonists. After that, it was just a matter of filling in the blanks.
One more idea about where ideas come from. Recently, I was kicked back, reading a book about songwriting by Jimmy Webb, whom along with Bobby Braddock, I consider one of the greatest songwriters ever. I took a break from reading and went to YouTube, and surfed for a while. I finally stopped on an old biography about John Singer Sargent, a painter so famous that even I had heard of him.
Sargent went the island of Capri, Italy in 1878, to paint several portraits of Rosina Ferrara, who was the equivalent of a modern supermodel. Famous artists from everywhere went to Capri

Reviews

[Garry hensley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

It takes me back to miss you childhood days growing up in Campbell County. I look forward to reading his other books.