Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

5 Reasons This Will Be a Great Year for You!

It’s good to take a look back and see what we liked – and didn’t like – about last year – our circumstances, relationships, and personal behavior and integrity. But it’s even better to look forward with renewed faith, commitment, and optimism. As the Apostle Paul reminds us:

“No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14, NLT). [Read more…]

Reflections of a Serial Killer

Kristen Conner has moved on to other cases, but the serial killer she put away in Cuts Like a Knife is still thinking about her … the Shark lives.

The Cutter Shark is a serial killer that haunts Detective Kristen Conner in the M.K. Gilroy novels.

The Serial Killer

In the first Detective Kristen Conner suspense thriller, Cuts Like a Knife, Kristen comes face-to-face with a serial killer that the Chicago press dubbed, The Cutter Shark. The Shark is now a resident of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago where he remains silent no matter how many hours a day FBI agents interrogate him.

He is on the 27th floor, which houses the most dangerous criminals. His cell has a slit window that is 5 inches wide and 7 feet high. Conner has moved on to other murder cases in Every Breath You Take and Cold As Ice, but the Cutter Shark’s thoughts remain on Kristen.

For those that have read Cuts Like a Knife and Every Breath You Take, the following feature with the Cutter Shark will be a treat. For those who haven’t yet read the novels, you might want to skip this as it contains a big spoiler: the identity of the serial killer. Wondering who he is has been a big part of the reading pleasure for many mystery-suspense fans!

Do You Have to Be a Reader to Be a Writer?

Do you have to be a reader to be a writer?

Girl Reading a Book by Jean-Honore Fragonard

Digital and print-on-demand publishing has exponentially increased the number of people who can say, “I wrote a book,” and then point you to Amazon and other locations where it is for sale.

The indie publishing explosion of the past five to six years has been fascinating to watch – and shown how many talented writers there are that just needed a chance. The downside is there are a lot of books for sale that should never have been published. Either the idea didn’t rise to the level of being publishable – or the design and editorial development was so bad (or nonexistent) that a concept that could have been good to great has too many problems to be taken seriously.

In some cases, people have wanted to be an author without any real commitment to the craft. One of the jokes in the publishing industry is that more people want to write a book than read a book.

That raises a particular question in my mind: do you have to be a reader to be a writer? Is it possible? Are there those that can pull that off? Can you? In the following SlideShare presentation I raise five questions that question whether it is possible – but let you decide.