HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO LEARN THE TRUTH? Daniel Booker knows his family is hiding a secret. A successful crime writer, for his entire life Daniel has suspected there was something different about him. He was faster than the other kids. He never got sick. And he always felt a strange, jittery excitement whenever he tasted blood . . . An impending engagement to the woman he loves compels Daniel to discover the truth about his ancestry. His journey takes him from Atlanta to the hushed backwoods of Mississippi, where he will come face to face with an ancient secret—and the deepest depths of his own soul. Originally published in the acclaimed collection, THE ANCESTORS, "The Patriarch" is a novella of approximately 90 pages. CHAPTER 1 Before I tell you how I learned the truth about my family, there’s one thing you must understand and accept, here and now. Every word is true. You may know my reputation, of course, and assume otherwise. My name is Daniel Booker. I write crime novels—fast-paced, blood-soaked stories about an Atlanta private investigator. I’ve published seven of them so far at the relatively tender age of thirty-four, and they’ve won a handful of prestigious awards in the mystery fiction genre, been translated into a dozen foreign languages, been acquired for the movies by a Hollywood producer of some note, and overall, have sold sufficient copies to keep plenty of good food on my table. But merely because I earn my living spinning tall tales doesn’t mean I’m lying about this. As my Grandma Ruth likes to “Some things you don’t fool around with.” In my mind, family is one of those inviolate things. To be honest, I don’t think I ever could have fabricated anything as . . . well, shocking as what I’m about to tell you. Are we cool? Okay, good. Prologue over. Here’s what happened.
Author
Here’s a little about me, Brandon Massey. (“Massey” is not pronounced “macy,” by the way. Think of “mass” instead.) I was born June 9, 1973, in Waukegan, Illinois. I grew up in Zion, a suburb north of Chicago. I originally self-published Thunderland, my first novel, in 1999. After managing to sell a few thousand copies on my own, Kensington Publishing Corp. in New York offered me a two-book contract, and published a new, revised edition of Thunderland in December 2002. Since then, I’ve published up to three books a year, ranging from thriller novels such as The Other Brother, to short story collections such as Twisted Tales, and anthologies such as Dark Dreams. My newest suspense thriller, Covenant, was published in November 2010. I’ve got plenty more stories in the works that I’ll publish in the coming years. I live with my family near Atlanta, GA.
