An owl, a squirrel and a killer walk into a hurricane …
SOMEWHERE, FLA. – What do a three-legged squirrel, a one-eyed owl and a plush elephant mask have in common with a series of macabre murders in a Florida coastal town faced with a looming hurricane? If you’re former Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission officer Kate Parks, they’re all part of a perplexing, off-the-books investigation into what appears to be a series of ritualistic killings that may involve her family. They’re also the focus of Darkness Hides, the latest mystery novel by award-winning Florida author J.C. Gatlin. Published and released today by Milford House Press, the mystery suspense imprint for Sunbury Press, Darkness Hides is Gatlin’s sixth novel, including H_NGM_N: Murder is the Word, which earned the Florida Writers Association’s coveted Florida Royal Palm Literary Award for Best Mystery-Crime Fiction in 2019, and is set for serialization. A year earlier, another of his titles, 21 Dares topped Amazon’s Mystery Suspense and Young Adult charts. A native Texan, Gatlin loved nature, bass fishing and wildlife from a young age, going so far as raising a male African lion named Hakeem on his parents’ sprawling ranch. He has lived in Florida for 20 years, drawn by a love of fishing in its bays and the Gulf of Mexico. The Sunshine State’s varied settings also are why each of his novels is set there. “Florida and its people provide a palette of incredibly diverse possibilities for a writer,” Gatlin observes. “Everything from the international splash of Palm Beach and Miami, to small towns to growth centers like Tampa to people on the outer edges of society. I focus my novels here because they practically write themselves.” The inspiration for Darkness Hides came from off-duty law enforcement officers decompressing in bars and hangouts along the gulf coast. “I found their stories, especially those from people with FWC, consistently interesting,” he says. “Stories about boaters and beach-goers and fishermen run from strange to funny to tragic and back again.”