Saving Parker
After years of abuse and neglect, Parker is found chained in a junk-filled backyard after a drug bust. The little guy’s terrified of people. Officer Ned Barringer brings him to a nearby shelter for medical care. When Ned learns how hard it is for dogs like Parker to get adopted, he must do more. He’s also instantly taken with Kim Harper, one of the shelter managers. She offers to train Parker for free. Ned instantly accepts. That same day, he meets his next-door neighbor, a ten-year-old boy named Russell. Russell is hiding a black-eye, compliments of two bullies at school. This angers Ned. He suffered the same fate as a child. It’s the main reason he became a cop. But what can he do? When a near-death tragedy occurs, what role might Parker play in bringing these three lives together?
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“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”
Kids get asked that question all the time. When my son was five, he knew. “I wanna be a green Batman.” By high school I knew. I wanted to be an author of novels. My composition teacher was the spark that lit this fire. She went out of her way to encourage my feeble offerings. “You could really be a writer if you wanted to,” she said. Secretly, I began to write poems and short stories. Only my teacher and mother could read them (such things clashed badly with the surfer-guy persona I’d worked so hard to fabricate at school).
After becoming a Christian, my attention shifted in a different direction. I met Cindi, my wife-to-be. Then came a call to pastoral ministry. Then fatherhood. I still loved to write, but found little time for it. In the mid-90′s, we decided I needed a relaxing hobby. Cindi suggested I start writing again. I read some great how-to books and found some wonderful friends on a Christian fiction writer’s board on AOL (back when AOL was the Internet). A year later, my first novel was complete.
It was soon picked up by a top literary agent, but she found it difficult to market. Not much interest back then in a faith-based suspense thriller with a military edge. Shortly after that, the idea for The Unfinished Gift came to me…. Read on.
