Book Title: FALLS TO PIECES
Character Name: Mac – The aging enigmatic bouncer from Kati’s college bar in rural Pennsylvania
What was your greatest talent?
I was a good cop once. Then things went sideways, and I found myself off the force and behind bars for aggravated manslaughter. My talents went to waste in the joint, unless you count my talent for survival. Once I got out, I put my talents to good use to protect people important to me. Kati Dawes and her daughter Zoe are two of those people. I’d go to hell and back for either one of them.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
In my experience, there are two types of people who make poor partners in relationships – ex-cops and ex-cons. I’m both. Now, I’m also an ex-husband. But even I can’t put all the blame on me for our marriage going to hell while we were still in the honeymoon phase. There was a lot my bride never told me, a lot she probably didn’t recognize herself. All of it was too much for any relationship to survive.
Where do you live?
I’m originally from Philly but moved to Center Valley, Pennsylvania, 20 years ago after being released from prison. I took a job as a bouncer at the local college pub, the Black Pepper. That’s where I initially met Kati. After a “slip-up” (i.e. a set-up) that landed me back in the joint for another three-year stretch, I moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where I live in a cramped one-bedroom apartment and bag groceries at the local Wegman’s.
Do you have any enemies?
That depends who you ask. Ask someone back at the state correctional facility, they’ll tell you, “Yeah, Mac, he’s got enemies, a yardful of ‘em,” and I do – not just inside but out. One in particular remains stuck in my head like a nail driven too deep. His name’s Jeremy Perotta. He married Kati after knocking her up freshman year of college and convincing her to drop out of school to raise their child. Except he ain’t much of a husband – and he’s an even worse father.
Greatest disappointment?
I had a daughter once. I wanted to be part of her life, but her mother wasn’t having it. As an ex-con, there wasn’t much I could do about that. I had a window of opportunity to make contact when my daughter turned eighteen, but who the hell was I kidding? I had nothing to offer her but grief. In the end, I kept my trap shut and admired her from a distance, looking out for her any way that I could.
What keeps you awake at night?
The monsters I know are out there, both from my time as a cop and my years in the clink. Many nights, I stayed awake, wondering what had become of my daughter. I didn’t know her at all in childhood and we were virtual strangers over the following two decades. Only when I realized the monsters were hot on her trail did I emerge from the shadows and make my presence known to the beasts.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Kati and her daughter Zoe need my help. They’re currently living off-grid on Maui. Their own monsters have been sniffing them out for the past two years, while they’ve been in hiding. Now the monsters have found them. Kati and her daughter Zoe are as close to family as a man like me will ever have, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back on my ass and let the monsters take them from me. Over my dead body, Jeremy Perotta.
FALLS TO PIECES by Douglas Corleone
A mother and daughter in hiding are threatened by more than secrets and lies in a twisting novel of paranoia, revenge, and psychological suspense by bestselling author Douglas Corleone.
For two years, Kati Dawes and her teenage daughter, Zoe, have lived off the grid in Hawaii, hiding from a past Kati must forget as if her life depends on it. New names. Anonymous online presence. So far, safe. Until Kati’s fiancé, attorney Eddie Akana, disappears along a popular hiking trail in a Maui national park. Now all eyes are on Kati. Exposure can make a woman with so many secrets very paranoid.
Eddie’s law partner, Noah Walker, is doing everything he can to protect his new client from the press that’s hovering like a vulture and the authorities whose suspicions about Kati—and the disappearance—are rising. Then suddenly, Zoe goes missing as well. Kati will risk anything to find her. But the worst is still to come. Because Kati’s not the only one with secrets. And buried among them is a twist she never saw coming.
Fiction Family Life | Thriller Domestic [Thomas & Mercer, On Sale: April 1, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781662522062 / ]
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About Douglas Corleone
Douglas Corleone is the international bestselling author of Gone Cold, Payoff, and Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Equation, as well as the acclaimed Kevin Corvelli novels, the Simon Fisk international thrillers, and the stand-alone courtroom drama The Rough Cut. Corleone’s debut novel, One Man’s Paradise, won the 2009 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award and was a finalist for the 2011 Shamus Award for Best First Novel. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Corleone now resides in Honolulu, where he is currently at work on his next novel.
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