RJ Mcarthy Releases Another Crime Fiction Novel

 

Quis Auxilium Me (Somebody Help Me) is set in 1963. Shortly before his seventeenth birthday, Sean Thornton overhears a confession of an imagined crime by one of the town’s bumper crop of bullies, Rocky Corcoran. A week later, the crime – the violation of a friend’s mother – is committed. Suspended between the immediacy of his teen years and the onrushing responsibilities of a looming adulthood, Thornton struggles with the guilt-laden weight of his Catholic-bred conscience. Testing Thornton’s mettle, for reasons unknown, Corcoran has always nursed a particular dislike of Sean.

Torn between doing the right thing and avoiding Corcoran’s wrath, Sean turns to Police Officer Britt Clarity, one of the first female officers in the Suffolk County Police Department. Clarity is battling her own internal torment, attributable to the resistance of male officers to her presence. Her determination to succeed and her increasing self-defense mastery of aikido enable her to maintain confidence through the disrespect and to concentrate on doing her job well.

 McCarthy masterfully builds his characters as he creates windows into their souls so that the reader is torn between empathy for the antagonist and wanting him brought to justice. McCarthy weaves in glimpses of the backstory that made Rocky who he is. The struggle between good and evil keeps the reader turning the pages of Quis Auxilium right up to the end.

 When asked what inspired me to write this story I answered, "If inspiration is something that comes with the suddenness of a spring gust blowing off your hat, then that could describe the arrival of Quis Auxilium Me. It sprung from the idea of an overheard confession. What-ifs swiftly followed like the bits and pieces from which a bird builds a nest. In this case, I guess I was the bird, my bits and pieces drawn largely from scattered yet poignant childhood memories."

Quis Auxilium Me (Somebody Help Me) is available on Amazon.com in paperback and in Kindle e-book versions: Quis Auxilium Me: (Somebody Help Me): McCarthy, RJ: 9798878637824: Amazon.com: Books