  Death In Vegas by Christopher Meeks: On Audio Book TourPosted on July 26, 2019 Death In Vegas by Christopher Meeks (Now in Audiobook!) Publisher: White Whisker Books (October, 2019) Category: Murder Mystery, Crime Thriller, Las Vegas ISBN: 9781499124551 Tour Date: Mid October-November, 2019 Available in: Audio Book & ebook, 176 Pages Description Death In Vegas by Christopher MeeksFirst published in 2014, In A Death in Vegas, the president of BenBugs, a company that specializes in beneficial bugs for organic gardening, discovers a young woman dead in his Las Vegas hotel suite. She had worked as a sexy lady bug at his convention booth—and he had nothing to do with her death. While that’s being investigated, the FBI raids his booth on a money-laundering scam that he knows nothing about, either. Soon, the coroner doesn’t have good news. The police and FBI are against him—and his wife cannot be found. He flees to find the answers. Highly acclaimed, Death In Vegas is being released as an audio book in October, 2019! Buy Death In Vegas by Christopher Meeks: Amazon-ebook and paperback | Audible | Barnes&Noble | IndieBound Trailer Death In Vegas by Christopher Meeks  Praise for Death In Vegas by Christopher Meeks "Patton is easy to like right from the start. I felt myself feeling sorry for him. In a sense I started routing for him with all of his luck not going his way. I found this mystery to not only be a mystery but a mystery dosed with a bit of comedy and a love story.”-Becky Willis, What You Talking Bout Willis “DEATH IN VEGAS he reaffirms the fact that Christopher Meeks can take the most quirky combinations of crime and humor and mold them with his magic pen into a novel that simply defies criticism. He has the gift to mold characters with such extensive backstories that after only a few pages as each new character is introduced they become part of the surround-sound family into whose story we have wandered. Meeks is a thorough-going Pro! “-Grady Harp, Amazon Hall of Fame “The only certainty about a Christopher Meeks novel is that the readers’ senses will be delighted with his originality, superb writing, warmly sympathetic characters and clever plotting. A Death in Vegas neatly fits in the cozy mystery genre and becomes literary fiction in the hands of this deft wordsmith.” –Linda Hitchcock, Midwest Book Review “A suspenseful story that culminates in a life-or-death situation. Five Stars!” – Jim Chambers, Amazon Top-10 Reviewer “You can always count on Christopher Meeks for a well written novel; this time Meeks excels at bringing almost a farcical edge to the humor in A Death in Vegas.” – Lori Lutes, She Treads Softly
THE IMPORTANCE OF COVERS For authors, book covers are like Christmas cards—do they grab attention? Will your recipient read the long text inside? Will Santa give you a great paycheck? Over the years, I’ve worked with many graphic designers, first when I became the head editor at Prelude Press in Los Angeles, then when I was in charge of an arts magazine at CalArts. Later, I started a small publishing company, White Whisker Books, and I hired freelance book designers. I’ve worked with some brilliant designers. Covers are everything – after titles. Let’s assume you have a good title and are working with a great designer. The challenge then is that with over a million new book titles each year, how do you grab anyone’s attention? The ideal cover offers a sense of the inside—the tone, one or more key moments—and, importantly, it makes a person pause to look more. If it’s a great cover, then the observer will look at the back and read the blurb. As a publisher, I can only second-guess myself. I’ve redone covers twice after the books were already out in the marketplace. The first time was after my agent could not nail down a publisher for Love at Absolute Zero. Three editors had called my agent with deep interest, and all three times, the marketing departments at those three houses nixed the project saying, “We don’t know how to market a book that combines the search for love with quantum mechanics. Love and physics don’t mix.” Of course, I disagreed, but that’s life in New York publishing. I had my small West Coast publishing company already running, so I decided it would publish it. When I hired a designer, I quickly learned why the publishing companies had backed out. The designer and I were at odds with the look. He kept coming up with science-oriented covers and boxy fonts. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I didn’t like his ideas. We finally compromised on this:  While it looked too sterile to me, his reasoning was so good: it had a male and female figure, a plus sign to show math at work, and the title was large. “Your name is in red, romantic, no?” he said. I had no more ideas other than how about we insert a heart into the letter “O” to give a sense of love? He liked that, so that’s the way the book went out. Soon the book was a finalist in a Foreword magazine’s Book of the Year awards, so I felt vindicated. My designer moved, and when I found a new designer for the next book, the new designer out of the blue asked me if she could she could redesign the cover for Love at Absolute Zero. “Why?” I asked. She said she’d read it and loved it, and it needed a better cover. She’d give me a good price. I said go for it. She gave me five designs, including this one:  At first, I was mystified. Why does she have a river on the cover? Then I saw two heads, two pair of lips, coming together. I loved it! I still love it. The designer asked me for a subtitle, so I came up with “As Basic as the Atom,” because, hey, it’s about atoms at a quantum level. Love is the most basic thing, too, glucose for our souls. Next, I surprised myself this summer over the cover of another book, a chapbook, 7 Truths about Love. (Are you seeing a topic that I’m curious about?) It wasn’t selling the way I had hoped. I re-read it. I laughed often. It was funny. The cover I had designed, however, was dramatic because that’s what I’d asked for. The designer had come up with an unhappy couple and a SWAT team, both of which are in the story. The tale starts with loss, then becomes darker until it turns to light. The 7 truths are unusual, such as “Look at a person’s quirks. Multiple by five.” Here’s the way it was first published:
I can't say outright it's going to sell more, but I like this goofy guy. Now I’m working on putting this story and a dozen others into a single collection, which I may or may not call Love Stories for People with Messes. You'll see the outcome of that challenge next year.   About Christopher Meeks: Award winning author, Christopher Meeks has had stories published in several literary journals, and he has two collections of stories, Months and Seasons and The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea. He also has a new short story collection coming soon. His novel The Brightest Moon of the Century made the list of three book critics’ Ten Best Books of 2009. His novel Love at Absolute Zero, also made three Best Books lists of 2011, as well as earning a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Finalist award. Chris’s two crime novels, Blood Drama and A Death in Vegas have earned much acclaim. He has had three full-length plays mounted, and one, Who Lives? had been nominated for five Ovation Awards, Los Angeles’ top theatre prize. Mr. Meeks teaches English and fiction writing at Santa Monica College, and Children’s Literature at the Art Center College of Design. To read more of his books. Mr. Meeks teaches English and fiction writing at Santa Monica College, and Children’s Literature at the Art Center College of Design. Website | Facebook | Facebook2 | Twitter
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