Run, Richard, Run

Book excerpt: Shocking and awe-inspiring, Richard Smallwood's dark debut Run, Richard, Run: One Cop, One Mafia Princess, and One Hell of a Marriage is dramatic in all the right ways and keeps readers guessing on just how far one man's life will sink when he weds a woman with a past. Richard Smallwood was a small town businessman turned big city cop who believed in and upheld the law. After five years on the Arizona beat, he was promoted to detective and then sergeant. Too busy for a social life, partway through his thirties he falls hard for the stunning, if mysterious, Raven. When the couple learns that Raven's father has terminal cancer they relocate to Ohio, where all hell breaks loose. Raven is not exactly who she portrayed herself to be. The farther Richard falls into flat mire he discovers Raven's troubled past—one that is fraught with mental illness and complicated by her family's mafia ties. With nowhere to go but home, Richard learns that leaving crazy won't be easy.