4 Movie Like Moments from Detective LT. Joe Kenda’s “I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime”
Detective Lt. Joe Kenda, star of Homicide Hunter, shares his deepest, darkest, and never before revealed case files from his 19 years as a homicide detective.Are you horrified yet fascinated by abhorrent murders? Do you crave to know the gory details of these crimes, and do you seek comfort in the solving of the most gruesome? In I WILL FIND YOU, the star of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda shares his deepest, darkest, and never-before-revealed case files from his two decades as a homicide detective and reminds us that crimes like these are very real and can happen even in our own backyards. Gruesome, macabre, and complex cases. Joe Kenda investigated 387 murder cases during his 23 years with the Colorado Springs Police Department and solved almost all of them. And he is ready to detail the cases that are too gruesome to air on television, cases that still haunt him, and the few cases where the killer got away. These cases are horrifyingly real, and the detail is so mesmerizing you won’t be able to look away. The tales in I WILL FIND YOU will shock you like the best horror stories-divulging insights into the actions, motivations, and proclivities of nature’s most dangerous species. Don’t mind the blood.
If you love sci-fi thrillers or space murder mysteries, you’ll love reading Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes, a genre mash-up that will have you on the edge of your seat. If you’re a writer yourself, Lafferty has six tips that will help you write a great mystery novel, too—and she keeps it interesting by making all of her rules contradictory.
1. The Time Kenda was Tossed through a Bar Window
You could call a young Detective Kenda your real-life action hero. With Kenda’s reputation of trouble following him, other cops didn’t even want to be around him. The detective welcomed throwing himself into risky situations; situations like heading into a bar to break up a fight without backup. This resulted in him being grabbed by the linebacker-sized antagonist and being thrown through the front window of the bar. He then flew over the sidewalk, bounced off the side of his patrol car, and landed in the street. Needless to say, the next time he was called to break up a fight, he went in with backup.
2. The Time a Fight Broke Out at a Funeral
When Detective Kenda responded to a call about a disturbance at the local mortuary, he could not believe his eyes when he opened the doors to the funeral home. The grieving crowd was engaged in hand-to-hand combat; clothing was ripped, purses were used as weapons, and someone had gotten a skull fracture from being hit over the head with a metal folding chair. But perhaps the most startling image was that of someone on top of the corpse laying in the open casket, delivering hard punches to the recently departed. It turned out, this started because some of the attendees weren’t a huge fan of the deceased and vocalized it—profanely—in front of everyone. A scene like this is so odd, one has to ask them self, “How is this real?”
3. The Time a 67-Year-Old Woman Saved a Case
Luck was on Kenda’s side for this case. What would’ve turned into a cold case was saved by a woman practicing her memory exercises. The unnamed woman had recently suffered from a stroke and had been instructed by her physical therapist and doctor to begin working on her memory; this included looking out of her window and writing down things that happened in the neighborhood. In a stroke of luck, our witness knew the culprit the detectives were looking for, wrote down his name, the car he was driving, his license plate number, and the time he fled the scene. It seems her memory exercises had been paying off after all.
4. The Time Kenda’s Wife Became the Protector
There are some negatives that come with the job of being a detective, one of them is making enemies. A disgruntled speeding ticket recipient called Kenda’s home, threatening to hurt his family. His wife called the police and armed herself with a gun. When she heard rattling by her children’s window, she turned around and pointed her gun at the man in the bushes, threatening to blow him away. It turned out to just be a police officer there to help, and she had frightened him so badly that he relieved himself in his pants. Kenda didn’t seem too surprised, though. “Yeah, Kathy could do that to a guy.”
About the Author
Mur Lafferty is a writer, podcast producer, gamer, runner, and geek. She is the host of the podcast I Should Be Writing and the co-host of Ditch Diggers. She is the winner of the 2013 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She is addicted to computer games, Zombies, Run!, and Star Wars LEGO. She lives in Durham, NC with her husband and daughter.
In this Hugo nominated science fiction thriller by Mur Lafferty, a crew of clones awakens aboard a space ship to find they're being hunted-and any one of them could be the killer.
Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died.
Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so it can awaken. And Maria isn't the only one to die recently. . .
Unlock the bold new science fiction thriller that Corey Doctorow calls Mur's "breakout book".
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