by James Coulter
For homicide detectives, serial killers are a dime a dozen, and investigating their cases are part of the job description; but what happens when the killer’s killing spree gets too close to home?
Homicide detective Cal Miller faces that dilemma in “The Dicer”, the debut novel of local author A.B Kayge. As the story description explains: the case becomes “very personal” to Miller as soon as he is placed on leave. With body after body turning up, he and his partner need to crack the case “before it’s too late.” But will they solve it in time?
Born in Vero Beach, raised in Lakeland, and currently residing in Bartow, A.B. Kayge is a proud mother of three children and the wife of a loving husband for the past 22 years. During her spare time–which she claims she doesn’t have enough of—she had been typing away at a crime thriller, which she finally had published as her debut novel, “The Dicer.”
A.B. Kayge owes her venture into becoming an author to her parents, both of whom were “huge connoisseurs” of reading who would “read books like it was nothing.” Growing up, she quickly inherited their love of reading and writing. Her biggest literary influence, bar none, was Stephen King. She was also inspired by Nora Roberts and Stephanie Meyer, providing equal parts intrigue, suspense, and allure to her stories.
However, while she loved to read, many of the books she read proved too trite and predictable. After all, a bad mystery or horror story is one whose plot can easily be predicted by reading the first few pages or chapters, which was a common problem for A.B. So, like any good writer, she decided to write her own story.
“It got to the point where I could figure out within the first couple of chapters who did what,” she said. “I would get frustrated with that because it was no fun for me when I got to the end of the book to already have known who did it. So, my thought was I want to write a book and I want it to be something like the movie The Sixth Sense where everybody was like…I did not see that coming. And that is how it all came about.”
A.B. Kayge wrote the manuscript for “The Dicer” in over a year. She was fortunate enough to have both of her parents, along with her husband, help her through the process of beta reading and proofreading. As she explained: “Both of them became my side readers and were able to tell me if I was missing plot holes to needed to explain something further.”
Initially, A.B. Kayge self-published her novel as an e-book. Over the next five years, she researched various publishing companies and submitted queries to have her book traditionally published. After coming across a local writer’s group, she was able to go through that process more easily and finally become picked up by traditional publishing.
Currently, she has started writing the second book in her thriller series. She will also be one of many local authors attending the upcoming Writers Block Part and Street Fair, to be hosted in Bartow on Sat. May 20. For more information, visit bartowcon.com/
“The Dicer” is currently available on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and Readers House. To learn more about it, visit the book’s Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/ABKayge
A.B. Kayge was recently interviewed on the podcast “Chattin on the Ridge”, where she discussed her book and her writing career. Listen to the podcast on Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/chattinontheridge/episodes/Ep–04-A-B–Kayge-e242blt
