Bailey Herrington is the author of the David Elliott Mysteries: What the Barber Knew, Dead to Rights, and Pack of Scoundrels, based on real crimes. A fourth David Elliott book, The Girl in the Orange Maillot, was co-published by Koehler Books, March, 2022.
The Girl in the Orange Maillot opens at the site of a brutal ritualistic murder. Naqam Malakhim, a mysterious cult, claims responsibility. Bruce MacDonald’s bloody knife is found at the scene; he is charged with first degree murder. The murder’s roots twist around the sexual abuse of a young girl and a monstrous lie that destroys an innocent man. Pastor David Elliott, Bruce’s friend, and two whip-smart women, Judy, David's wife, and Nicole Palmer, Bruce's girlfriend, must rely on their keen insight and shrewdness to discover the killer’s identity and gain the freedom of their innocent friend.
I wrote The Girl in the Orange Maillot to entertain and enlighten people who expect mysteries to have meaning beyond the plot: protagonists who use their minds instead of guns and fists, characters who linger in the mind long after their disappearance from the page, a plot that is the natural consequence of the characters' lives to create a depth of feeling that is unusual for murder mysteries.
If reading The Girl in the Orange Maillot helps an individual contemplate something larger than oneself, in particular the continuing, totally reprehensible crime of child rape and sexual abuse, I will have accomplished my goal.