Wasley, Ric

views updated

Wasley, Ric

PERSONAL:

Married; children: two sons, one daughter. Education: University of Kentucky, B.A., 1968. Hobbies and other interests: Cross-country and downhill skiing, motorcycling, waterskiing, brewing beer, golf.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boston, MA.

CAREER:

Professional folk singer and author; has worked in media and advertising, beginning c. 1975.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Short story award, Boulevard Magazine.

WRITINGS:

Acid Test (murder mystery; "McCarthy Family" series), self-published through iUniverse, 2004.

Shadow of Innocence (murder mystery; "McCarthy Family" series), Kunati (Largo, FL), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ric Wasley has a steady career working in advertising for a media company and is a married man with three children. He still looks back fondly to the 1960s, though, when he was a folk singer and was able to meet such famous musicians as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. He kept a detailed journal of this time in his life, "traveling around on my motorcycle, playing as a single folk act, and later in a VW Mini-bus touring with my rock band," as he recalled in an interview reproduced on the Authors Den Web site. This background information would later serve as setting material for his murder mysteries. His main characters in the stories, Mick McCarthy and his girlfriend, Bridget, help Mick's father, who runs a detective agency. They "often go ‘under-cover’ when working on a case, and travel around as folk-singing duo," the author explained in the interview.

Shadow of Innocence is set during the 1968 Newport Rock Festival, where a friend of Mick's is accused of murder. Mick naturally answers his friend's call to try to clear his name, getting caught up in the clash between the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll crowd versus the rich, staid community where the festival is being held. While David Pitt, writing in Booklist, felt the plot is "a little dumsy" and the writing "a tad clunky," he still concluded that the book is, overall, "colorful and exciting."