Masterfully crafted by Irene Woodbury, ‘A Dead End in Vegas’ exposes the reality of a couple’s secret Facebook affair as protagonist Tricia Sloan is found nude and dead in a Las Vegas hotel room. With two pieces of shocking news to live with for the rest of their lives, those who hold Tricia near and dear find their lives spiraling out of control in a thick cocktail of grief, anger and vengeance. But there’s a twist – Tricia’s death was from natural causes; but its deceitful circumstances still lead her family to take bold retaliation. It begs the real-world question – is technology and the Internet really cross-compatible with the ways and whims of the heart?
Denver, CO -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/18/2014 -- Internet infidelity has grown from a novelty to an epidemic, often drawing people in due to its accessibility and relative anonymity. However, those who leave their keyboards on the desk to eventually meet in the real world are often presented with a new ‘partner’ who is a shadow of the one they made themselves out to be online. In a gripping new novel by Irene Woodbury, this concept is explored alongside themes of grief, revenge, compatibility and….death.
‘A Dead End in Vegas’ sees one couple’s online affair culminate in a ‘secret’ meet in Las Vegas. One partner doesn’t show, the other winds up dead and dozens of people are left to pick up the pieces of social networking’s dark side.
Synopsis:
As Dave Sloan is leaving for the Denver airport to pick up his wife, Tricia, the phone rings. It’s the cops in Las Vegas. His wife is dead. Her nude body was found that morning in a hotel room at the Bellagio.
Dave is stunned and devastated. He thought she was in Phoenix at a week-long teachers’ conference. A lie, of course, concocted by Tricia, who flew to Phoenix, then drove to Vegas to meet her Internet lover, the handsome, charming, and very much married Joe Daggett of Chicago. When Joe can’t join her, Tricia’s a mess. He calls a close friend, Al Posey, who lives in Vegas, and asks him to take her to dinner. Al and Tricia hit it off and wind up in bed. On Saturday morning, he walks out of her hotel room at nine. Three hours later, her lifeless body is found by a maid.
A DEAD END IN VEGAS is a searing exploration of how Tricia Sloan’s tragic, mysterious death shatters, and later transforms, the lives of her family and friends. Her son dies in a grisly accident. Her best friend’s marriage crumbles under the strain of constant grief. Her husband becomes obsessed with revenge and tries to destroy the lives of Joe Daggett and Al Posey. In the process, he meets and falls in love with Al’s showgirl-wife, Cindy.
Drama, trauma, and, ultimately, love, are what A DEAD END IN VEGAS is all about.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas and have seen first-hand the couples who are obviously there against anyone else’s knowledge,” admits Woodbury, a freelance writer. “Some of them meet on the Internet, and you have to wonder – are they as blissful in person as they were online, or is it just a front now that they are face-to-face? Has technology skewed our ability to judge reality?”
Continuing, “This latest novel examines this phenomenon while aggressively looking at modern-day marriage and its flaws. To get a firm grip on my characters, I focused on their grief, confusion, and rage. It’s a raw, fascinating look at human nature.”
Vengeance also forms a central theme; an emotion most people possess but hope they’ll never need.
“We can all thirst for revenge, even though we don’t know it until the time comes. Tricia died of natural causes, but the harrowing circumstances leave her family treating it almost like an emotional murder. It all ties together to highlight the dangers of social media and the Internet – a playground where seemingly happy marriages dramatically fall to pieces,” she adds.
‘A Dead End in Vegas’, published by SynergEbooks, is available on Amazon and Smashwords:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NCKEFSI
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/473657
About Irene Woodbury
Irene Woodbury’s second novel, A DEAD END IN VEGAS, is a dark, probing look at marriage, infidelity, revenge, and grief. Immersing herself in drama and dysfunction for months on end was a challenge for this upbeat author, whose first book, the humor novel A SLOT MACHINE ATE MY MIDLIFE CRISIS, was published in 2011. At first glance, the two novels seem quite different, but both deal with midlife confusion and chaos, and the complexities and unpredictable nature of the human heart. And both, of course, are partially set in Las Vegas, a city Irene got to know well during her years as a travel writer. Between 2000 and 2005, her mostly international stories appeared in numerous publications in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
Irene, who graduated from the University of Houston in 1993, lives in Denver with her husband, Richard, a retired correspondent for Time Magazine who edited both of her novels. The couple miss traveling, but, after two novels, Irene insists there’s no greater journey than the one into your own heart and mind.