Author Merle Temple Fulfills Promise to God, by Deborah Wheeler, The Walton Sun:
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Former Narcotics Agent Begins Third Chapter, by Tony Simmons, Panama City News Herald:
http://tonysimmons.blogs.newsherald.com/10042/former-narcotics-agent-begins-third-chapter/
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Author encourages Destin students, by Savannah Vasquez, The Destin Log:
http://www.thedestinlog.com/article/20151015/NEWS/151019515/0/SEARCH
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Interview with Author Merle Temple, by Will Stauff, Conservative Report:
http://conservativereport.org/interview-with-author-merle-temple-ghostly-shade-of-pale/
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Temple of Wisdom, by Robert Lee Long, DeSoto Times-Tribune:
http://www.desototimes.com/news/temple-of-wisdom/article_085efde4-4878-11e5-9d11-5f0eb113358d.html
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Merle Temple and the Great Comission, by Lisa Love:
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Author Interview: Merle Temple, by Dee Ann Waite:
Please click the image or the link above to read the article.Merle Temple - A God Fearing Crime Fighter - and now writer
by Mark H. Stowers, Clarion Ledger
Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
It was, no doubt, from God. A gust of wind that changed the course of a less than average discus thrower in a conference championship track meet. He wasn’t relied upon to win his event, just place high enough for a few points while the real athletes did their job on the track with sprints and hurdles and mile runs. Well, that didn’t pan out like it was supposed to have. There was the senior, not so big in stature, with the weight of his teams on his shoulders.
“I didn’t have a chance. Their arms were as big around as my chest. We had several mishaps that day and should have had it wrapped up by the time it came to the discus event but somebody pulled a muscle, somebody hit a hurdle who had never hit a hurdle before so I knew the pressure was on me. I knew I didn’t have a chance.”
But God did.
The officials set up where they thought the puny little discus thrower should hit and everyone waited for the inevitable – loss.“So I wound up and threw the discus and it was the best throw I ever had but it started to fall and fall short.”
But God was waiting.
“Then suddenly there was this wind from nowhere on this cloudless, windless day. That wind blew down in the stadium and just blew everything up. It actually stopped the discus in mid air.”
Sound familiar State fans? (hint – 1983 Egg Bowl)
“And then miraculously with Divine Intervention, that discus began to not only start falling but began to sailing further out. Everybody was just stunned. It went over the heads of the guys that mark the discus and they were chasing it. That throw gave us enough points to win the conference championship. When I turned around everybody in the whole place was looking at me like ‘who are you and what just happened?’”
That was 1966 and it would not be the last time that Merle Temple had Divine Intervention in his life.
Read more: Merle Temple - A God Fearing Crime Fighter - and now writer
Invitation Tupelo and Super Talk Radio interviewed Merle Temple this week about his debut novel, A Ghostly Shade of Pale which is currently being pitched as a movie in Hollywood. A crime story and mystery as literature set in the South, it explores the America of the 1970s— the cultural mores, cynicism, and excesses of a bygone era, framed against the backdrop of the first drug wars, social unrest, war protest, and a fractured national identity.
"Your main character, Captain Michael Parker, bears a strong resemblance to you. How much of your experience as a narcotics agent is in this novel?" "Ghostly is a tribute to all my friends who didn't make it out of the drug wars. I've read that Southern Gothic writers deal with their own imperfections and experiences through their books, and I think that's true with me. He's a flawed character who's trying to rise above and is dealing with situations I faced fresh out of Ole Miss…," Temple said.
Temple sent the manuscript to Jim Clemente at Criminal Minds who called it,"A crime story as literature. Merle Temple is a great storyteller, writing to all of your senses. He weaves a story so detailed and complex, yet beautifully sinister, that the reader is immersed in the feeling of absolute reality." Of the offer to pitch it for a movie, Temple said, "It took me about two seconds to think it over and agree."
In the novel, the history files on a bygone era are ripped open and rewritten. Violent and dark conflicts unfold as the players are trapped in a game of murder, betrayal, the macabre, and the supernatural. Parker sees the tranquility of the old South shattered by civil unrest, the Vietnam War, and a wave of drug abuse that brings the war on drugs to his front door. A chain of events leads him to become an unlikely player in a game of international intrigue and a clandestine struggle for the soul of America. He finds and loses real love in Washington and returns home to enter a world he isn't ready for in the Mississippi Narcotics Bureau. Dr. Chester Quarles of Ole Miss, an expert on terrorism, said, "Captain Temple has captured the uniqueness of those times as only an eyewitness could. The parallels of truth and fiction are intriguing."
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