“It started with the book title and a very small premise of a missing person.” So author Keith Donnelly told a crowd at Elizabethton Book Club about the first of his Donald Youngblood mysteries, a book called Three Deuces Down, published in 2008 by NewSouth Books. Not three years later, he’s just published his third in the series. He debuted Three Devils Dancing with a program last month in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for Friends in Need, a church-based community outreach program.

In the third novel, Detective Youngblood investigates the death of a young woman on the Sugarlands Nature Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One of the three devils is found in a tattoo on her dead body.

According to The Mountain Press, Donnelly thinks that the third book may be the best out of the three: “I learned so much going from book one to book two, but book three is darker.”

Donnelly’s next book signing will be on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 1 PM at Waldenbooks in Charleston, South Carolina. Three Deuces Down is available from NewSouth Books and Amazon.com.

The daily newspaper BostonNOW! has just reviewed Keith Donnelly’s new mystery novel Three Deuces Down. Reviewer Edward Clarkin says there are “big surprises” in what he calls a “good detective thriller.” From the review:

Put together a successful Wall Street dropout itching for excitement and a scion of a local family who is having a hard time with the possible demise of his daughter and mysterious son-in-law, and you’ve got the makings a good detective thriller.

In his first novel, Three Deuces Down, Keith Donnelly introduces Donald Youngblood and his pals—both current and those I-haven’t talked to-in-a-while-but-I-need-a-favor—and leads us down a path centered in his East Tennessee roots. Scattered through past loves, current flames and a few social possibilities—along with a mob boss looking for revenge—and this amateur detective has his hands full.

Read the entire review at the BostonNOW! website.

Three Deuces Down is available directly from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.