Books
Whispers, Echoes, and Wisps of the Wind
A collection of short stories to awaken spirit, imagination and memory.
From a mountain town in Pennsylvania to a magical lake in West Virginia and beyond, find your “rightful place among the warriors” and “look for rainbows” as you begin a journey you won’t soon forget. Like falling into a dream, C. William Davis catapults into the unknown, weaving tales of fantasy and shadows of the past in Whispers, Echoes and Wisps of the Wind.
This collection of short stories follows characters of all ages through mystical adventures of discovery and love. Davis’ stories challenge and stretch the mind to places you’ve only imagined. Listen to the voices and escape reality as you eclipse a new set of adventures and memories, and “allow yourself to be carried away on the wisps of the wind to a place you have never been.”
Press Release: PDF
The Forever Man
Clive Aliston’s personality could have been shaped in one of western PA’s once-boiling steel cauldrons — no nonsense, incorruptible and detesting anyone who is. The novel introduces this towering, barrel-chested county sheriff who finds himself in the unaccustomed role of tracking a serial killer. The horror begins when a popular young townswoman is found murdered with the cryptic message “forever” carved into her body.
Author C. William Davis III sets his tale in the small town of Smith Falls, nestled in Pennsylvania’s rolling hills and picturesque farmlands. The Region lies just beyond the rusted steel towns and big city that’s evolving from a manufacturing giant into a sleek technical center. His protagonist, Clive Aliston, is a “by-the book lawman” whose motto is “Praise God, always have your gun loaded, and keep your ears and eyes open.” Though the forty-nine-year-old sheriff is a seasoned crime fighter, nothing could have prepared him for the evil that has been lying in wait.
The Forever Man is a neatly spun tale of darkness that takes mystery-lovers to the edge of the precipice and keeps them hanging there in spine-tingling suspense. Davis’s characters are expertly drawn and memorable and readers will be clamoring for the next exciting Clive Aliston tale.
Tail Of The Scorpion
Allegheny and Butler counties serve as the backdrop for Davis’s terrifying new offering. This second in the hard-hitting Clive Aliston Series, places the gritty South Western Pennsylvania county sheriff knee-deep in a chilling mystery that has its bloody roots in the author’s earlier novel, The Forever Man. The terror of the past summer that comes to light in his first book, is soon supplanted by a storm of events that will test Clive Aliston, the people of the fictitious Smith Falls, and the nation itself.
Tail of the Scorpion is based on a story Davis, a resident of Brackenridge, originally wrote in 1963. He says he wove it into his second Clive Aliston novel because the occurrences so strongly apply to today’s perilous world situation. Davis feels that the shocking events of his novel could predict our own frightening real-life future if we aren’t vigilant. Ironically, in the novel, when protagonist, CliveAliston finally reveals what he knows of the threat he says, “What I am about to tell you sounds like something out of a fiction novel. It’s still hard for me to believe.”
Believability and plausibility, however, are just what Davis manages to create, making this read even more fearsome and tense. As the author says, he endeavors to reveal just enough information while still allowing the reader to fill in their own particular shade of terror.
The Ticket Master (Return of the Forever Man)
None of you are safe now.
The lush green hills and high bridges of Western Pennsylvania are once again the mesmerizing backdrop for this-the third and perhaps the most chilling of Sheriff Clive Alison mysteries.
Just when folks around Smith Falls were beginning to return to normal after a string of horrific murders, a single scrawled word plunges their world into chaos. The word is forever-a message that for Sheriff Aliston means-game on.
Bill Davis, who draws his characters from the gritty mill towns and deep rural valleys of the region he knows best, creates everyday people living ordinary lives, and places in extraordinary circumstances. Even hardcore mystery readers will find themselves on the edge, turned-around, and unable to put down this nail biter. Davis, who says his novels begin as mysteries for him and unfold as a series of challenges and puzzles, has placed his characters in the unthinkable position of facing a second act in terrifying local tragedy while the nation attempts to recover from the trauma of yet another terrorist attack.
The Ticket Master is written in meticulous cinematic style, giving readers both a panoramic and a myopic view of every scene. Details are what Davis is about, and bit by bit, piece by fascinating piece, they'll draw you in and take you on the ride of a lifetime. This is classic good versus evil and readers can be sure that Clive Aliston will make good on his promise-"I'll hunt you down to my last breath. There is nowhere on this planet that you can hide.