Ashland — Former Independent reporter Sam Adams has successfully made the leap from journalist to author with his true crime book “Precious Blood,” which he will sign from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. June 2 at Walden Books in Ashland Town Center and from 5 to 7 p.m. at Borders Book at the Huntington Mall.
“Precious Blood” is the true story of a double murder in Whitesburg. Timothy “Blister” Cook and his 4-year-old son T.J. were shot to death in their mobile home on Feb. 17, 2002. Four days later, police arrested ex-convict Jerome Boggs and charged him with the murders. Boggs pleaded guilty to the crimes and is now serving a life sentence at Green River Correctional Complex. His 20-year-old wife, April, was convicted of facilitation and is also in prison.
Adams, a native Kentuckian, covered the crimes as a reporter at The Mountain Eagle in Letcher County. He had always wanted to write a novel and, in fact, has written two fiction manuscripts which have yet to be published. While he was writing about the double murder, he had no thoughts of making it into a true crime novel.
“My wife gets credit for it,” he said. “If she hadn’t encouraged me to write a book about it I probably wouldn’t have.”
Adams said the murders are still a sore spot in the community and he had some difficulty getting residents to talk about it.
“Nobody from the families involved agreed to be interviewed for the book,” he said. “Some talked on the condition I didn’t use their name. But it wasn’t the problem I thought it would be. After it was published, I get a couple of copies to the victims’ families and they were pleased with it.”
When the book was still just an idea, Adams sent out a short proposal to agents, checking to see what kind of reception it would get.
An agent who thought it had a shot at getting published worked with Adams to write a longer, more detailed proposal to submit to a publisher. Kensington Books was interested and offered him a deal. That’s when the work began.
“In a way it was intimidating,” Adams said of facing such a large product and long-term deadlines. “But it also was gratifying just to get the deal. Most writers put out a lot of queries before they get a deal. Once I got it, I was like the dog that chases the car: If he catches it, what’s he going to do with it?”
It turns out, Adams knew what to do with it.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” he said. “I set a goal to write something every day, even if it was just a page. Some days it was 30 pages, just depending on how I felt and what I had in front of me.”
In the end, Adams said he was pleased with the book.
“Kensington has done a good job with producing the book,” he said. “They were really nice about the editing process and didn’t change much. I think the cover looks great. It’s been a good experience.”
Adams covered environmental issues and southern Greenup County as a reporter at The Independent beginning in 1993. Among the things he covered while at Ashland was the story of the release of sulfuric acid from a Wurtland factory in 1995 and the aftermath of the discovery of radioactive waste in the Martha Oil Fields. He left the paper to become assistant city editor at The Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer.
“Precious Blood” is a Pinnacle True Crime book.
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Former Independent reporter wil have booksignings
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