‘The Sound of Regret’: Trey Gowdy Pens New Crime Thriller

Former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy has traded the halls of Congress for the shelves of your local bookstore.

This Tuesday, he and co-author Christopher Greyson will release the crime thriller “The Sound of Regret,” a sequel to the bestselling novel “The Color of Death.”

“For those of you who thought there were a couple loose ends in the last few pages of ‘The Color of Death,’ you were 100% correct!” Gowdy told viewers of his Fox News show “Sunday Night in America.”

Set in a small South Carolina town, “The Sound of Regret” once again finds Gowdy’s crime-fighting, mystery-solving assistant district attorney, Colm Truesdale, unraveling a murder. This one brings to the surface dangerous threats and ghosts from his past, and the investigation leads him to suspect a connection between a psychopath who has spent years trying to destroy him, the murder of a confidential informant, and the execution of the case’s only witness.

Gowdy says the book lets people know “what it’s like to be chased when you are doing the chasing.” A former state and federal prosecutor himself, he is excited to share more of his hero’s story.

“Writing a sequel to ‘The Color of Death’ felt like a natural next step,” Gowdy says, “because Colm’s story still had important gaps to fill. In this follow-up novel, readers gain a deeper understanding of the pressures, obstacles, and emotional challenges prosecutors face every day as they advocate for victims and pursue justice in even the most difficult cases.”

“The truth can set you free,” Gowdy says of his protagonist. “It can also get you killed.”

The former prosecutor and congressman took his first stab at fiction last year at the urging of Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, telling CrimeSpreeMag.com at the time, “I have had a fictional book in my head for a decade, but [was] too scared to write it. I had a chance meeting with my CEO, Suzanne Scott. She asked if I want to take a crack at writing fiction. The story would have stayed in my head, but for Suzanne Scott encouraging me to write it.”

The result was a New York Times bestseller.

“The Sound of Regret” is available for pre-order before Tuesday’s release. Although Gowdy describes the book as a stand-alone, if you want to catch up on the series, “The Color of Death” is now out in paperback.