D. E. Ireland: Move Your Blooming Corpse Sunday, Nov 29 2015 

Continued series winner and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:15 am

MoveBloomingCorpse
D. E. Ireland burst upon the scene with last year’s witty Wouldn’t It Be Deadly, bringing Eliza Doolittle, Henry Higgins and the cast familiar to readers from Pygmalion and My Fair Lady to life. The sequel, Move Your Blooming Corpse is every bit as charming and witty, taking readers to Royal Ascot and into the world of horse racing.

It’s also the time of the Suffragette movement, with emotions running high, a key element in the mystery when a young woman’s body is found murdered in one of the stables. That she is part owner of Donegal Dancer, the same racehorse that Eliza’s father owns a part of, brings out Eliza’s worst fears: Is her father in over his head and now in jeopardy? Or was the victim, a married woman known to be having affairs with at least two other owners of the race horse, responsible for her own death?

Eliza and Higgins join forces with her Scotland Yard cousin Jack to investigate before another murder takes place. But will they be soon enough? There will be jealous spouses and a young man mad with grief; there will be more races, boating regattas and picnics as the duo race against time to try to keep not only Alfred Doolittle safe, but to find the real culprit just as Eliza becomes embroiled in the Suffragette movement and finds herself learning jujitsu moves>

The writing team get the period details just right, from a the clothing down to the food to the way Society and it mores affected behavior at a time when the world was changing and not everyone appreciated the change. And they keep the characters we’ve come to love true to their nature and their actions, with their dialogue recalling the originals. Take a loverly step back in time with Eliza and Henry Higgins and the crew.

 

Dr. Barbara Ebel: Collateral Circulation Sunday, Nov 22 2015 

Uncategorized Auntie M Writes Crime 12:07 am

Please welcome Dr. Barbara, author of the Dr. Danny Tilson Novels, whose own clinical background adds credibility to all of her medical scenes. And as an added bonus, one lucky reader who leaves a comment will win an audiobook copy of Collateral Circulation~

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Collateral Circulation: a Medical Mystery by Barbara Ebel, M.D. is the 2015 NIEA – National Indie Excellence Awards – Finalist for Medical Thrillers. It is the third book in the Dr. Danny Tilson Novels, but each book can stand alone. The fourth book, Secondary Impact, will be published any day. Here’s Collateral Circulation’s synopsis:

A lavishly enriched blood supply piques Dr. Danny Tilson’s interest as he performs a routine surgery on Varg Dagmar’s brain. He soon discovers that it’s not just his patient’s cranial anatomy that’s remarkable, but his superlative mental capabilities as well.

As more and more patients surface with similar mystifying profiles, Danny searches for answers. If he can figure out the cause of this surge in advanced mental faculties, the ramifications to humankind could be staggering.

Danny wonders, however. Is this mysterious brain power too good to be true?
*****

EBook, Paperback and Audiobook links:
Amazon Kindle Store – US: http://amzn.to/1BrINiE
Amazon Kindle Store – UK: http://amzn.to/1CNTgta
Amazon US Paperback: http://tinyurl.com/m6xdczf
B&N Nook: http://bit.ly/1Esjymt
Kobobooks: http://bit.ly/1DqD9Q8
Audiobook – Audible: adbl.co/1RuBSix

Spartamagazine

About the Author:
Barbara Ebel is an author of fiction novels, children’s books, and a healthy living book. She is a clinically retired anesthesiologist and sprinkles credible medicine into the background of her novels. Her operating room scenes shine but her characters and plots take center stage! http://barbaraebel.weebly.com

Also, during philanthropic work in middle TN with her own therapy dog, Chester, she was asked to write a children’s book. There are now five books in the Chester the Chesapeake series and Doctor Barbara and Chester make guest book appearances up and down the east coast. http://dogbooksforchildren.weebly.com

 

Elizabeth George: Banquet of Consequences Sunday, Nov 15 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:22 am

Auntie M had the distinct pleasure of taking a Masters Class in Beginnings with Elizabeth George last week at New England Crimebake. One of her favorite authors, George’s class was succinct and helpful. The diminutive wordsmith, who claims she is introverted, nevertheless charmed the entire audience over the three days she was there teaching, on panels, doing interviews and just being herself. She is an animal lover, another hit with Auntie M, and the two compared notes on her adorable Wire-haired Dachshund, Lucy, and Auntie M’s Italian Spinone, Radar, two opposite ends of the dog spectrum in size but not in jolly goodness.

George was generous with describing her writing process, which starts with the germ of an idea and victim as she explores her setting. Then she peoples that person’s world with other characters, creating long histories that in Auntie M’s screenwriting days were called “bibles.” Her plot unfolds from this and she’s off and writing a book for the satisfaction of readers, ones that have won her a deservedly huge following. Her newest is destined to keep her readers flipping pages.

BanquetConsequences
Elizabeth George’s 19th Lynley mystery, despite its size, lives up to the best of her work, with Lynley and Havers back on the case in Banquet of Consequences, a most apt title upon reflection.

George takes her time introducing the players: The Goldacre family consists of William and his girlfriend Lily; his brother Charlie and wife India, his mother Caroline, and her second husband, Alastair MacKerron. Their interaction is key to the events that take place some months leading up to William’s suicide, an event that precipitates extraordinary fallout, some of which overlaps into a case of poisoning in Cambridge that handed to Lynleys’ DS Barbara Havers manages to get herself assigned to investigate.

Still smarting from her hasty actions in the last book, Just One Evil Act, which took Havers and Lynley to Italy to the chagrin of Det. Superintendant Isabelle Ardery, Havers has a sword of Damocles hanging over her head: a signed transfer request Ardery has no intention of tearing up if it means Havers toes the line.

Chafing at the bit and hating the restrictions placed on her detecting, Havers begs Lynley to go to bat for her and have the poisoning case assigned to her. That he has to go around Ardery to do it doesn’t improve either of their positions with the Super. Havers is allowed to investigate with a reluctant DS Winston Nkata at her side, yet the duo end up working their investigative magic as the case comes together in a most unexpected way.

The plot is complex, as are the personalities of the characters involved. The dead boy’s mother in particular is a pushy drama queen who never fails to keep the attention on her. There are side affairs, past secrets held and revealed, marriages fractured. There will be time for Lynley to ponder and pursue his relationship with the veterinarian, Daidre, and even a little dog, Arlo, who captures everyone’s heart except that of the Superintendent. One interesting subplot has Ardery’s secretary, the well-put-togehter Dee Harriman, deciding to take Havers under her wing and give her something of a life outside her work.

The final twist falls to the reader, one that will leave them pondering what is true justice and if it has been well served. An intriguing mystery with more than its share of tension and revelations. Highly recommended.

 

Robin Burcell: The Last Good Place Sunday, Nov 8 2015 

great read and mystery to die for and new series and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:18 am

Robin Burcell has written a rebook of the Carolyn Weston books that formed the storyline for The Streets of San Francisco, one of Auntie M’s favorite shows in the 1970s.
The Last Good Place

Way back in the 1970s, an author named Carolyn Weston penned the novel POOR, POOR OPHELIA. That book was the basis for the hit television show, The Streets of San Francisco. I loved that show, and so when Brash Books asked if I’d be interested in continuing the late Weston’s series, I jumped at the chance.

Besides, how hard could it be? I thought. Well… A lot has changed since the 1970s, especially police work. But I was up to the challenge, so I read the three Weston novels and made the startling realization that they were very different from the TV show that I remembered. Or rather Weston’s cops, Al Krug and Casey Kellog, were different from my memory of the TV cops portrayed by Karl Malden and Michael Douglas.

What’s a writer to do? I had a choice about leaving these cops in the 70s, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to write historical fiction. I started as a cop in 1983 and I’m very happy with the progress departments have made over the years. I had no wish to revisit that time period—and so we made the command decision to update the series to modern day.

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My personal belief was that Al Krug, the grizzled, older cop Weston wrote as a foil to the younger, college-educated rookie, Kellog, was right for the time period in which he was created. Krug was a kick-ass-take-names-later sort of guy. Unfortunately that wouldn’t fly today, and so I knew I was going to have to temper Krug’s character—to keep him from getting fired—making him more of a mentor to Kellog, but one who was still very much old school.

And then there is the younger Kellog, fresh out of college and still living at home according to Weston’s version. The biggest problem there was that today, Kellog would have to put in at least a decade on the streets before he ever got to homicide, and so I fast-forwarded his time clock, giving him the needed years on the street (and moved him out of his parents’ house!) so that he had the experience to work homicide.

The fun part of the series was melding Weston’s characters with my memories of the television show. I wanted to bring in the best of both worlds. In the end my goal was to write a great police procedural that would pick up where the old books left off, but wouldn’t be out of place in today’s world.

Anyone else out there remember The Streets of San Francisco?

Burcell 2013 Book Photo

Robin Burcell spent nearly three decades as a police officer, hostage negotiator, criminal investigator, and FBI Academy-trained forensic artist. Her most recent book, THE KILL ORDER, was named one of Library Journal’s Best Thrillers of 2014.
Her upcoming book, THE LAST GOOD PLACE, is a continuation of the Carolyn Weston police procedurals which were the basis for the TV show THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
More information can be found on her website at: http://www.robinburcell.com/

 

Linda Huber: Location, Location, Location Sunday, Nov 1 2015 

great read and mystery to die for , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:40 am

Auntie M is on her second leg of a book tour for DEATH UNSCRIPTED, winging it from NC all the way to Maine and back, with a stop for New England Crimebake and class with Elizabeth George. More on that in the November 18th review of her newest. In her absence, please heartily welcome guest blogger multi-talented author Linda Huber:

Writing The Cold Cold Sea and The Attic Room – Location, Location, Location.

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Nowhere in Scotland is far from the sea, so until I came to lovely Switzerland, I’d always lived less than an hour’s drive from the ocean. The Atlantic, to be precise.

And it was the Atlantic I had in mind when I was writing my second book, The Cold Cold Sea. The setting’s Cornwall, where I spent happy summer holidays as a child. I’ve never forgotten those waves crashing up the beach, or the damp, musty smell of the caves along the coastline. Or how the colour of the ocean is always changing, from blue to grey to green, white-tipped waves providing a contrast nearer the shore. Writing that book was such a pleasure – who wouldn’t enjoy spending the day (in their head) in the picturesque south-west tip of the UK?cornwall-540443_1280

The Attic Room was different. TheAtticRoom
Although the book starts on the lovely Isle of Arran in Scotland, the main setting is Bedfordshire, in the middle of England, well away from fresh sea breezes.

Not only that, as the title suggests, a large part of the book centres round a spooky old house with an attic. And something bad happened up there, long ago when Nina, my main character, was just too young to remember. Nina’s search for the truth about the attic means she has to leave her island home and travel to an unfamiliar urban environment. And there’s no way of knowing if the people she meets mean well – or not.

In The Cold Cold Sea, the action is in the present. A young child disappears without trace –did she go into the sea and drown? Did she wander off and fall into a crevice? Or – the worst thought – did someone take her?

The drama in The Attic Room, however, is in the past. So to make the story live for my readers, part of the book is flashback chapters telling what happened to Nina’s mother, Claire, in the Bedfordshire house. Claire took that secret to her grave before the story starts, so the reader has knowledge that Nina doesn’t have. On the other hand, not everything Claire tells us is the truth…

In the end, the two books have a common theme – a mother trying to protect her child. There are four mothers in my books – Jennifer, Maggie, Claire and Nina. And the mother-daughter relationship is different for each of them – just like in real life.
LindaHuber

Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval Swiss castle. Not to mention several years spent as a full-time mum to two boys and a rescue dog.

Writing has always been her hobby, and over the years she’s had around fifty short stories and articles published in women’s magazines. Her debut novel The Paradise Trees was published in 2013, and was followed by The Cold Cold Sea in 2014 and The Attic Room in 2015.

Book ideas come from Linda’s daily life. The Paradise Trees was inspired by her father-in-law’s struggle with dementia, and The Cold Cold Sea began shortly after she learned that a child in her extended family drowned in the 1940s, aged eleven. The Attic Room begins in one of her most-loved places, the Isle of Arran on the west coast of Scotland.

At the moment she’s working on a further standalone psychological thriller, this one inspired by a chance conversation in the queue for the bar at a wedding.

Links:
Trailer for The Attic Room: https://youtu.be/l6Q0zpOhFLg
Trailer for The Cold Cold Sea: https://youtu.be/91GGeXcyGqA
website: http://lindahuber.net/
blog: http://lindahuber.net/blog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LindaHuber19
FB: https://www.facebook.com/authorlindahuber
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linda-Huber/e/B00CN7BB0Q/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Linda-Huber/e/B00CN7BB0Q/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1