Emily Littlejohn: Inherit the Bones Friday, Nov 18 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:42 am

inheritbones
Fans of Julia Keller will look forward to Emily Littlejohn’s debut Inherit the Bones, an accomplished first in series that introduces detective Gemma Monroe, a pregnant investigator with a dicey partner who’s away in Alaska as the action unfolds.

There’s been a lot lately in the news about clowns scaring people in different communities, so it’s with an eerie sense that Gemma is called to the murder scene at Fellini’s Traveling Circus to examine the body of a dead clown, played by a young man named Reed Tolliver.

Cedar Vally, Colorado springs to life under Gemma’s gaze and brings the reader in as the detective begins her investigation when Tolliver’s prints come back as belonging to Nicky Bellington, the son of the mayor, presumed dead years ago after a fall off a cliff when camping.

It becomes a politically-charged investigation after that, with Gemma saddled with a partner she doesn’t completely trust. Why would the son of the one of the most influential men in town pretend to be dead? And when he returned to his hometown, who had murdered him and why?

These questions won’t be the only ones facing Gemma, as she can’t seem to lose the thread of a double murder from years ago when two young cousins were murdered.

Littlejohn’s realistic prose, coupled with characters who resemble actual humans with valid actions and emotions, lead the reader to appreciate this
appealing debut. And I admire the author for doing what Auntie M has done in her Nora Tierney series: saddling her protagonist with an infant, which she will find, severely impedes her detecting skills. We should compare notes.

Here’s a recent interview with Littlejohn on her book:

 

Susan Van Kirk: The Endurance Mysteries Thursday, Nov 17 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:59 am

marryinhastefront

Please welcome Susan Van Kirk, to introduce her Endurance Mysteries, and don’t miss her giveaway mentioned at the end for her newest in the series, Marry in Haste:

The Endurance Mystery Series

If you are looking for a new mystery series, please check out my Endurance Mysteries. Five Star Publishing/Cengage has published the first two books in the series, and I published a novella as an e-book only on Amazon.

Let me clue you in on some “insider information.” Each of the novels has a title that come from Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. The last word in each of the novels is “Endurance.” Finally, my three children gave me a word to use in each of these books, hoping to stump me. Hasn’t happened yet. Even “helicopter” fits in.

Endurance is a small town with a history going back to the 1830s, when settlers came to downstate Illinois to found towns and colleges on the edge of the prairie. In our time, the town has a population of 15,000 and places with such names as Patsy’s Pub, the Coffee Bean, the Penny Saved Shoe Store, Shady Meadows Cemetery, and the Homestretch Funeral Home (my personal favorite.) It’s a nice town, you know what I mean … as long as you don’t mind a murder or two.

The main character is Grace Kimball, widow and mother of three adult children. She is 57 and has just retired from teaching at Endurance High School. This means she sees former students all the time, and the reader gets to hear the crazy antics she remembers about their high school years.

Grace has a circle of female friends, but her best friend is Detective TJ Sweeney. Some might say theirs is an improbable friendship, since Grace grew up in a white bread Indianapolis home, and TJ is an intelligent biracial woman who is the product of a broken home. Grace taught TJ and mentored her through high school and college. They are loyal to the end and have each other’s backs, which is a good thing. Grace gets herself into all kinds of trouble because of her curiosity.
threemaykeepasecretfront
Into this relationship comes a mystery man, the 62-year-old Jeff Maitlin, who was a big deal in the NYC journalism community. He has decided to end his career by working part-time with a small-town newspaper, the Endurance Register. Maitlin is a mystery man because no one knows why he came to such a small place or what his past has been.

In the first book, Three May Keep a Secret, we meet Grace and discover she is haunted by a tragedy in her past that she has never been able to put behind her. When shoddy journalist, Brenda Norris, is murdered in a suspicious fire, Grace is hired by the newspaper editor, Jeff Maitlin, to fill in for Brenda, researching the town’s history for a big centennial. Unfortunately, that past hides dark secrets.

When yet a second murder occurs, Grace’s friend, TJ Sweeney, homicide detective, races against time to find a killer. Even Grace’s life will be threatened by her worse nightmare. Against the backdrop of the town’s 175th founder’s celebration, Grace and Jeff find an undeniable attraction for each other. But can she trust this mystery man?
locket_final_cmykhighres

I was told by my publisher that it would be a loooong two-year break between the first and second books. So, I self-published a novella about my complicated police detective, TJ Sweeney, called The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney. It is an e-book and takes us back to the 1940s. A body is discovered when workers are digging the foundation for a new building. TJ Sweeney must identify the victim and figure out what happened to her.

Obviously, we had no DNA in the 1940s, so this will be difficult. We also learn about Sweeney’s past and her complicated feelings about her Caucasian father, who left when she was little. Her mother, a proud African American woman, tells TJ about what it was like to be in a mixed marriage in the 1940s. The victim was last seen at a big band venue called The Roof Garden, and TJ has an amazing conversation with an elderly woman who explains what it was like back then when she danced at The Roof Garden in the 30s. Dead ends, difficulties, and amazing finds … and then, for TJ Sweeney, this case becomes personal.

The second novel, Marry in Haste, is the story of two women, a century apart, living in the small town of Endurance, and both ignoring Ben Franklin’s “Marry in Haste, Repent at Leisure.” A huge Victorian house is the setting for much of this novel, and in the house Grace finds a hidden diary from 1893.

It reveals the bittersweet story of Olivia Havelock, who came to Endurance and married a powerful, but abusive, judge. In the present day, Grace’s former student, Emily Folger, is accused of murdering her philandering, abusive husband. Grace sets out to prove Emily’s innocence, working with TJ Sweeney. Can the lessons from the diary help her save Emily Folger? This second full-length novel just came out November 16.

The third book will be out next year, and it is called Death Takes No Bribes. Grace goes back to her old high school, where she taught for almost three decades, when the principal is murdered in a horrific way. It’s a sentimental journey for Grace, who retired a year ago, and now she walks among her old colleagues wondering if one of them could be capable of murder.

Each mystery has a universal theme, and at the heart of the series is the resilience of women and how they support each other. They celebrate family, loyalty, and, often, social issues. History and romance twine their way through each book. So, I hope you’ll consider trying my Endurance Mysteries. Right now, I have a giveaway going on GoodReads for Marry in Haste that lasts until midnight on November 21.

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Susan Van Kirk grew up in Galesburg, Illinois, and received degrees from Knox College and the University of Illinois. She taught high school English for thirty-four years, then spent an additional ten years teaching at Monmouth College.

Her first Endurance mystery novel, Three May Keep a Secret, was published in 2014 by Five Star Publishing/Cengage. In April, 2016, she published an Endurance e-book novella titled The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney. Her third Endurance novel, Death Takes No Bribes, will follow Marry in Haste.

Social Media:

Website and blog: http://www.susanvankirk.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SusanVanKirkAuthor/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/susan_vankirk

GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/586.Susan_VanKirk

 

Laura Salters: Perfect Prey Wednesday, Nov 16 2016 

Uncategorized , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:26 am

perfectprey
Perfect Prey is Laura Salters second crime novel, after her debut Run Away.

Carina Corbett and Erin Baxter, both interns for a magazine, find themselves in Belgrade for the wild JUMP festival of music and fashion, a magnet for celebrities. From similar struggling backgrounds, the two friends spend their days touring under the guidance of the organizer of the press trip, Tim Halsey and become inseparable.

One wild Danube river trip finds them stranded in a rain storm, and their group takes shelter at the home of Tim’s friends, Broko and the extremely handsome Andrijo. That night at the JUMP festival, music so loud they can barely hear themselves think and fueled up with alcohol, the unthinkable happens: Erin goes to use the restroom and doesn’t return.

It’s an anguishing 24 hours before Belgrade’s police is willing to list her as missing, a day in which Carina’s anxiety disorder reaches new heights as she imagines all the different awful things that could have happened to Erin. When she is finally forced to return to England after several rounds of interviews with the police, dredging up anything she can tell them of Erin’s last days in Croatia, she’s drained.

But Carina is tenacious. She can’t let thoughts of Erin go, and starts her own investigation. She also agrees to accompany Erin’s mother back to Croatia several weeks later–and that’s when the multiple pieces she’s collected start to fall together.

Erin will be forced to tamp down her anxiety and the waves of inaction it gives her if she’s to come out of this alive, when the interesting and twisted plot comes together at the end.

 

Larissa Reinhart: A Composition in Murder & 15 Minutes Tuesday, Nov 15 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:20 am

compmurder
Auntie M and Doc watch a show regularly on HGTV called “House Hunters International.” It’s a neat way to see how people live in other parts of the world, what their housing costs are, what the US family moving to another culture faces.

A recent show piqued Auntie M’s interest because it centered on a mystery writer finding housing for her American family in Japan. Auntie M contacted Larissa Reinhart,and here’s her story of being on a reality sho–and trying to write at the same time~

Real Life on a Reality Show by Larissa Reinhart

How real is real life on a reality show? That depends . . .

Actually, my family was lucky to be chosen for HGTV’s House Hunters International. If you don’t know, this is a cable tv show depicting a family or individual moving to or within a non-US location. There’s a brief introduction to the setting and the people moving, but the majority of the show depicts the subjects choosing one home among three.

In our case, our real life depiction was real, although some of it had to be recreated. We moved to Nagoya, Japan, with our two school-aged daughters and “little dog, Biscuit” last year when we were filmed (it took about a year for the show to be edited and shown). It’s the fourth time my husband and I have lived in Japan. Because of his work, my husband has to live in a teeny apartment two hours from Nagoya, where my daughters and I live, where they can attend international school. Biscuit enjoys a jet set life, alternating between his country apartment and city house.

He’s one spoiled dog.
15mins
And I am a writer as depicted on television (how much fun is that to say!). As proof, my sixth Cherry Tucker mystery, A Composition in Murder, releases on November 15th. My first Maizie Albright Star Detective novel, 15 Minutes, launches on January 24th, 2017. And in September my Cherry Tucker novella, “The Vigilante Vignette,” was published in a Halloween anthology, Midnight Mysteries.

On House Hunters International, they showed me typing away next to a pile of my books. If only real life was that glamorous. I normally write in an old t-shirt and jeans with my hair up in a clip. My computer barely recognized me for that scene. Plus, I could never focus well enough to write anything for real on camera.

There’s your re-creation.

Ironically, 15 Minutes is about a reality star, Maizie Albright—once a child actress who starred in a famous mystery series, “Julia Pinkerton, Teen Detective.” After her star tarnished, Maizie returns home to Georgia, hoping to become a real life detective.

I had the idea and began fleshing out the characters and plot before moving to Japan was even a glimmer of reality. I had basically finished the first draft when my husband contacted House Hunters International to see if we could be on the show. We were HHI fans and he thought it’d be fun.

I said, “Why not, it’s not like moving to Japan is a new experience for us. It’d be great research for this book series.” But in my mind, I thought we didn’t have a chance in hell of making it.

Imagine our surprise when we kept getting callbacks after each step in the extensive application and interview process. The reality of reality tv didn’t really hit us until we began communicating with the producer. And then the director, sound, and cameraman arrived in Nagoya. It was thrilling and nerve-wracking.

My writing life is always a balancing act with children and all the stuff-that-happens-when-you’re-on-deadline. I was actually writing A Composition in Murder at the time, but I took notes for Maizie Albright during our five day shoot. Now I’m writing her second book, 16 Millimeters, with that experience in mind.

I’ve always felt the best part of writing has been the people. Meeting readers and connecting with other writers has enriched my life. That’s also been the best part of my very small, 15 minutes of reality star fame.

I have new friends in our British producer and American director. They’re lovely, interesting, smart women, who I genuinely enjoyed getting to know. I love having met our talented Japanese sound guy and British cameraman and enjoyed learning about their interesting work. Now I follow them virtually (on Facebook) around Asia to see their work on commercials, documentaries, and more HHI shoots.

During our filming, they all had an amazing rapport with my children (and our dog), giving my girls a positive experience, something I worried about before the shoot. My daughters received first hand experience in directing, sound, and filming. Also the hard work and long hours that goes into a show.

And after our episode aired, lost friends who saw the show searched us out on the internet to reconnect. New friends and readers, really lovely people, reached out just to tell me they enjoyed us on the show. It humbles me to realize our fun, family experience has made people smile. This is why I write for publication, to entertain readers, particularly for those wanting to escape from life’s difficulties. I didn’t think about the crossover into a twenty-five minute tv show.

It’s been an amazing real life experience.

P.S. If you have the HGTV app, you can see the episode, “Living for the Weekend in Nagoya.” The show also re-airs occasionally, check here for the listing: http://www.hgtv.com/shows/house-hunters-international/episodes/living-for-the-weekend-in-nagoya-japan#episode-tunein

larissar
A 2015 Georgia Author of the Year Best Mystery finalist, Larissa writes the Cherry Tucker Mystery and Maizie Albright Star Detective series. Her family and Cairn Terrier, Biscuit, now live in Nagoya, Japan, but they still call Georgia home. Visit her website and join her newsletter for more book news at http://smarturl.it/larissanewsletter and feel free to friend her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Social Media Links:

http://larissareinhart.com/
Newsletter signup: http://smarturl.it/larissanewsletter
http://www.facebook.com/RisWrites
http://instagram.com/larissareinhart
https://twitter.com/LarissaReinhart

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5806614.Larissa_Reinhart
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysteryminions/

 

Dr. Barbara Ebel: Dead Still Sunday, Nov 13 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:47 am

Please welcome Dr. Barbara Ebel, who has taken Dr. Danny Tilson’s daughter and given her a series of her own!

dead-still
Annabel Tilson is a medical student finally liberated from the two-year confinement of lecture halls and gross anatomy. The first clinical rotation of her junior year is surgery where she has high hopes of mastering the basis of patient care like her famous neurosurgeon father. However, she soon realizes that studying for exams and taking care of patients is only part of the complex burden of her role as a surgical team member.

Grappling with a third-year resident who hates her and a dreamy infatuation for her chief resident, she also discovers an inordinate outbreak of patient mortality. Annabel then meets a resident from another specialty who has noticed the same statistics and, with his help, takes a crash course in pharmacology.

The clock is ticking as patients are dying within twenty-four hours of their procedures without apparent surgical complications. But for Annabel to dig further puts her at risk for failing the rotation and ending her future career as a physician.
*****
I hope you enjoy DEAD STILL! This is Book One in the medical adventures of Dr. Annabel Tilson and is also a standalone story.

Annabel’s novel is a spinoff from her father’s series, The Dr. Danny Tilson Novels, especially Book Four – Secondary Impact. Those books are:

Book One: Operation Neurosurgeon
Book Two: Silent Fear: a Medical Mystery (also an audiobook)
Book Three: Collateral Circulation: a Medical Mystery (also an audiobook)
Book Four: Secondary Impact
*****

Links:
Amazon – US: http://amzn.to/2ai7H1T
Amazon – UK: http://amzn.to/2a37GL3
B&N Nook: http://bit.ly/29Xeieg
Kobobooks: http://bit.ly/2a1dsi2

 

Tony Parsons: The Hanging Club Friday, Nov 11 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:49 am

hanging-club

Detective Max Wolfe, his adorable daughter, Scout, and their equally adorable dog, Stan, return in the third in the series, The Hanging Club. This series is a favorite of Auntie M’s for its strong narrative, and the way the author examines the police system and its interaction with society in England.

The title reflects a band of vigilante executioners who are abducting men they have judged evil. and hanging them, then sharing the excruciating videos of the hanging.

Max is troubled. His team’s investigation shows the murdered men all touched off strong feelings by their past actions. The law has dealt with them, but have they been dealt with fairly in the eyes of society?

There are legally correct outcomes and morally correct ones, and Max is sworn to follow the law. Where, he wonders, does the anguish caused to the victims’ family come in?

The media makes these killers seem like heroes, making Max’s job dicey as he tries to investigate. And because the victims cross all stratas of society, so will his probing, with often surprising results.

Max is a man of conscience, perhaps one of his most attractive traits, and these cases will test everything he thought he knew about his beliefs. Highly recommended.

 

Barry Maitland: Ash Island Wednesday, Nov 9 2016 

Uncategorized , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:16 am

ashisland

Barry Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series, set in England, has been one of Auntie M’s mainstays for years. Then last year he brought out a second series, featuring DS Harry Belltree and set in his current home of Australia. The second in the new series, Ash Island, finds Harry just back to work after his near death in Crucifixion Creek and is a strong sequel.

Harry’s posting away from Sydney and the horror of the past case suit him fine. He and his wife, Jenny, are expecting their first child together, and living in a cottage in Newcastle with Jenny’s new guide dog.

Harry’s case revolves around a body found in the marsh vegetation of Ash Island, showing obvious signs of torture. He’s convinced this is a dumping ground for bodies, and he’s proven right, but not without consequences.

Newcastle was the area of the accident that robbed him of his parents and Jenny of her sight. Harry knows it wasn’t an accident: his father was a well respected Aboriginal judge, and he’s always understood that his father’s position led to his death.

How these deaths are connected to the bodies buried in the marsh provide some of the strongest action scenes in the book, as Harry not only tries to find out what’s at the bottom of the accident, and those buried bodies, but whom he can trust.

The area comes alive under Maitland’s assured descriptions.
There will be a double surprise at the end, and the resolution Harry seeks will come at a steep price. An accomplished and fast-moving plot will keep readers flipping pages as the past reaches it fingers into the present.

 

Hakan Nesser: Hour of the Wolf Tuesday, Nov 8 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:05 am

hour-of-the-wolf
Fans of the Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery series might have wondered what author Hakan Nesser had up his sleeve when the Chief Inspector took retirement.

That question is answered in Hour of the Wolf, a mystery where the reader is quite aware Whodunit but the question becomes: can the police find him?

It’s a rainy night when a young man is hit by a car, killed instantly, and the drunk driver slowly deludes himself that there’s nothing to be gained by turning himself in to the police.

It’s a moral question that has far-reaching implications as the police investigate with few leads. The man thinks he has made his peace with his decision when the case drops off the police radar and the news. A few weeks later he even starts a new love affair.

Then he receives the first blackmail letter. He was seen.

The unraveling of the payment turns into a second, far more devastating murder that involves the former Chief Inspector. With his replacement, Reinhart, now running the case, Van Veeteren is forced to take a back seat but is unable to keep himself from investigating on his own, with good reason.

It is difficult to explain more of this many-leveled plot without giving it away. This is nordic noir at its best: with the complex portrait of the inner thoughts of the killer as his mind continues to deteriorate; with the numbed feelings of those affected by the killings and how they must work through their grief to feel again; with the threads of an investigation that appears to be going nowhere until suddenly the pieces fall together.

Fans of Karin Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series will want to track down this title for that same kind of introspective police procedural. It should be noted that this was first published in Swedish in 1999 and has taken this long to be translated for US readers. Don’t wait any longer to read this intelligent and brooding novel that will have you reaching for the others in the series.

 

Stefan Ahnhem: Victim Without A Face Sunday, Nov 6 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:18 am

victim

Swedish screenwriter Arnhem’d debut crime fiction, Victim Without a Face, is the ultimate revenge novel, filled with taut tension the escalates as the action rises.

Detective Fabian Risk and his wife are trying to jumpstart their crumbling marriage. Determined to begin over, he moves the family with their two children from Stockholm and the mess he leaves behind there to his home town area of Helsingborg. The very day they arrive at their new empty house, before the moving van even arrives, he receives a visit from his new boss, Astrid Tuvesson.

She’s interrupted his vacation to settle in because a photo has been found on a murder victim’s body, and Fabian is in it.

The high school photo of his class becomes a key piece of evidence when members of the class start showing up as murder victims. Making it even more difficult is that the method used to kill them differs in each person, a major clue in itself.

When a key piece of evidence is found in Denmark, the Danes obstruct the Swedes ability to examine it, starting a battle which will bring Fabian to Denmark with long-range fallout.

And just when he’s certain he’s figured out who the murderer is, things swiftly change and he’s forced to reconsider, bringing himself and his family into the crosshairs.

An accomplished and visual debut, with a protagonist readers will want to follow.

 

Linda Huber: Ward Zero Saturday, Nov 5 2016 

Uncategorized , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:49 am

All the way from Switzerland, please welcome Scottish author Linda Hubers, who will describe her inspiration for her newest psychological suspense novel, Ward Zero:

ward-zero-complete
The Grandchild Trick

A couple of years ago, I was home alone one Tuesday evening, watching a consumer programme on Swiss TV. It’s one of the kind that uncovers scams as well as testing various foodstuffs and shampoos etc, so it’s always interesting, and this particular week I found myself glued to the sofa.

The programme showed an old lady who’d been tricked out of her savings. How had this happened? Well, she’d answered the phone one day, and found a man on the line, saying he was an old friend of her husband. He chatted on in a way that convinced the lady he really had known her family – she was a widow now, and lonely, like many older people, so she was happy to talk to a friendly voice on the phone for a while.

For a few minutes, conversation was general, but then came the sob story. He had run out of money and wouldn’t get his wages until the following week, and he had to pay something urgently. Could she help?

Of course she could. She went to the bank, withdrew most of her meagre savings, and handed them over. By the time her family became aware of what had happened, the money was long gone.

Tragic as this was, it wasn’t a single occurrence. More and more people started to come forward, saying their elderly relative had been swindled in a similar way, and soon the scam was dubbed ‘der Enkeltrick’ in Switzerland – the Grandchild Trick. (Nowadays, of course, banks are watching out for it, and if an older person suddenly withdraws half their savings in cash, the bank will jump in and ask questions.)

My mind was buzzing when the programme finished that night. What kind of person would perpetrate such a cruel trick? And how on earth did the conmen manage to convince the old people they were talking to long-lost family contacts? Where did these criminals find their victims? And what if…?

When you get to ‘what if…?’, you have the beginnings of a story. I sat down at my computer and started to write Ward Zero.

I set the book in a hospital, because where else are people so vulnerable, and willing to trust strangers? And having worked in various National Health hospitals in the UK, I knew my way around. I knew the services provided and the workings of a ward, though I have to say I had to read up on modern post-operative routines – knee replacement surgery has changed in the past couple of decades!

In my book, Sarah arrives back in England after working abroad for a couple of years, and finds her foster mum, Mim, hospitalised after knee surgery. Over the course of the next few visits, Sarah becomes embroiled in a cruel scam. Someone at Brockburn General isn’t what he says he is, and before long, Sarah is fighting for her life…

ward-zero-visual

Ward Zero:
Horror swept through her. Had she been buried alive?
On Sarah’s first visit to see her foster mother, Mim, in Brockburn General Hospital, she is sucked into a world that isn’t what it should be.

Someone is lying, someone is stealing. And someone is killing – but who? With a grieving child to take care of, as well as Mim, Sarah has to put family first. She doesn’t see where danger lies – until it’s too late.

If you think you’re safe in a hospital, think again.

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 castle. Not to mention several years spent as a full-time mum to two boys and a rescue dog.

Linda’s books are psychological suspense novels, and the ideas for them come from daily life. The Paradise Trees and The Cold Cold Sea were traditionally published in 2013/2014 before she self-published The Attic Room in 2015 and Chosen Child in early 2016.
Ward Zero, her fifth book, was inspired by a consumer programme on Swiss TV.

Universal Amazon link for Ward Zero: getBook.at/WardZero
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorlindahuber
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LindaHuber19
website: http://lindahuber.net/
blog: http://lindahuber.net/blog/

 

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