Charlotte Williams: The House on the Cliff Sunday, Jan 12 2014 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:21 am

charlotte-williams-the-house-on-the-cliff.jpg?w=450Welcome to Cardiff, Wales, home to psychotherapist Jessica Mayhew and her family.

Jessica has it all: lovely home, two great kids, a successful practice, and a loving marriage. Or so she thinks.

She’s sharp and notices small details with her clients, yet somehow misses that things are wrong in her marriage when her frequent-flyer husband, Bob, admits to a one-night stand while away on business.

Think: frosty at home, and you’d be right. She struggles with picturing Bob and his lover while trying to co-parent young Rose and 16 yr-old Nella. Is her marriage over?

But the thaw for Jessica comes in the form of an interesting new client, actor Gwydion Morgan, who arrives asking for her help with a phobia that may affect his career. The son of Evan Morgan, a womanizing, overbearing man with a string of infidelities to his name, Jessica admires Gwydion’s insistence not to trade on his father’s name and to make his own way.

It seems buttons are a huge problem for the incredibly handsome young man, and Jessica feels drawn to him, especially after Bob’s confession and her inability to forgive him.

Jessica soon susses out that the young man’s button phobia masks a deeper issue, and Gwydion admits to a frightening and recurrent dream involving being locked in a box and hearing a man and woman fighting. He wakes before the end of the scene, and soon Jessica is pushing him to remember more. She’s convinced the end of the dream is the way to his recovery.

When Gwydion’s mother calls and says her son has sunk into a deep depression and she thinks he’s suicidal, Jessica breaks one of her own rules and makes a house call. The foreboding Craigfa House reminds the reader of something out of Rebecca, a cliffside Jacobean melange on West Wales. Arianrhod Morgan is grateful Jessica has come to the house. Beautiful but unhappy, the woman has withstood her husband’s ferocious philandering for years. It’s obvious she is concerned about her son.

A drowning off their cliff years before is glossed over until Jessica learns that the young woman, Elsa Lindberg, was actually Gwydion’s nanny. Jessica begins to delve into the case, never imagining the repercussions she will dreg up. Her snooping into the young woman’s death will coincide with Gwydion remembering more and more of his dream until he reaches the devastating end.

How that will impact Jessica and her family run alongside her own distrust of her husband and her growing attraction to the young actor. Who is telling the truth? And who can she really trust?

With her instincts clouded, Jessica tries to find the answers, only to see that the truth may be harder to take than she ever imagined.

A powerful debut thriller, with an interesting family behind it and a keen sense of the psychology that Jessica practices. Williams has a long history or writing for the arts in journalism and making documentaries for the BBC. More recently she’s worked in radio drama on original plays and adaptations. Readers will hope she brings back Jessica for round two down the road.

 

 

Tracy Weber: Murder Strikes a Pose Sunday, Jan 5 2014 

new series , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:54 am

Please welcome guest Tracy Weber, yoga teacher and author of of the debut mystery Murder Strikes A Pose.

Leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Tracy’s book.

                                                                                              How in the World did I Get Here?

I never intended to be a writer. But then again, I never intended to be a yoga teacher. If you’d asked me in my early thirties, I’d have told you that yoga was for woo woo Gumby wannabes, and writing was for people who had more talent in their left pinky toe than I possessed in my entire five-foot-two-inch body. a_003

I blame a fender-bender for my yoga career. In the early 1990s I was in a car accident that left me in severe chronic pain for over seven years. That pain was eventually mitigated—if not completely cured—by consistent yoga practice. My life was so transformed by yoga that I quit my corporate job and opened Whole Life Yoga http://www.wholelifeyoga.com/ in order to share the ancient practice with others.

My writing career has more complex origins. For that, I blame a grueling workout, my temperamental German shepherd Tasha, and Susan Conant. http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-author=Susan%20Conant&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ASusan%20Conant

The ingredients were already inside me, I just didn’t know it. I love dogs. So much so that my husband has nicknamed me the “creepy puppy lady.” I adore my own dog to a fault, even though she’s no Rin Tin Tin. I’ve read cozies since long before I knew there was a genre by that name. And my lifework is yoga. My mystery series was like a stew that had been slow cooking inside of me for years.

The one day, while trying to distract myself from a grueling workout, a passage in Susan Conant’s Black Ribbon made me burst into laughter. I knew I’d found my author soul mate. I jumped off the exercise bike, ran home, got online, and proceeded to buy every book she had ever written. While I was at it, I stumbled across a site about cozy mysteries. http://cozy-mystery.com/

That’s all it took.

I began to wonder, what would happen if a yoga teacher with a crazy dog like mine got mixed up in murder? And if she did, could I write about it? The whole idea seemed crazy. After all, I hadn’t written fiction since I was eighteen—which was way too long ago for me to admit—and I had no writing training. I laughed the whole idea off until a feisty yoga teacher named Kate Davidson popped into my head a few days later.

0_002She insisted that I tell the story of how she found the love of her life—a German shepherd named Bella—while solving the murder of her homeless friend, George. She promised me that her story was both entertaining and important. Kate is one stubborn woman. She refused to leave, no matter how much I begged her to.

Two years later, I gave in and write wrote down her story. The first draft poured out of my fingers in three weeks, though I spent over a year perfecting it. Before I even typed “the end,” Kate had gone and found another body. I’ve not yet finished the second book, but Kate tells me that she’s already involved in a third murder. I have a feeling that she, Bella, and their quirky counterparts will be with me, solving crimes, for many years. At least I hope so.

I hope you will be entertained by their escapades and grow to love them as much as I do.

Please join us, and let me know what you think!

Check out MURDER STRIKES A POSE, the first in the Downward Dog Yoga Mysteries. Available at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Strikes-Pose-Downward-Mystery/dp/0738739685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385096350&sr=8-1&keywords=murder+strikes+a+pose and bookstores everywhere!

Tracy Weber is a certified yoga teacher and the founder of Whole Life Yoga, an award-winning yoga studio in Seattle, where she current­ly lives with her husband, Marc, and German shepherd, Tasha. She loves sharing her passion for yoga and animals in any form possible. When she’s not writing, she spends her time teaching yoga, walking Tasha, and sip­ping Blackthorn cider at her favorite ale house. Murder Strikes a Pose is her debut novel. Connect with Tracy at her author page http://tracyweberauthor.com/ or on Facebook http://www.bing.com/search?q=facebook&src=IE-TopResult&FORM=IE10TR

About MURDER STRIKES A POSE

Seattle Yoga instructor Kate Davidson tries to live up to yoga’s Zen-like expectations, but it’s not easy while struggling to keep her small business afloat or dodging her best friend’s matchmaking efforts. When George, a homeless alcoholic, and his loud, horse-sized German shepherd, Bella, start hawking newspapers outside her studio, Kate attempts to convince them to leave. Instead, the three strike up an unlikely friendship. Then Kate finds George’s body. The police dismiss it as a drug-related street crime, but Kate knows he was no drug dealer. Now she must solve George’s murder and find someone willing to adopt his intimidating companion before Bella is sent to the big dog park in the sky. With the murderer on her trail, Kate has to work fast or her next Corpse Pose may be for real.

 

Holiday Goodies #2 Wednesday, Dec 18 2013 

great read and mystery to die for , , , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 9:00 pm

Auntie M gave you a great listing last time of good books for gifts for readers. Now she’s going to give you a huge compendium of wonderful reads in different categories for those last minute gifts. And then take off between Christmas and New Year’s 🙂 To all a good night and a wonderful holiday season. Here are some great ideas for gifting and don’t forget to gift yourself in the process!

For fans of the Tried and True Series:

crossVal McDermid is one of Auntie M’s favorite authors. Every stand alone, each series, all of the books shine with the craft of a wordsmith who understands people and manages to add complex plots that keep your interest and your mind reeling.

Cross and Burn is the latest in the Tony Hill-Carol Jordan series and you will be shocked and surprised at how she handles the complicated rift in their relationship.

The effects of the last case (The Retribution) has left the two estranged and both blame Tony for the havoc a sick killer brought into Carol’s life. She’s been on extended leave, with no one seeing her for the past three months.

He’s been cut from his service to the police and is working full time at a nearby psych hospital and living on a long boat.

What neither expects is a killer with a penchant for murdering women, and how that case will bring a connection neither Hill or Jordan can ignore. As Paula McIntyre works to adapt to her new position and investigates what soon becomes a series of murders, one thing soon become clear: all the women bear a disturbing resemblance to Carol Jordan.

And then the unthinkable happens when the evidence points to Tony Hill and he finds himself behind bars.

This one will keep you turning pages as all of McDermid’s do and you won’t want it to end but will race to find the conclusion anyway. Somehow McDermid always manages to keep her stories fresh and her ideas intriguing. Highly recommended.

Julia Spencer-Fleming kept fans waiting for the next in her series featuring the Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and her police chief, Russ Van Alstyne. evil-days-new-lg

Through the Evil Days finds the newly married couple finally stealing away for a honeymoon. With Clare’s pregnancy evidently preceding their marriage, she faces trouble with her diocese for conduct unbecoming a priest.

Although there is an arson case on board, Russ leaves the case to his deputies to take Clare for a week of ice fishing in a lakeside cabin in the Adirondack’s he’s hoping she will agree they should buy.

Running between the couple is the difficulty Russ is having with the idea of Clare’s pregnancy, unplanned and unanticipated after agreeing they would not have children; but now a fact she is willing to accept and which threatens to drive a wedge between the couple.

Trouble comes early in the form of a suspected kidnapping in their vacation neighborhood whose tendrils reach into the arson case.

A snowstorm blankets the area and makes travel impossible, with frigid weather an added element to fight besides the meth heads whose hideout they stumble across.

With officers Hadley Knox and Kevin Flynn struggling to work out the case in the midst of their own relationship issues, there’s plenty of trouble to go around.

Soon the trouble comes too close to their cabin and Russ and Clare will be fighting for not only their own lives, but for that of their unborn child.

The-Ravens-EyeBarry Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series returns with his twelfth entry, The Raven’s Eye.

While Brock as DCI must wrestle with budget cuts and a new Commander at work, DI Kathy Kolla’s instincts kick in when she’s called to investigate what appears to be an accidental death on a narrow boat.

Vicky Hawks lived on the houseboat and is found by one of her neighbors, the apparent victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. The poor ventilation system on the boat supports that and nothing at the crime scene seems out of sort.

Kathy’s patience will be tested as she teases out information about the dead woman from those around her.

There will be doctors and scientists and a case of wrong identity as Kathy follows a trail that keeps doubling back on her. Who was Vicky Hawks and why would anyone have wanted her dead?

This one is well-plotted with dead ends that keep frustrating Kathy as much as the budget cutbacks that ruin Brock’s day. And when it appears Vicky’s death may be related to a previous murder, they know they are facing a shrewd killer who will stop at nothing to keep the status quo.

What adds a deep layer to this one is the world if surveillance and how it can be used to help and to hinder. A fine and shrewd mystery.

Other series winners: M. R. Hall’s Coroner Jenny Cooper returns in The Chosen Dead. Finished with therapy for the debilitating panic attacks she’s had for years, Jenny is trying to salvage her relationship with her son, Ross, and her lover, Michael. Somehow the death of an Arizona research scientist and his Russian counterpart seeking asylum become part of Jenny’s case when a young man leaves his toddler son and leaps to his death off a traffic bridge onto the highway. The dead man’s wife insists her husband would never commit suicide–and Jenny finds herself agreeing.

Inger Ash Wolfe’s A Door in the River brings back the unusual detective Hazel Micallef in the Canadian town of Port Dundas. Struggling with a new commanding officer as the policing is being rearranged, disturbed by her mother Emily’s apparent depression, the death of friend Henry Wiest of a heart attack after a bee sting hits her hard. But what was Henry doing near Queesik Bay outside a smoke shop, because Henry didn’t smoke? What follows is a disturbing tale of human trafficking and a traitor in a most unlikely place.

Alison Bruce brings DC Gary Goodhew and Cambridge to life in The Silence, when a series of  suicides appear to Gary to be much more than they seem on the surface. To make matters worse, one of the deaths is related to an earlier case of his, a gruesome death he’s never forgotten. And then there’s the subject of is inheritance and how he is or is not handling that.

Aline Templeton’s DI Marjory Fleming is a great character, a Scottish detective inspector married to a sheep farmer. She’s back in rare form in Evil for Evil, when murder strikes the little village of Innellan, perched on the Fleet Ba towards a series of small islands. Old scores to settle, soldiers with past secrets and even dead babies all come into play in this satisfying addition to the series.

And don’t forget Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) in her book-within-a-book, The Child’s Child, a complex story of siblings, friendship and cultural history from the master of psychological suspense.

For something New and Different:

Carla Norton takes her experience working on a real 1977 kidnapping case, where the victim was held for seven years, and uses it to bring a most unusual 1728neggers6850new protagonist to the page with a high degree of authenticity in The Edge of Normal.

Twenty-two year-old Reeve LeClaire is making a life for herself in San Francisco, working part-time, and seeing psychiatrist Ezra Lerner. Dr. Lerner is an expert on captivity syndromes and has slowly gained Reeve’s trust after her own harrowing experience, which is parsed out in an intriguing manner.

Working as a waitress, she is living in her own apartment and trying to feel normal while repairing her relationship with her family.

Then kidnapped teenager Tilly Cavanaugh is rescued after being locked in a basement for over a year. Tilly asks to speak with Reeve about her own experience and survival, and Lerner feels it may help Reeve to be of help to another teen and asks her consider it.

With the confessed kidnapper in custody, there should be little threat to Reeve. But Tilly is hiding a secret, one she will only share with Reeve. And soon it appears there are at least two other teens who have gone missing in similar circumstances in the past two years. Could either of them still be alive?

Soon Reeve is doing a bit of investigating on her own, assisted by the liaison assigned to Tilly, Deputy Nick Hudson, who works with both the district attorney’s office and the county sheriff’s department.

What they can’t know is that someone with the perfect cover is monitoring her every move, and Reeve is in more danger than she could ever anticipate.

This is a chilling thriller which becomes quickly engrossing as much as it gives insight into kidnap victims. The best aspect is Reeve’s refusal to see herself as a victim, and one can only hope she will reappear in a sequel.

TheRedQueenDies_CoverIn the not-too-distant future of 2019, The Red Queen Dies is the newest novel by author and criminal justice professor Frankie Y. Bailey.

In an all-too believable scenario. she takes a hard look at criminal law and what police work will become, set during a time when there is a drug available that will allow victims of brutal crimes to erase the memory of their attacks. “Lullaby” also takes away evidence as witnesses lose these important points of recall.

This happens to Detective Hannah McCabe, working in Albany, and hits home when a witness is given by the drug. With a killer on the loose, she needs all the witnesses she can find.

Then the killer’s third victim becomes actress Vivian Jessup, nicknamed the Red Queen for her hair color and for her dedication to Alice in Wonderland. Her extensive collection of Lewis Carroll and Wonderland memorabilia is legendary.

Is The Red Queen’s death connected to the first two? Or is there a savvy killer out there trying to tag his murder onto the other two.

Written with a wry sense of humor from Hannah, Bailey succeeds in showing the heat of an Albany September just out of reach of today.

Readers who appreciate a highly original approach will appreciate this fast-paced mystery featuring a biracial detective from a literary family who decides crime is her game.

For Historical Fans:

Award-winner Catriona McPerson brings back aristocratic-turned-detective Dandy Gilver with Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses. 9Dandy781250030009.340x340-75

For fans of , this series set in 1920’s Scotland continues to charm with the cases of Gilver and Osborne.

This time Dandy responds to the frantic call from an old friend, one of three sisters she has fond memories of, and soon finds herself traveling to a girls school where one of the sisters, Fleur, has been teaching.  It seems teachers are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Soon Dandy finds herself at St. Columba’s in the seaside town of Portpatrick, where Fleur is less than pleased to see her old friend.

It seems Fleur is convinced she’s responsible for four or even five  deaths and it’s up to Dandy and Osborne to get to the bottom of such nonsense.

There are murders and kidnappings and enough secrets to keep the coziest person happy.

This pleasing series has been optioned for television by the BBC, where it will no doubt find a popular home.

dunnCarola Dunn follows  A Colourful Death in her Cornish mystery series with the third installment The Valley of the Shadow.

It’s sometime in the 1960’s or 70’s, before the advent of computer or mobile phones, and Port Mabyn may be a fictional village but the rest of Cornwall as Dunn describes it is real and lovely.

Series regular Eleanor Trewynn has retired in her widowhood after being a world traveler to be near her niece Megan Pencarrow, a detective sergeant with the local police.

But Eleanor is by no means a shy or retiring widow and in the past has helped do more than her fair share of investigating, aided by her dog, Teazle. In this volume, out along the seaside cliffs for a walk with Teazle and her neighbor, artist Nick Gresham, they spot a half-drowned Indian man afloat in the water.

With no identification, saved from the brink of death, the young man is taken to the hospital while Eleanor and Megan try to find out who he is and how he came to in the water in their remote area of Cornwall.

There will be talk of Immigration, of smugglers and caves, of family needing to be rescued, and Eleanor and Megan will be in the thick of it.

The duo Charles Todd became known for the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries, but they’ve had equal success with the Bess Crawford mysteries and return with 978Todd0062237170_p0_v2_s260x420A Question of Honor. English nurse Bess manages to find herself in the middle of a criminal investigation in the series which vividly describes the horrors of war.

The time is near the end of WWI and Bess is brought back to memories her childhood in India, where her colonel father was stationed. Despite her happy memories, the dark cloud of that time was the murder of five people by an officer from her father’s regiment who was never brought to trial.

It has remained an issue for Bess and her family because her father had trained this man.

Now tending to the wounded in France, Bess learned from a dying Indian sergeant that this murderer, Lieutenant Wade is alive and indeed, serving at the front.

She’s shocked and determined to find out how he had escaped–and what had driven him in the first place to commit murder when her beloved father had placed such faith in the man.

The bulk of the book concerns Bess taking leave to investigate Wade, and she’s surprised by what she learns from different witnesses.

It will take all of her wiles and intelligence to piece together the reality of the murders from years ago, and she will end up enlisting her mother and father in a fascinating twisted ending that will involve Rudyard Kipling.

97803tremayne12658625Going back to Ireland AD 670, Peter Tremayne has a huge following with his series featuring Fidelmma of Cashel.

This time Fidelma’s brother enlists her aid investigating the murder of a nobleman in The Seventh Trumpet.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the protagonist is not only the sister of a king, but a dailaigh, an advocate of the Brehon Law Courts.

With the help of her companion Eadulf, they try to find out if the murder could be tied to a violent wave running through the western lands.

In those parts a fanatical figure claims to have been summoned by the seventh angel with the express desire to remove those impure of faith.

Despite the number of bodies that begin to pile up, it remains to be seen how they are connected, and why in the midst of this turmoil, an abbot would turn his monastery into a fortress.

When Fidelma becomes abducated, it will be up to Eadult to rescue her while finishing their work and solving the mystery surrounding the deaths.

Tremayne does a fine job of describing a time period so remote to today’s reader, with authenticity and ties to the history of the time.

For Cozy Fans:

Mary Daheim’s newest Bed and Breakfast mystery, Gone with the Win, turns a different spin when Judith McMonigle Flynn actually gets her husband Joe to help in her investigation.This is the 28th in the long-running series and this time when Judith books a reservation for a Mary Smith from New York City, mayhem is sure to follow. And it does, in the form of a cold case “Mary” is determined Judith can help her solve.

The first in a new series, Rosemary and Crime debuts Gail Oust’s charming southern cozy, featuring amateur sleuth Piper Prescott, who owns a spice shop in Georgia’s small town of Brandywine Creek. Divorced and determined to bloom where she’s planted herself, Piper is a Yankee who’s pursuing her dream of owning her own business. But the grand opening takes a dramatic turn when the chef doing a cooking demo is stabbed and Piper finds herself the chief suspect. Filled with humor and a lot of sass, readers will get a kick out of Piper and her outspoken friend Reba Mae Johnson.

For Young Adult Readers:

John Grisham’s Theodore Boone: The Activist stars a 13 year-old whose history includes kidnapping and murder.   This is the fourth in the series starring the young

lawyer whose books can be read by the entire family.

Theo is a loyal friend to Hardie Quinn and gets justifiably upset when he learns the Quinn family home is about to be bulldozed for a bypass. This will affect other homes and businesses and even a school that lie in the path of the proposed bypass.

It’s tough for Theo to explain to Hardie that the law is not on his friend’s side and there’s not much that can be done.

Despite this, Theo joins in the campaign organized to stop the bypass and that’s when things gets really interesting. Theo finds corruption, but he’s learned it in an illegal way. How can he keep the developers from going ahead with his plan while exposing the corruption without breaking the law himself.

Any in this series provide thoughtful, engaging stories for young readers in the tween category.

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Great Holiday Gifts for Readers #1 Sunday, Dec 8 2013 

Award winning novelist and great read and mystery to die for , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:54 am

For the next few posts, Auntie M is going to give reader gift suggestions for that reader on your list–and don’t forget it’s perfectly permissible to gift yourself!Poirotp0_v3_s260x420

Outsold by only Shakespeare and the Bible, Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time. Auntie M had the good fortune to visit her Devon home this this summer when in England. Greenway, on the River Dart, is just a few short miles from where Christie grew up and the home has been preserved as it was when she and her family were in residence, down to some of her clothes in her bedroom closet and her favorite lily of the valley in evidence on china jewelry boxes left on her nightstand. When entering her bedroom, a docent obligingly plays a brief taped interview of Christie talking about her writing process, and as her voice fills the room, her presence is felt everywhere. One expects hear the sound of her typewriter at any moment. The house was used as the setting for Christie’s Piorot novel, Dead Man’s Folly, and two others. The David Suchet/ITV televised version of the novel was filmed there. The home is only a brief ride from the seaside town of Torquay, where Christie frequently had tea with friends at The Grand Hotel across from the Torbay seafront. Don’t miss the chance to tour the house and lovely restored grounds that lead down to the river if you find yourself anywhere near this section of southwest England. But Auntie M digresses.

Golden Age writer Dorothy Sayers felt Hercule Poirot was “one of the few detectives with real charm” and there’s no mistaking readers’ fondness for the dapper Belgian, portrayed on television by actor David Suchet, causing Christie’s grandson, Matthew Pritchard, to regret she hadn’t lived to see his fine portrayal.

Now William Morrow has brought out a volume of over fifty of Christie’s short stories and novellas featuring Poirot, gathering them into one volume that would be the perfect gift for any mystery afficionado. Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories has an introduction by Charles Todd. You cannnot go wrong with this one for any reader who enjoys mysteries, full stop. If Auntie M didn’t already own a copy, it would be the first thing on her list.

Morrow is also publishing Christie’s novels for e-book readers for the first time, so look for those, too.

 

Dennis Lehane teamed up with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, to bring out a line of books he’s chosen. The second was Ivy Pochoda’s Visitation Street. pochoda-visitation_street

Vastly different from the usual crime novel, this is an exploration of the sociology of an urban area and surrounds the disappearance of a young woman in the rough neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Red Hook waterfront.

The setting is visually described, a reflection of Pochoda living across the street from a bar in the area and writing about the inhabitants she saw outside her window.

There are blocks to walk on and blocks to avoid; there are areas of gentrification and others of great demise, in a seemingly endless evolution that causes conflict between races and classes that she vividly and realistically describes.

June and Val are the two friends at the center of the story. The two fifteen year-olds are looking for adventure as summer is ending. June wants to find a party, but Val convinces her instead to forget boys and drinking and take a small raft out into the river.

When only Val returns, found semi-conscious in weeds along the shore, the story turns to exploring what really happened to June that night, and affects the community that suddenly becomes the focus of an investigation and will reveal the its secrets on more than one level.

The community’s response to June’s disappearance will be as varied as the complex but utterly believable characters Pochoda has created. Her lyrical prose led Lehane to comment: “Visitation Street is urban Opera writ large. Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda’s voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it’s indelibly her own.”

 

Sue Grafton’s iconic Kinsey Millhone has given readers over thirty years of quirky delight with her singular reporting voice. W is for Wasted is the newest entry in the grafton wasted_p0_v2_s260x420series and fans won’t be disappointed.

The opening lines hook the reader immediately: “Two dead men changed the entire course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I’d never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue.”

Kinsey doesn’t recognize the man she’s been called to the morgue to identify, but her name and phone number were found in his pocket.  He was a homeless man, known to sleep rough at times, and his body has been found on the beach.

Kinsey sets out to find out the man’s identity, not knowing how his death will merge with that of a murder six weeks earlier. A local private investigator Kinsey knows had been shot to death near the Santa Teresa beach in what looks at first like a robbery attempt that got out of control.

Things change dramatically when Kinsey identifies the homeless man and finds he’s linked to her in more ways than she could possibly image.

Grafton has kept Kinsey in first person throughout the series but recently added the points of view of several other characters in the later books. In this case, we see the dead PI, Pete Wolinsky, in third person and come to understand his last case and how it intersects with Kinsey’s own investigation.

All the usual people who are part of Kinsey’s circle are on hand, too, with some surprising additions. This is vintage and yet modern Grafton at her best.

 

Continuing with beloved series, we jump across the pond to England and Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford, which will soon mark its fiftieth anniversary.17Rendell571848

Learning to adjust to retirement has been difficult for Reg Wexford in No Man’s Nightingale. He’s decided as a project to work his way through The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Therefore it comes as a great relief when his old deputy, Mike Burden, asks him to tag along on some of the interviews after a female vicar is found strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarge. They are each having difficulty getting used to their new roles but their friendship remains solid and honest, a hallmark of the series. That Burden has recently become a grandparent, in contrast to the five Dora and Reg Wexford have by their two daughters, shows Rendell has not hesitated to age her cast as time has gone by.

Vicar Sarah Hussain had many detractors: those who don’t believe women should be ordained; those who don’t agree with her outspoken views on church reform; those who object to her mixed race heritage. Born of a white Irish mother and an Indian father, Sarah is a single mother to a teenaged girl.

Adding to the complications that involve Wexford is that the same woman who cleans for him and his wife, Dora, cleaned at the vicarage and found the body. Maxine annoys Wexford to no end when she cleans, yet now she’s become a part of this murder investigation.

When Wexford finds a letter at Sarah’s house she was using as a bookmark, he sticks it in his pocket to look at later, but it’s several days before he remembers it and then has to confess his transgression to Burden. But it provides a clue to the dead woman’s past; a past that may have impacted on her death.

Rendell does her usual fine job of complex plotting and revealing character, while maintaining the banter between Wexford and Burden.

 

Ten-Lords-a-Leaping-265Ten Lords A-Leaping is the third installment in C. C. Benison’s series featuring mystery-solving and thoughtful protagonist, Father Tom Christmas.

This is the perfect book for Golden Age fans who aren’t looking for action-packed thriller but rather the kind of classic Christie cozy wrote, but in a contemporary setting.

There are red herrings, a host of suspects drawn from amongst the rivalries of an aristocratic family, and even a touch of magic.

Fr. Tom has been talked into skydiving for a fundraiser for his Thornfield Regis church’s new roof  , a prospect that leaves him wondering what he’s gotten himself into. Back on the terra firma after a rocky landing that sprains his ankle, he’s shocked to see two of the remaining skydivers appear to tangle in a mid-air fight before finally landing safely. The two brothers-in-law are Oliver, the 7th Marquess of Morboner, and Hector, the 10th Earl of Fairhaven.

That sprained ankle finds the widower vicar, his daughter Miranda, as well as their housekeeper Madrun, all guests for far longer than expected at the home of Lord and Lady Fairhaven, Eggescombe Hall. The vast castle with enormous grounds boasts a pool, tennis courts, ornate gardens, and a gatehouse for the staff.

When Fr. Tom finds one of the two men dead in the labyrinth on the castle’s grounds, the murder sets off a thinking man’s puzzle for Fr. Tom to solve.

Bennison thoughtfully provides a cast of characters and a family tree so readers can understand the quite complicated relationships between the many people staying on at the Hall. Bigamy, sex after hours, art forgery, and lies will all find their way into the mix during the days it takes Fr. Tom to unravel the murderer, and not before a second death.  Readers who enjoy British whodunits will have a ball.

 

1766Helensmith9963Helen Smith is the author of Invitation to Die, originally published in episodes as a Kindle serial. The award-winning author of novels, plays, and children’s books, I had the pleasure of meeting Helen at Bouchercon this year and found her as funny and original as her heroine in this new series.

At 26, Londoner Emily Castles finds herself once again looking for employment.

So when famous romance author Morgana Blakely, aunt of Emily’s neighbors, asks her to help out at a weekend romance writers’ conference she’s organized, she can hardly say no. How difficult can it be to organize gift bags and help out with a dinner?

When Emily shows up at the hotel, she’s immediately pressed into service and meets an odd assortment of attendees, some nursing old grievance, some holding hidden secrets, all determined to out do each other for the fans who will be present. There’s even an American blogger whose been invited to be a guest, but for some reason, Winnie Kraster hasn’t shown up.

Emily dutifully takes a call for Morgana and it’s from the missing Winnie, saying she’s been delayed. But hours later, a woman’s body is found on the estate bordering the hotel and it’s poor missing Winnie.

Detective Rory James is assigned to investigate the case, and it happens Emily met him when he was a constable. When Emily confides that she suspects someone involved with the conference is the murderer, Rory disagrees, hardly a happy event at a romance festival. Emily takes notes of things that occur to her or that she overhears, but it’s not until she has the help of philosophy professor Dr. Muriel that the pieces come together for her.

This is brain candy, as sweet as the violet cremes a chocolatier with a secret delivers to be put in each guest’s gift bag. Smith gives vivid scene-setting and over-the-top characters as suspects.  The humor is tongue-in-cheek about blogging, book reviewers, and writers. Emily Castles was introduced in a previous short story but will appear soon in her next adventure.

 

David Rosenfelt writes thrillers, too, but any of his Andy Carpenter novels  would make a great addition to anyone’s shelves. With his humorous bent alternating  with suspense, the series4000000leader00000000733689_s4

continues with Leader of the Pack  now in paperback. Andy is a lawyer and dog lover, and his own dog, Tara, accompanies him and is often a better judge of character than Andy. On the side, Andy runs a dog rescue, which mirrors Rosenfelt’s real life. More on that later.

One of Andy’s less successful cases led years ago to a murder conviction for his client, Joey DeSimone, but Andy has always believed the man innocent of the murders of Karen and Richard Solarno.

As a favor to Joey, Andy agrees to check on the man’s elderly and forgetful uncle, taking Tara along for the visits. Nicky Fats falls for Tara but once he starts muttering about taking out someone else, Andy’s interest clicks. Could Nicky know, in the confines of his confusion, who really murdered the Salerno’s? And how can Andy find out and get Joey a new trial?

With the help of his friends, Andy launches an investigation into the business dealings of Solarno’s company and soon finds himself almost dying. Coupled with other information he unearths, he’s able to convince a judge to give Joey a new trial.

This is where the fun starts, as the trial scenes will reach a verdict that gives Andy’s heart a twist. And then he really figures out what’s been happening.

This is a complex plot, despite the humor and the presence of Laurie, Andy’s love interest, and several friends from the series making reappearances. There will be the drug trafficking, the involvement of the FBI, and don’t forget the family business of the DeSimone’s, the Mafia.

While Rosenfelt manages to keep things light, he balances it nicely with intrigue, action, and a satisfying ending that ties up all the ends. And then some. An additional touch is the listing he adds at the end of every book of Acknowledgments to friends who happen to be famous, or maybe not even people, as in this volume where Andy and Cherry Garcia show up alongside Woody and Gracie Allen and Neil and Hope Diamond.

By the way, there is a real Tara Foundation that helps find homes for sick or injured dogs. To date the foundation has rescued over 4000 dogs from shelves, and Rosenfelt often houses dozens at a time in his Maine house. Another reason to buy this book for any dog lover on your list.

 

 

 

Frances Fyfield: Blood From Stone Sunday, Dec 1 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:39 am

images_049Auntie M had the pleasure of meeting Frances Fyfield at St Hilda’s this August, where her riveting talk proved what I’d already suspected: here was an intelligent criminal lawyer who had a terrific knowledge of human character and was able to translate that into the highly complex and readable novels I’d always enjoyed. Fyfield worked as a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Services, where she learned first-hand about murder. Though writing is now her main vocation, the law and its ramifications continue to inspire many of her novels.

Auntie M thought she’d read every Fyfield novel available: the Helen West series, the Sara Fortune series, and several stand-alones, all carefully crafted and thoroughly enjoyable to read for crime enthusiasts.

Therefore, it was a delight to find a new release of one she’d missed through Witness Impulse as an ebook: Blood From Stone, which won the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award from the Crime Writers Association when it first appeared in 2008.

Marianne Shearer is at the height of her career, a dauntingly successful lawyer, respected by her peers and revered by her clients, even though those who know her well understand the ruthless nature that drives her.  Her latest case had again resulted in an acquittal, although the outcome was principally due to the death of the prime witness after Marianne’s forceful cross-examination.

Then why would she commit suicide in a dramatic and very public way?

Is it possible that this wholly professional and unemotional lawyer been struck by guilt or uncertainty, or is there some secret to be discovered in her rigid yet comfortable private life? Thomas Noble has been handled the job of executor of her estate. Her younger colleague Peter Friel is determined to find out of that last trial held the reason for her taking her own life. Together Noble and Friel will attempt to find out the reason Shearer felt she should end her successful and comfortable life.

The transcript of Shearer’s last trial holds intriguing clues, and excerpts from it give the reader a clear picture of Shearer’s scathing style in court and her ability to demean and demoralize the prosecutor’s witness. Then the sister of the last victim becomes involved and may be the one who holds the key to the truth. A most interesting woman in her own right, Henrietta Joyce’s sister had taken her own life after being subjected to Shearer’s style. Hen finds herself helping Friel and Noble unravel the secrets of Marianne Shearer’s life.

Fyfield has the ability to create fully-realized and very human characters who immediately capture the readers interest and Blood From Stone is a perfect example of Fyfield’s highly satisfying novels.

This January, Witness Impulse will be publishing two more classic Frances Fyfield titles, available to e-readers in the United States. Auntie M thoroughly enjoyed both of these and can highly recommend each book. The first is another stand-alone and the second is part of the Helen West series. Both illustrate Fyfield’s strengths in characterization, complex plots, and highly readable books that will have readers searching for others.

UNDERCURRENTS will be on sale January 7, 2014

For twenty years Henry Evans has been haunted by the memory of Francesca, the one who got away. When he travels to England to re-connect with his long lost love, what he finds is a horrific shock: Francesca is imprisoned for murdering her five-year-old son. But Henry refuses to believe Francesca is guilty, even if she did confess – in chilling detail – to drowning her own child.  In his search for the truth, Henry will find that the darkest of evils are hidden deep beneath the surface…

“Psychologically astute yet eminently readable, UNDERCURRENTS offers the tug of true suspense while probing the eerie confluence of love and loss.” – The Washington Post

DEEP SLEEP  goes on sale January 21, 2014 and was a CWA Silver Dagger Winner.

Pip Carlton is a devoted husband and a highly respected pharmacist, cherished by his loyal customers. When his wife dies in her sleep, with no apparent cause, he is distraught. Comforted by his caring assistant, Pip ignores the rumors about Margaret’s death, relieved that the police seem to have moved on. But Prosecutor Helen West refuses to believe that Margaret simply slipped into her final slumber. As she probes deeper into the affairs of the neighborhood, she uncovers a viper’s nest of twisted passion, jealous rage, and lethal addictions.  As a sudden act of violence erupts, shaking the community, one lone man, armed with strange love potions, prepares to murder again…

 Several of the Helen West series have been serialized for television and her novels have been translated into fourteen languages. If you haven’t discovered the treasure of of the work of Frances Fyfield yet, you’re in for a treat. Don’t forget her when you’re looking for holiday gifts for your reading fans, too.

 

Lake District Murders with Style: Martin Edwards and Rebecca Tope Sunday, Nov 24 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:53 am

The glorious natural beauty of England’s Lake District, which contains its largest lake, rising fells, and every kind of tree found in the UK, hardly seems to present typical murder landscape. Yet Auntie M has chosen it twice for her own Nora Tierney Mysteries–The Green Remains and 2014’s The Scarlet Wench–and she’s certainly not alone. Two masters have series set in the land of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter.

the-frozen-shroud-by-martin-edwards1With a strong feeling for the history of crime novels, Martin Edwards is the archivist for both the Crime Writers Association and for the Detection Club. His talk this year at St. Hilda’s reminded us that the Golden Age authors had more psychological depth than is generally acknowledged. Edwards’ knowledge of crime novels and history is extensive and he is a fascinating speaker.

Author of stand-alones, short stories and multiple essays on crime, he is best known for two series: the Liverpool Harry Devlin series and  the newer one that explores the Lake District and features DCI Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind.

The Frozen Shroud explores the hidden depths of the small yet remote and diverse locale. Highlighting the landscape and its ability to capture loveliness with menace are the hallmark of this series, confirmed in this sixth offering in the series.

With his vivid descriptions and an overlapping of murders to be solved, The Frozen Shroud capitalizes on a creepy local legend with links to the past and two murders on Hallowe’en that bear the same characteristics. Daniel Kind’s love of research of murder adds to the atmosphere, and Hannah Scarlett’s work situation, fraught with stress and coupled with the the rising tension between these two fascinating characters, adds to the texture of the novel.

There are plenty of red herrings that bring this series along classical lines, making it a totally satisfying and complex crime novel. The dialogue and prose are literate and realistic. Old hurts, revenge, misconceptions and plain old jealousy rear their head as motives. The characters living near the haunted ground of Ravensbank all have secrets with ties to the past, and it would be cruel to tell readers more without spoiling the plot. If you haven’t read this atmospheric series, now’s the time to grab one and then gobble them all up.

 

toprRebecca Tope, journalist and author, has four murder series in print: Den Cooper, Devon police detective; Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds; rebecca topeundertaker Drew Slocombe; and now her newest series set in the Lake District and featuring florist Persimmon Brown.

I met Tope at St Hilda’s and again in September at Bouchercon, where her British perspective on the differences of mysteries by English and American writers added to her panel discussions. Warm and lively, Tope seems to find the time to write prolifically while living in rural Herefordshire, on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains. She raises Cotswold sheep along with two elderly dogs. Her evenings are spent spinning, knitting and weaving, and she takes commissions for big  pure wool throws and blankets.  Recently added alpacas will make soft baby blankets available. Now where does she find time to write?

Tope’s mind must be working all the time her hands are busy on new plots and characters. Introduced in The Windermere Witness, Simmy Brown’s Windermere florist shop seems an unlikely setting for involving her in murders. With her unconventional parents living nearby, running a B&B, Simmy is getting used to her new home post-divorce in Troutbeck. Her shop assistant, Melanie, and a smart teen, Ben, with a bent for investigation, form Simmy’s “team,” to the chagrin of the local detective, DI Moxon.    

The Ambleside Alibi, book two in the series, finds Simmy unwittingly providing an alibi for a murder suspect, immediately after delivering a bouquet to a grandmotherly sort, sent from a granddaughter the old woman apparently didn’t know she had.  

Then another elderly woman is found murdered and a host of family secrets will be unearthed that may or may not tie the two women together. Against her better judgement, Simmy finds the peaceful new life she envisioned for herself once more fraught with danger and murder. When an attempt is made on her life, she knows she’s become more involved than she’d ever imagined.

Moxon provides a nice foil to Simmy, a reluctant witness and even more reluctant investigator, as he becomes exasperated in his attempts to protect Simmy while finding a murderer. The relationship between these two seems unlikely yet possibly inevitable down the road, a side aspect to drive readers look for the third installment in the series premiering in 2014, The Conistan Case.

 

 

 

Around the World in Crime: Norway, France, Iceland, Denmark and Venice Sunday, Nov 17 2013 

great read and mystery to die for and new series and Series not to be missed , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:50 am

Auntie M’s reading list includes many fine Nordic and European authors she hopes you’ll investigate. These books are all great reads, and with the holidays approaching, make great gifts for the bibliophiles on your list.

blessed-are-those-who-thirst.jpg.pagespeed.ce.Y23Pst4KrgHanne Wilhelmsen is a police investigator first introduced in Holt’s Blind Justice. Blessed are Those Who Thirst finds her battling a brutal Oslo heat wave, which has set off a huge upward spiral in violent crime in the area. She’s balancing it all with an unsolved rape case which disturbs her.

The newest crime scene she is sent to baffles her at first: in an abandoned shed, covered with blood, an eight-digit number is scrawled in blood on one wall. Is it human blood?

But there’s no victim, at least none at this site. Is this a terrible prank or the mark of a more sinister killer?

More of these bloody crime scenes start to crop up, all in isolated locations throughout the city, all with different numbers. Then Hanne’s colleague discovers the significance of those numbers: they belong to female foreign immigrants who have gone missing.

As her team races to track down this killer, the rape victim and her father separately plan their own vengeance.

How these intersect, with horrifying consequences, will keep readers rooted to the page. This is a well-plotted mystery in a fascinating series.

Holt’s inclusion of Hanne’s domestic situation adds nice texture and reminds us that police personnel all have home lives.

 

Bernard Minier’s The Frozen Dead was first published in French with the title Glace`, but this translation loses none of the chilling aspects frozen1444732252-detailof the original.

Minier draws on little-known facts to build his suspense, from the bizarre psychiatric methods at some points, to the subterranean power plant that becomes a plot point.

When a headless horse is found suspended from a frozen cliff in southwest France, it annoys the city cop assigned to investigate. Servaz should be dealing with three teens suspect of killing a homeless man.

Yet he cannot ignore this highly unusual and disturbing crime as the rumbling of a cable car brings the horse’s corpse into view. Everyone in attendance is disturbed.

Only miles away, a young psychiatrist named Diane Berg embarks on a journey that will mean so much more than just a year’s assignment in the Pyrenees at the Wargnier Institute.

When DNA from the Institute’s most infamous inmates is discovered on the animal, it is the first hint to Servaz of the nature of the madment he seeks, and sparks a series of horrific murders.

There’s no escaping the cold as theme in this thriller, from the gritty settings to the dark, grisly deeds carried out in the names of healing, and of revenge.

Minier’s novel explains the complicated and different police investigation method of France’s system, which adds to the tone. Readers will look for more by this talented crime writer and await the reappearance of Servaz and his music.

 

17286708Staying with the cold, we head to Reykjavik, Iceland’s setting for the Erlendur series. This tenth entry is Black Skies, by award-winning author Arnaldur Indridason, who won the CWA Golden Dagger Award for Silence of the Grave.

This time it’s Sigurdur Oli in the spotlight of this subtle and superbly crafted police procedural. Oli finds himself reluctantly agreeing to a friend’s request to head off a blackmail attempt in a scheme of wife swapping. Then he finds the woman accountant found bludgeoned to death was involved with her husband in the scheme.

But Oli is forced to look beyond this obvious motive when the victim’s association with a group of disreputable bankers becomes known.

This has an almost sociological feel to it, without judging or hitting the reader over the head, as Oli follows leads that will take him to the heads of high-finance and the lowest criminals on the economic ladder.

That he becomes disgusted with both extremes speaks volumes. The laziness of the criminals he encounters stands in stark contrast to the greed and flagrantly accepted corruption of the upper class.

By showing how these encounters affects Oli’s own thoughts about his family and marital history, we become involved with him as a real person who happens to be a policeman. That he is tasked with this unenviable job that is sometimes at odds with his personal feelings becomes the heart of the book.

 

Another Nordic entry not to be missed comes from Denmark’s sibling team of Lotte and Soren Hammer. 16044964The Hanging brings readers the unusual team of lead detective Konrad Simonsen in this startling novel that starts off with a bang and never lets up.

When two Turkish children get to school early, they find the mutilated and naked bodies of five men hanging from the gymnasium ceiling. It doesn’t help the investigation when a prejudiced policeman takes his time responding to the call.

The horrific crime sees Simonsen recalled from a vacation, which stirs a media frenzy that is compounded when the link between the victims is known: all were pedophiles.

Fighting public opinion that their killer should be overlooked complicates his team’s investigation. At the heart of the matter will be the lingering question: when is justice served?

Adding texture to the book is the feel for Copenhagen the authors transmit, as is the team the authors they give to Simonsen. These include a young policewoman feeling her way through the start of her career, and another with independent financial means who doesn’t need the job.

The first of a planned six-part series, Lotte and Soren Hammer have fans already clamoring for the next translation.

 

n401410The lovely vintage feel and VW bug on the cover of Marco Vichi’s Death in Florence tell the reader immediately that we are not in contemporary times but rather in 1966.

This is the fourth in the series featuring the novel’s protagonist, Inspector Bordelli, owner of the VW.

“How can a boy vanish into thin air?” That’s the question absorbing Bordelli at the moment.

Giacomo Pellissari seems to have melted into the pouring rain leaving his school. When his mother’s car won’t start, his lawyer father arrives to the school to pick him up an hour late. The boy was seen running into the downpour–and there his trail grows cold.

Bordelli begins an increasingly desperate investigation into the boy’s disappearance with the help of his young sidekick, Piras. They will uncover abuse of power, rape, murder and a ring of homosexuals as they delve deeply into the case.

But he is thwarted by the flood that overwhelms Florence. Based on a real occurrence in November of that year, the swollen river Arno laps over the arches of the Ponte Vecchio, breaks its banks, and completely overwhelms the city.

While streets become rushing torrents, the force of the water sweeps away vehicle and trees, doors and even a coffin lid. Mud piles of debris line the city Bordelli calls home, yet the obstinate detective persists in finding a resolution to the disappearance of a little boy.

Written in an atmospheric and literary style, the ending will leave readers surprised and questioning the next volume to follow.

 

Moving from Florence to Venice, the debut novel The Abomination by Jonathan Holt has been hailed for its complex plot involving two forceful abominationwomen, the Carabiniere Captain Kat, and her American counterpart, Holly.

Their case kicks off when the body of a woman washes up from the Grand Canal wearing the robes of a priest, a desecration seen by the Catholic Church as The Abomination. That this happens on the night of the Feast of the Epiphany with its masked balls add to the drama.

Duality is enhanced with the idea of Carnvia.com, a virtual Venice, a social network revolving around a simulated world that gives users complete anonymity by letting them hide their identities behind carnival masks.

The narrow canals and thick, sewage-scented fog that envelops Venice at times is aptly represented, a counterpoint to the usual image of artworks and tourist cathedrals, and provides the backdrop for the corruption and conspiracy the two women will find.

The action never flags in this combination of mystery, tech thriller and conspiracy. The two worlds of Venice and its cyber-counterpart create a compendium of mysteries that are skillfully rendered.

There are two more volumes in the works from this talented author who blends and balances intriguing characters with multiple story-lines of action.

 

 

 

Susan Sloate: Forward to Camelot Sunday, Nov 10 2013 

great read , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:14 am

Camelot_Cover_11 (1)(2)

Guest Blog – Cutting Down to Size

By Susan Sloate

     You would think that cutting your manuscript was relatively easy. I mean, compared to getting the words down on paper in the first place, cutting what’s already there should be a snap. Didn’t Michelangelo say airily, “I just took a chisel and cut away everything that wasn’t David”?

     Well, that sounds simple enough. You drop an extraneous phrase here, a flabby sentence there—and suddenly your manuscript is ten pages shorter and you’re all ready for the next step.  Nothing to it, right?

     Uh—wrong.

     I hadn’t realized how much I needed to do it until I began a much-needed revision this summer on FORWARD TO CAMELOT, the 2003 time-travel thriller I co-authored with Kevin Finn. We had both loved the book as written, but with a 50th-anniversary edition about to be published (commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, which is the subject of our novel), we felt it was a good time to fix some of the usage and grammar errors that had slipped by us the first time, and especially to tweak a couple of small historical points that had bothered me for ten years.

     That was the intention. Make sure the quotation marks are facing the right way, check the history and turn in the book to our publisher.

     Then Kevin and I began to look at what we had, and we realized there were other issues we wanted to address. What started as a simple fix became a much more complex, line-by-line scrutiny, and what we were eventually looking for were the words, sentences and even paragraphs we could cut to bring down the length. Our publisher, Drake Valley Press, explained gently that a book as long as the original version (almost 500 printed pages) would cost so much that we might not see any profit on it at all in paperback, and it could affect eBook sales as well. But if we could significantly reduce the word count, we would do a lot better. And besides, the narrative really did have its flabby moments. Keep the story, by all means—just make it, you know, a lot shorter and simpler.

     I began to feel as though I had an “Everything Must Go!” sign on my computer screen.

     While I began the historical fixes, Kevin began streamlining the manuscript, pulling out sections he felt could safely be cut while maintaining the pace, the plot and the flavor of the original. While we both resisted cutting entire scenes—we cut only one full scene, and that one only reluctantly—there were certain scenes that we also knew we wanted to rewrite; we hadn’t got them right in 2003 and we had another chance now.

     But when I finally saw Kevin’s long, meticulous (did I mention long?) document listing all the changes—which ran about 30 pages—I almost cried. Then began the bargain-with-your-partner phone calls: “Look, we have to keep the hunt scene at the end.”

     “But it’s ten pages; that’s way too long.”

     “Okay, okay. I’ll cut it way down, as long as I can keep the gist of it.”

     “You can have the gist. Just get rid of the gristle!”

     Thus began the slash-and-burn portion of the rewrite, where I began incorporating Kevin’s notes. (“Did you realize you write everything twice?” he asked me. “If you could cut it down to one telling, we could really cut through this manuscript.” By this time the word ‘cut’ or ‘slash’ had a queasy effect on me.)

     We argued, and we both agreed to accept less than what we wanted. Kevin let me keep almost all the scenes intact, as far as intent; I swallowed a good deal of bile and pride and slashed away at anything that wasn’t strictly necessary.

     Within a couple of weeks we’d brought down the 488-page original manuscript to 382 pages, cutting 100 pages (25,000 words) in the process. It was still the longest book either of us had ever written, but it was no longer a project you had to schedule in order to read. The word count was in the ballpark.

     Did I enjoy the process? Most of it, no. But on some level I did like examining a paragraph and finding a way to cut straight to the heart of what we were trying to say. It’s a process writers need to go through all the time—understand what we want to say and say it as effectively—and as simply—as we can. We can never afford to forget that part of our process, especially writers who become very successful, and whose editors then seem to somehow mysteriously evaporate (or more likely, are intimidated or overpowered by the author at that point).

     I know I’ll do the same process from now on: I’ll look for stuff I’ve said twice and hack away at it, along with everything else the reader doesn’t absolutely need to know.

     And maybe that snob Michelangelo was right: when you finish slashing with your machete, what you end up with looks a lot less like a flabby ‘before’ picture and a lot more like that glistening David in marble.

     That alone makes it worthwhile.

     Good luck with your own machete …

WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY KENNEDY WAS SAVED

On the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination comes a new edition of the extraordinary time-travel thriller first published in 2003, now extensively revised and re-edited, and with a new Afterword from the authors.
On November 22, 1963, just hours after President Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President aboard Air Force One using JFK’s own Bible. Immediately afterward, the Bible disappeared. It has never been recovered. Today, its value would be beyond price
In the year 2000, actress Cady Cuyler is recruited to return to 1963 for this Bible—while also discovering why her father disappeared in the same city, on the same tragic day. Finding frightening links between them will lead Cady to a far more perilous mission: to somehow prevent the President’s murder, with one unlikely ally: an ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.
Forward to Camelot: 50th Anniversary Edition brings together an unlikely trio: a gallant president, the young patriot who risks his own life to save him, and the woman who knows their future, who is desperate to save them both.
 
History CAN be altered …
Camelot_Cover_11 (1)
SUSAN SLOATE is the author of 20 previous books, including the recent bestseller Stealing Fire and Realizing You (with Ron Doades), for which she invented a new genre: the self-help novel. The original 2003 edition of Forward to Camelot became a #6 Amazon bestseller, took honors in three literary competitions and was optioned by a Hollywood company for film production.
Susan has also written young-adult fiction and non-fiction, including the children’s biography Ray Charles: Find Another Way!, which won the silver medal in the 2007 Children’s Moonbeam Awards. Mysteries Unwrapped: The Secrets of Alcatraz led to her 2009 appearance on the TV series MysteryQuest on The History Channel. Amelia Earhart: Challenging the Skies is a perennial young-adult Amazon bestseller. She has also been a sportswriter and a screenwriter, managed two recent political campaigns and founded an author’s festival in her hometown outside Charleston, SC.
After beginning his career as a television news and sports writer-producer, KEVIN FINN moved on to screenwriting and has authored more than a dozen screenplays. He is a freelance script analyst and has worked for the prestigious American Film Institute Writer’s Workshop Program. He now produces promotional trailers, independent film projects including the 2012 documentary SETTING THE STAGE: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, and local content for Princeton Community Television.
His next novel, Banners Over Brooklyn, will be released in 2014.
For updates and more information about Forward to Camelot: 50th Anniversary Edition, please visit http://susansloate.com.

 

Elly Griffiths: A Dying Fall review and brief interview Sunday, Nov 3 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and mystery to die for , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:49 am

EllyGriffithAuntie M had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Elly Griffiths at Bouchercon, Albany.

The author of the Ruth Galloway series and winner of the Mary Higgins Clark award has a lively sense of humor and a warm personality.

She talked about the origins of her series, featuring the down-to-earth forensic archeologist whose independence and intelligence make her a delightful character readers are eager to follow.

Auntie M: Tell readers how you came up with the idea for the series.

Elly Griffiths: My husband was a lawyer who came to me one day and said he wanted to go back to school to be an archaeologist. I became interested in his studies and his work, and the idea was born.

AM: And Ruth?

EG: With my husband in school, we took a family vacation back to the Norfolk coast where I’d spent summers in my youth. I was thinking about a series as we walked along the beach by the marsh on a foggy day. Out of the mist, Ruth literally came walking to me, fully realized. I saw what she looked like, what she wore, down to knowing  what kind of cracker she would eat!

AM: Ruth is such a realistic, well-rounded person–smart, stubborn, still anxious about her role as a mother. You’ve handled Ruth’s relationship with Harry Nelson, the father of her child, with a great aching tenderness.

EG: They find themselves in an unusual situation. Harry is Catholic, so there’s that to consider, and he loves his wife. Can you love two people at the same time? I’m still working that one out . . .

AM: And readers will be waiting to see what you and Ruth have decided!                                            15814458

A Dying Fall is book five in the Ruth Galloway series.

Ruth is surprising herself by juggling motherhood of an 18-month old with the demands of her teaching and the annual university dig.

A call from a former classmate with news that one of their circle from university days has died in a fire brings Ruth memories of their time together: shared secrets, drinking bouts, sharing a flat.

Her memories take on a golden light and she rues she hasn’t stayed in touch Dan Golding. “Now she will never hear from him again.”

But the very next day after years of silence, Ruth receives a letter from Dan that changes everything. When Ruth asks Harry to look into Dan’s death, he asks an old colleague’s help–only to find the professor’s death was anything but an accident: the man’s door had been locked from the inside.

Then Ruth receives a call from Pendle University in Lancashire to consult on an important finding of Dan’s just before his death. She packs up toddler Kate and heads north with her friend, the Druid Cathbad, to Lytham, far too near where DCI Harry Nelson and his family are taking vacation with Harry’s family in Blackheath. Cathbad’s presence will lend its own surprising connection.

Dan was on the verge of a major announcement based on his discovery, which intrigues Ruth in her professional capacity as much as she longs to unearth the truth about the link between Dan’s theories and his murder.

What follows is a brew of old bones, neo-Nazis and New Age hippies mixed with trips to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the archaeology of early Britain. The plot has enough twists and turns to keep the mystery alive, while Harry’s extended family are on the scene and their interactions add to the texture, at Harry’s obvious discomfort.

Griffiths weaves the archaeology into a compelling plot while she manages to update the characters’ private lives and move those forward. It makes for an intriguing crime story that will have readers looking forward to the next mystery featuring Ruth Galloway.

 

 

Continued Series Winners: James, Mays, Cleeves, Toyne, Rhodes, Billingham & Haddam Sunday, Oct 27 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and Series not to be missed , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:34 am

Auntie M is reading a ton of great series and wants to suggest you check out these continued winners.

dead man's time by peter james Peter James’ Roy Grace novels have captivated readers in the millions and he continues his powerful series with Dead Man’s Time. Set in Brighton, these police thrillers follow the Detective Superintendent and his relationship. The newest has the unusual premise of a prologue from 1922, when five-year-old Gavin Daly and his sister board a ship for Dublin after the death of their parents.

At the dock in New York, a messenger carries two things that will haunt Gavin for the rest of his life: his father’s pocket watch, and a paper with four names and eleven numbers written on it. Gavin pledges to find out the meaning of these things and spends a lifetime searching.

Fast forward to current time, and Grace is getting used to being a new father and the lack of sleep that brings. A string of burglaries have captured the attention of Brighton’s residents.

When an old woman is murdered and a huge cache of antiques she kept stolen, he is surprised when her family are only interested in one item: a vintage pocket watch. The victim’s brother is none other than an aged Gavin Daly, still on the hunt having amassed incredible wealth as the years have passed.

What Grace will find as he probes is a mixed bag of old revenge and new hatreds. He will become mired in the machinations of several trails, leading to the antiques world of Brighton, to Marbella and its crime world, and back in time to the crime families of New York.

And all the time he seeks to unravel this twisted scheme, a madman plots against his beloved Cleo and their infant son. A wonderful addition to the series, meticulously researched and intricately plotted.

Auntie M had the pleasure of meeting with Peter James this summer and found him warm and likeable, with a wicked sense of humor not unlike his protagonist.

 

Peter Mays’ Lewis trilogy captures the remoteness of the Outer Hebrides area and its stark beauty in his award-winning series that serves up the complexity of human relationships.

After the success of The Blackhouse, Mays second offering, lewisman300The Lewis Man, finds his protagonist, former DI Fin Macleod, bound by his past to help the family of islanders he is linked to by history and familial ties.

The father of his lover, Marsaili, has always maintained he was an only child, and enters a care home suffering from dementia when Marsaili’s mother has her fill of taking care of him.

Then a corpse is found in a peat bog, and far from being the historic body it is first thought, it is quickly ascertained that this body is far more recent–and is a DNA match to Tormod Macdonald, Marsaili’s father.

This winning novel shows the plot through Fin’s eyes and through the remembrances and clouded memory of Tormod, an interesting device that allows the story of Tormod’s upbringing to unfold, while explaining why he felt it necessary to claim he had no family at all. The climax will keep you reading well past lights out time to seek the improbable resolution to this complicated novel.

43627_TheLewisMan_TPB-Red.indd The Chessmen completes the trilogy. With his divorce final, Fin Macleod has moved back to Lewis and is working as a private investigator.

He is putting his life in Edinburgh and his police skills behind him. Or so he thinks.

He takes an assignment as head of security to track down poachers working a huge island estate, and finds himself reunited with old friends including Whistler Macaskill. Their history and that of their friends form the basis for the action that follows when a body is found in a crashed plane at the bottom of a loch.

May’s uses the device again of showing the past in episodes, this time through Fin’s remembrances. The 1919 tragedy of the Iolaire is recounted and haunts the action.

That loch discovery will change the very foundation upon which Macleod’s memories are built, for a secret being kept for decades by people Macleod thought he knew. At stake will be lives, his and others, and a girl who needs to be saved.

This gritty series has given readers surprising plot twists and brilliant characterizations throughout.

Readers can only hope May will take a page from Ann Cleeves, whose Shetland trilogy so thoroughly engaged readers that she decided to bring out a fourth volume.

 

Dead Water continues the story of Shetland Island detective inspector Jimmy Perez. Blue Lightning Spoiler alert: In a shocking twist in the third volume, Perez’s fiancee was murdered, Dead_Water_HB_fc_and the detective is still struggling with that loss as he shares custody of her daughter with the girl’s biological father.

Jerry Markham is a journalist from Shetland whose family run a pricey hotel and restaurant in the area. The young man had left the island for London and work on a bigger and more important paper.

He left in his wake a scandal involving a young woman he made pregnant, who has gone on to make a life for herself on the island and whose impending marriage to an older seaman nears.

Then Markham’s body is found in a boat right outside the home of the Procurator Fiscal, Rhona Laing, a contained woman with a tidy, bleak house, who outlet in a crew team marks an otherwise lonely existence, one she prefers on her road to political advancement.

With Perez on leave, a young DI from the Hebrides is called in to conduct the investigation. Willow Reeves represents an unusual character and she’s able to bring Perez into the case by using his local knowledge. She also gets him to start to look past his grief, as his detecting skills are brought into play.

The case seems to revolve around Sullum Voe, where Shetland’s oil and gas industry are centered, and the big story Markham was following that brought him home.

Then a second death occurs, muddying the waters, and Perez and Reeves will team up to unmask a killer. Readers will hope Cleeves, who also writes the wonderful Vera Stanhope series, will keep Perez afloat.

 

a-killing-of-angels-by-kate-rhodesKate Rhodes knocked our socks off with her first Alice Quentin novel, Crossbones Yard, a complex mystery whose shocking ending resounded with readers.

In this second installment, A Killing of Angels, the behavioral psychologist is back with a new case that finds her assisting the police again, despite her reservations after the nightmare of the first book.

Fiercely independent Alice is training for a marathon, despite London’s hottest summer on record. Her specialty in personality disorders makes her an expert at character analysis and an enormous help to the police.

The body in question was a suspected suicide, until a picture of an angel and a few white feathers are found stuffed into the victim’s pocket.

The killings continue and it’s obvious that the Square Mile and the banking world is the locus for the crimes. As Alice tries to help detective Don Burns with the case, she finds herself dragged deeper into the intrigue and the lives of the people involved.

Complicating matters are the journalists who keep the murders high profile, suggesting the killings are retribution for the banking world and its self-absorption.

Readers can’t help but be engaged with Alice and her complicated history, with Rhodes’ intricate plotting, and with her facility for choosing prose that matters, echoing her poetry background. This is a thumping good read.

 

Simon Toyne’s Ruin trilogy has captivated readers with the world he created in his series of a haunting conspiracy thrillers. Tower-2 p0_v2_s260x420Nonstop action and breakneck twists continue in The Tower.

Santus introduced readers to Liv Adamson and the prophecy that caused her brother’s death and changed her life.

The Key left Liv trapped in the Syrian Desert, with her erstwhile savior, ex-special forces Gabriel Mann, suffering from the deadly virus that originated in the Citadel, an ancient monastery at the center of the conspiracy.

Enter new FBI agent Joe Shepherd, at first glance an unlikely choice to work the case after a cyber-attack at the Goddard Space Center that disables the Hubbard telescope and the subsequent disappearance of the prize-winning scientist in charge, who has left behind a cryptic and chilling message.

But Shepherd’s background with degrees in astrophysics and computer science make him the perfect choice. Despite the secrets he is hiding, Shepherd’s investigation leads him to connect these new incidents with the explosion months ago at the Citadel and the viral outbreak that ensued.

Readers will be engrossed in Shepherd’s journey with the added pressure of the device ofa  countdown clock dogging his heels. Then unusual things start to happen around the globe, and it remains to be seen if humanity can be saved.

Things will come full circle, but what is that meaning of that phrase? It it the ending of everything known before, or an entire new beginning?

For the woman at the heart of it all, Liv and her destiny will change the way the world survives–if it can. This third novel successfully answers all the questions raised in the other two, while providing a meaning and reason for the episodes of the others.

Auntie M met with Simon Toyne this summer and his outrageous good looks and charm belie the complicated mind needed to create this new world and the roller-coaster ride his readers will find.

 

Hearts Sandp0_v2_s114x166 Jane Haddam’s Gregor Demarkain novels continue to entertain. In this 28th installment, Hearts of Sand takes the investigator to the old-monied town of Alwych, Connecticut.

Although Chapin Waring disappeared thirty years ago, the quarter of a million dollars she had with her from a series of bank robberies was never recovered. There have been no sightings of the woman and she’s rumored to be dead.

Then new rumors fill the town: that Chapin has been seen on the beach or in a store, and these prove true when her body is found in the family’s vacant home, a knife sticking out of her back.

As a retired profiler, Demarkian excels at reading people and this kind of situation is right up his alley. With the local police stumped, he’s asked to help them narrow their field of suspects, and there are far too many of them.

Research into Chapin’s life shows her to have been a manipulative girl within an inner circle, whose attraction to danger led to the bank robberies and a car crash that killed her accomplice. The remaining people of her inner circle are just as delectable suspects as are the victim’s own sisters. Haddam gets small town snobbery just right.

 

We’re back across the pond with Mark Billingham’s wonderful DI Tom Thorne series. Number eleven doesn’t disappoint: it’s vintage Thorne  The Dying Hoursat his crankiest and most recalcitrant in The Dying Hours.

Busted back to uniform after the horrific events in Good as Dead  and losing the title ‘detective’ while remaining an inspector hasn’t changed the way Thorne’s analytical mind works. Despite his demotion, and putting his budding relationship in jeopardy, Thorne’s instincts run true when he’s called to the scene of a suicide that doesn’t feel right to him.

Unable at first to pinpoint his unease, it soon becomes apparent, at least to Thorne, that a series of suicides of elderly people don’t ring true. One thing they all have in common is a lack of depression or sadness other suicides exhibit.

Try convincing the Murder Squad of that, though. The new head of the very team he once ran refuses to accept these might be the killings of a sick mind.

But any Thorne reader knows he will not take dismissal well, and he plunges into his own parallel investigation, calling on his former colleagues and few remaining friends to help out, despite that they must put their own careers on the line, and jeopardizing any sliver of career he might have left of his own.

This is vintage Thorne, from his predilection for country music to his doggedness once he becomes convinced he’s right.

Adding to the texture is Billingham’s ability to get inside the mind of the creepy villain, bent on revenge and justifying his horrific actions. By adding in the point of the view of the perpetrator, Billingham creates a wily adversary and gives readers a chilling glimpse inside the mind of a murderer.

 

 

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