Laury A Egan has a new release!
by Laury A. Egan
Publication: April 12, 2025
Fair Haven: A picturesque riverside town. A safe, friendly place. And then, one summer afternoon in 1994, Sally Ann Shaffer is electrocuted in her hot tub. Who did it? One of her many lovers? Her husband? A thief? A jealous colleague at her tennis club? The town is suddenly embroiled in suspicion, interpersonal conflict, blackmail, fraud, and murder.
Fair Haven shares sympathies with the British crime drama, Midsomer Murders, because of its small-town setting and diverse cast, any of whom could be the killer (except Cagney, the beagle). The characters include Chris Clarke, who is hired to photograph the crime scene and is involved with Kate Morgan, a woman fighting for custody of her son (Kate has a past history with Sally Ann Shaffer); the police chief, Ray Mackie, who steps aside in the investigation in favor of Vincent Rivera from the Major Crimes Bureau. Other players are Detective David De-Marco, charged with coordinating the local police effort; Harry Fallon, Kate Morgan’s drunken ex-husband and a long-time lover of Sally Ann; and R.J. Baines, a realtor hiding her lesbianism and her affair with the deceased. The relationships between these characters, as well as with a tennis pro, husband, priest, and a financial fraudster, provide rich opportunities for intrigue.
“When is a murder mystery more than a who-done-it? Answer: When it is written by Laury Egan. This wonderful mystery kept me entranced, as her characters drug me around the town of Fair Haven and through their inter-woven lives. In an ever more complex web of intrigue, jealousy, hatred and lust the plot was revealed. Though its difficult to write a review of a murder mystery without giving away too much, I couldn’t figure it out, even with some well-placed clues, until the end and then I was amazed by the reveal. You will be too.”
—CA Farlow, author of The Paris Contagion
“The pace never lagged, and I was as invested in the character dramas as I was in the murder mystery itself. Which is great, given how much the story is really about those people and their community and their ties to one another…a delightfully messy tangle of motives and reason-able suspects. Classic murder mystery shenanigans. Fair Haven [is] a very worthy entry in the genre.”
—Jennica Dotson, author of “A Reaper’s Folly”
342 pages, $16.95 in paperback and $6.99 eBook. ISBN: 978-1-915905-14-7
Amazon: https://geni.us/fairhaven
Published by Enigma Books, an imprint of Spectrum Books, London.
Fair Haven is Laury A. Egan’s 15th novel. In addition, she’s published a collection, Fog and Other Stories, soon to be joined in May 2025 by a second collection, Contrary. Four volumes of poetry have also appeared. Her website: www.lauryaegan.com
Cover photograph: Mark Schwartz. Design: Laury A. Egan.
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 