Wendy H Jones: Killer’s Countdown Friday, Dec 19 2014 

Uncategorized , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:35 am

KillerCountdown-WEB

Thank you Aunty M for hosting me on your blog and allowing me to talk about my first novel. It is an absolute honour to be on such an imaginative and interesting blog.

As you are aware, but many of your readers may not be, I released my first book in the Detective Inspector Shona McKenzie Mysteries in November this year. This is set in Dundee, Scotland, where I am originally from and live.

I say originally from as I left Dundee two weeks after my eighteenth birthday to join the Royal Navy as a Nurse. I served for six years and then joined the Army and served for a further seventeen. During this time I was fortunate enough to travel to many different countries and have some amazing adventures.

Three years ago I returned to Dundee to write and DI Shona McKenzie was conceived. Shona is a feisty young woman who, like me was born in Dundee. However at the age of two she moved to Oxford as her father took up a post at the University there.

She has only returned to Dundee a year before the novel starts, at the insistence of her now ex-husband. She is an excellent detective but relies on her team, DS Peter Johnston in particular, for local knowledge. This is her first major case and Shona is keen to prove herself to both her superiors and her team.

A number of women have been killed and the police are at a loss to find out what is linking them. The book is written from both the viewpoint of the police and the killer.
The book has been well received and most people who have read it are asking when the next book will be out. I have almost finished writing the second book and this is called Killer’s Craft. I am expecting it to be out in June or July 2015.
IMG_0013b

Since the book came out, other than wanting the sequel, the burning question seems to be what does the H. in my name stand for? My middle name is Henderson, a fine Scottish name, and it also happens to be my great grandmother’s maiden name.

Thank you once again for allowing me to take over your blog for the day. If anyone wants to find out more about the book then here is the Amazon Universal Link. This will take you to the Amazon of the country in which you buy your books. http://mybook.to/KillersCountdown Website: http://www.wendyhjones.com Twitter: @WendyHJones

 

Catriona McPherson: A Deadly Measure of Brimstone Sunday, Nov 30 2014 

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

Deadly Measure
Auntie M loves the cover art of Catriona McPherson’s newest Dandy Gilver Scottish mystery, A Deadly Measure of Brimstone. The strong series, among other awards, won the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award in 2013 and 2014.

But she liked the inside even more, as Dandy moves her two sons and husband, all recovering from a bout of the nasty chest illnesses which reach to the staff, to the spa town of Moffat to recuperate. Dandy has her own agenda to install central heating when the family is gone, and has neglected to mention this to her husband, Hugh.

Of course, with Dandy it’s never that simple. She and her partner Alec agree to take on a case to investigate the death of a woman who died suddenly at Laidlaw’s Hydropathic Establishment. Mrs. Addie’s grown children have written to ask Gilver and Osborne to look into their mother’s death, termed heart failue, which her children insist was not Mrs. Addie’s health issue before this visit.

It seems fairly simple: have Hugh and the boys treated and give them time to recover whilst investigating the death. Even aging dog Bunty comes along for the trip. But nothing is ever that straightforward with Dandy,
who soon finds herself disrobing to take saunas, cold baths, and salt rub massages all in the name of finding the evidence they seek.

With Alec also at the Hydro, the duo will find spirits, mediums, an even an after-hours establishment at the Hydro, run by Dr. Dorothea Laidlaw and her brother Thomas, who inherited the spa from their father.

McPherson gets the period details just right, from clothing and manners to the way people spoke in 1929. And Dandy’s humorous and slightly irreverent thoughts are on full display, as when Dandy and Alec endeavor to describe Mrs. Addie: “Thrashing out a description which honored her memory – one could not simply say she looked like a piglet in tweeds …”

Great fun that encapsulates the bygone Golden Age era from this award-winning author.