Elena Hartwell's Blog, page 24

April 20, 2024

The Nowhere Girls: A Crime Thriller

The Nowhere Girls, a crime thriller by Dana Perry

Guest Post + Excerpt + Book & Author Info + Giveaway![image error]Don’t miss any blog tour post! Click the link here.

The Nowhere Girls

Book 1 in the Detective Nikki Cassidy series

My kid sister was murdered fifteen years ago. Now the killer has struck again. And this time, I’m going to take my revenge…

On the anniversary of her sister’s death, FBI agent Nikki Cassidy takes a call that has her heart pounding in her chest, the image of her beautiful sister Caitlin etched in her mind.

Another girl has been taken.

Days later, the lifeless body of twelve-year-old Natalie Jarvis is found in a remote patch of woodland, a crown of roses delicately placed on her head. Just like Caitlin.

The killer is back.

Nikki rushes to her small hometown of Groveton, Ohio. She will do anything to stop another young girl dying, but she soon realises that nothing is what it seems—everyone in her hometown is keeping a secret. And when a note is discovered near Natalie’s body addressed to Nikki, it’s clear what the murderer really wants: her…

She’s caught killers before, but this time it’s personal. And Nikki will risk everything—even her own life—to get justice for every victim. It’s time to stop this twisted killer, once and for all…

If you love reading Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Kendra Elliot, you won’t be able to put down this gripping new series. Full of heart-racing twists and turns, you’ll be hooked!To purchase The Nowhere Girls, click on any of the following links: Amazon | Goodreads | BookoutureLast One To Die

Book 2 in the Detective Nikki Cassidy series

Ten days ago, straight-A student Jessica Staley ran away from home. Now her lifeless body lies pale and still in an empty parking lot, her unblinking brown eyes staring up to the night sky…

FBI agent Nikki Cassidy’s heart pounds as she takes in the short, dark hair and delicate features of fourteen-year-old schoolgirl Jessica Stanley. It’s another unsolved murder in Groveton, Ohio, just like her sister, Caitlin, fifteen years before. Her family beg her to keep her distance, but Nikki knows she can’t walk away.

What if her sister’s killer is back?

Talking to Jessica’s heartbroken family, Nikki learns that she wasn’t happy at home. Just days ago, she packed a few belongings into her school backpack and left, never to be seen alive again.

Determined to give Jessica’s family the answers she never found for herself, Nikki works around the clock, trawling hours of CCTV footage from the scene. And just when she thinks she’s close to uncovering the truth, a chilling email arrives that confirms her deepest fear. There are more victims, Nikki. Can you ever stop me?

This killer is playing a dangerous game, and he has Nikki in his sights now—one wrong move and she could be his next victim. She’s determined to unmask the monster who has tortured her hometown for decades. But what if the killer is someone close to her? What if it’s someone she loves?

Fans of Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Kendra Elliot will absolutely love this gripping new series from Dana Perry. Prepare to stay up all night!You can purchase Last One To Die at Amazon | Goodreads | BookoutureThe Lost Ones

Book 3 in the Detective Nikki Cassidy series

As dawn breaks over a small gas station on the outskirts of Groveton, Ohio, the body of a teenage girl lies totally still. Long blonde hair covers her face, and a length of frayed rope hangs loosely around her neck. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds her, just like her killer intended…

When FBI agent Nikki Cassidy receives a call from Groveton’s Chief of Police, her heart pounds. A young girl just knocked on the door of Nikki’s old family home, claiming to be Nikki’s kid sister, Caitlin. But Caitlin was murdered fifteen years ago. Who is the girl and what does she want?

Nikki thinks the impersonator could finally lead her to her sister’s twisted killer. But her hope is shattered when the girl’s lifeless body is found strangled at a local service stop. If the girl knew about Caitlin, could she have known the identity of the killer? Was she murdered before she could unmask them?

Going against her boss’s orders to stay away, Nikki traces the girl’s last known steps to her best friend, Shirley. Nikki learns that the girl was last seen meeting with a stranger at the mall. Could it have been her killer?

Closer than ever to uncovering the truth, Nikki can’t give up now. But when Shirley’s body is found at another service station, a length of rope wound around her neck, her heart shatters. Another young life has been lost. Nikki vows that this will be the last.

When an intruder breaks into her old home, Nikki knows it’s the killer sending her a sign. As she walks into the familiar old house in the dead of night, will she finally get justice and catch her sister’s killer, or did she just walk into a deadly trap?

You can purchase The Lost Ones at Amazon | Goodreads | BookouturePraise for Dana Perry and The Nowhere Girls:

THE NOWHERE GIRLS: “A twisty-breath-taking page-turner that will keep you on the edge of your seat until it’s stunning conclusion. Fast-paced and riveting, it keeps you guessing till the very end.”
Lisa Regan, author

“A thrilling new series.”
Killer Nashville

“A fantastic book… Dana Perry has created one heck of female lead!”
NetGalley reviewer

“Wow!!!!! What did I just read!!! Mind blown!!!! Absolutely shattered after being up all night reading but boy was it worth it! Absolutely unputdownable!!”
Bookworm86

“This was an edge-of-your-seat page-turner!”
@annette_reads_daily

Read the first three chapters here, just click on the image!!

Guest Post From the Author of The Nowhere Girls

MY 10 TIPS FOR ASPIRING WRITERS

By Dana Perry

“How do I become a mystery writer like you?”

I’ve published 24 mystery/thriller books, so a lot of people – friends, family, co-workers and others – have asked me that question over the years.

I suppose they think I have some magical formula or secret trick that I can share with them so they will be able to easily and effortlessly produce their own novel.

I can’t do that.

But I have come up with a list of tips – maybe you even want to call them guidelines or rules – that I follow myself which might help people with an answer to the “How do I become a mystery writer like you?” question.

They are:

WRITE EVERY DAY – Not when you have time. Not when you have an idea. Not only when you feel inspired – but each and every day. It can be 1000 words or 10,000 words or 100 words. The amount doesn’t really matter. You just have to produce something daily. Writers write, they don’t talk about writing, they don’t procrastinate about writing, they don’t forget about writing – they do it! READ EVERY DAY – You can’t be a good writer unless you’ve read a lot of other good writing. I know that I got my inspiration for my own books from reading books by authors like Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie and Robert B. Parker and Sue Grafton and Michael Connelly. If you don’t believe me about the importance of reading, listen to this advice from Stephen King who reads three hours a night, 75 to 100 books a year and has said: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”SPEND TIME WITH OTHER AUTHORS – Go to book conferences, book signings, writers’ groups – wherever you can find other writers to exchange ideas with. When I was starting out, I would always come back from events like this full of energy and enthusiasm and ideas for my writing. Being an author is a lonely business most of the time, so it really helps to be able share moments like this with others in the writing community. FIND A GOOD PLACE TO WRITE – It doesn’t have to be a fancy office where you write. I myself write in a lot of different places, usually not in an actual office. I work in coffee shops, on park benches, at the beaches and a lot of other public spots because I like people – not silence – around me when I work. But you can work in a library or your kitchen or in bed or anywhere else you want. Just find the place where you’re most comfortable writing, and make that your regular writing spot. DON’T OUTLINE – Oh, I know there’s a lot of divided opinion on this. Some authors outline the plot and overall storyline of a book, often in great detail, before they even sit down to write it. I do not. For me, it takes the spontaneity and surprise and fun out of the process. I like to put my characters down on paper (or on the computer) and just see where they go. Sometimes they surprise me. Hey, I don’t want to write an outline, I want to write a book. IGNORE BETA-READERS – I never understand when authors tell me they made changes to their manuscript based on responses from “beta-readers” they showed it to for reaction. Who are these beta-readers? Have they written their own books? And why should I let them tell me how to write mine? You can get a lot of opinions about your work with the “beta reader” approach, and many of them will be wrong. Don’t let them stop you from writing the novel that you want to write!DON’T EDIT EARLY– I never edit a book while I’m writing it. If I did – going back on the first few chapters and fiddling with them over and over again until I thought they were perfect – I’d never finish the book. I simply keep writing full speed ahead until I have a complete manuscript. Then I go back and do whatever editing needs to be done. Believe me, it works better this way. DON’T OVER-RESEARCH – This is a rabbit hole many authors go down. They become obsessed with researching the facts in their novel so much that they bog down the story with a lot of unnecessary details. A novel is fiction, not real life. Sure, you need to have some actual facts in the book. But you also get to make up a lot of stuff. Now that’s more fun than research!FIND AN AGENT – Yes, I know this can be difficult, but it’s well worth the effort. First off, you have someone professional to read your work and tell you if it’s salable or not. Second, an agent can get your book to more publishers (most of the big ones will not even read an un-agented manuscript.) Third, if you do sell your book, an agent is invaluable in making you’re treated fairly in your publishing contract. AND MY FINAL BIT OF ADVICE IS THIS:

Ignore every bit of advice people give you about writing (including me).

Just go ahead and write what you want to write and how you want to write it.

That’s the fun part about writing!

Dana Perry Author of The Nowhere Girls

R.G. Belsky is a New York City author who also writes mystery thrillers under the pen name of Dana Perry.

Learn more about Dana Perry by clicking any of the following links:
www.RGBelsky.com/dana-perry-books
Goodreads
BookBub
Twitter/X – @DanaPerryAuthor
Facebook – @DanaPerryAuthor
Instagram – @dickbelsky

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Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on April 20, 2024 00:01

April 16, 2024

The Band: A Novel

The Band, a debut novel by Christine Ma-Kellams

Author Interview + Book & Author Info!Don’t miss any debut author interviews, click the link here for more.The Band

The Band “This could very well be the first great K-Pop literary phenomenon.” —Debutiful, Most Anticipated Books of 2024

Perfect for fans of Mouth to Mouth and Black Buck, this whip-smart, darkly funny, and biting debut follows a psychologist with a savior complex who offers shelter to a recently cancelled K-pop idol on the run.

Sang Duri is the eldest member and “visual” of a Korean boy band at the apex of global superstardom. But when his latest solo single accidentally leads to controversy, he’s abruptly cancelled.

To spare the band from fallout with obsessive fans and overbearing management, Duri disappears from the public eye by hiding out in the McMansion of a Chinese American woman he meets in a Los Angeles H-Mart. But his rescuer is both unhappily married with children and a psychologist with a savior complex, a combination that makes their potential union both seductive and incredibly problematic.

Meanwhile, Duri’s cancellation catapults not only a series of repressed memories from his music producer’s earlier years about the original girl group whose tragic disbanding preceded his current success, but also a spiral of violent interactions that culminates in an award show event with reverberations that forever change the fates of both the band members and the music industry.

In its indicting portrayal of mental health and public obsession, fandom, and cancel culture, The Band considers the many ways in which love and celebrity can devolve into something far more sinister when their demands are unmet.

To purchase The Band click any of the following links: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Bookshop.Interview with The Band Author, Christine Ma-KellamsThe Band combines K-Pop, mental health, and cancel culture. That’s a pretty heady combination. How did the premise of your debut novel come to you?

Back in December of 2020, when we were all stuck at home and knee-deep in a global pandemic, I discovered BTS thanks to the joint efforts of National Public Radio, the James Corden show, and Youtube. Then I discovered their fandom, A.R.M.Y., which blew my mind as much as the seven members did with their other-worldly passion and extraordinary capacity to shift not only public opinion, but the very state of the music industry.

Around the same time, I had also been watching some of my favorite artists being “cancelled”—writers and comedians in particular. Each time it happened, it felt like a death in the family, and in some ways, it was a death of a dream, or a vision of who you thought this person was until you realize that they’re as flawed as anybody else.

But then came the harder questions of whether I was even allowed to like their work, or at least gush about it publicly. (Interestingly, these particular artists have all since then made a comeback and/or been exonerated in the court of public opinion). Pair this with my day job of being a psychologist, and it turned into the novel known as The Band.

The Band focuses on Sang Duri, tell us about him:

He’s the eldest and “visual” member of a Kpop boy band who has achieved global domination when a viral solo single he releases swiftly gets himself canceled thanks to the ethnic tensions it reactivates among East Asia’s three superpowers (China, Japan, Korea).

The Band also includes a psychologist with a savior complex. Tell us about that character and what led you to her specific issue?

So back when I was a freshmen in college, I took a Psych 1 course and at one point in the semester, the professor told us something to the effect of: therapy doesn’t work much of the time.

As a psych major who had long planned to become a therapist myself, this was the existential equivalent of finding out Santa isn’t real. (These days, I know that even Advil doesn’t work much of the time, so the fact that therapy isn’t a cure-all shouldn’t be that surprising or devastating, but back then I was younger and dumber).

So I changed routes, tried changing my major a bunch of times before going back to psychology (and Spanish) and opting to go the research route instead, but that feeling of wanted to save people I’ll remember forever. That sentiment drove me to create the narrator of The Band.

A part of me thinks you almost want your psychologist to have a savior complex, because at least then they believe you can be saved—otherwise, the alternative (of us being beyond repair) is too tragic.

You are a Harvard-trained cultural psychologist. What does that mean and what is your work life like?

I did two postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard. Now for my day job as an associate professor at San Jose State University, I spend most of my time teaching undergraduate and graduate students, commuting from LA to the Bay Area, advising Master’s thesis, or doing my own research on cultural differences.

You also write short stories, tell us about that side of your writing:

Short stories were my gateway drug into writing. I love them as much as I love novels.

In fact, I’m turning my short stories into a linked collection—a novel-in-stories. When I’m knee-deep into writing my novels, short stories are like a palate cleanser: they allow me to leave the behemoth that is a novel for a few hours or a few days and try something new (not to mention totally different) on for size.

What are you working on now?

Apart from my short story collection, I also have a completed novel that’s a prequel to The Band.

It follows the narrator—the psychologist with her own complexes—and her husband when they confront the “7-year itch” on the eve of their wedding anniversary with drastic, polyamorous measures. In the end, the story is about how nothing destroys quite like desire.

Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:

There’s no “magic bullet” in life for anything, much less writing. So write as much as you can, constantly and without fail, and when you’re not writing, read as much good writing as you can, because bad writing sometimes feels contagious.

Read outside your genre to see what techniques other people are using to propel their stories. Learn craft through osmosis but be as original as possible when it comes to character and plot—give us something we haven’t read before.

Author of The Band — Christine Ma-Kellams

The Band

In Puerto Rico, the kids at El Colegio Sagrado called me “La Chinita” because my birth name (“Xiao Ma”) was impossible to pronounce. My father, fresh out of China’s Cultural Revolution, moved there thinking that Puerto Rico was the 51st state (it said “U.S. territory” on the atlas!), to acquire a magical string of initials behind his last name—a configuration of the alphabet that he hoped would be powerful enough to make us worthy of being American. Unbeknownst to us, a Ph.D. from the Caribbean was useless in America, especially when accompanied by a Chinese accent. Difference, (studies show) can be threatening, because they violate expectancy.

These days, I have a degree in Spanish and am a psychologist by day to solve precisely this kind of childhood mystery. I received my Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and completed two postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University before my current position as an associate professor at San Jose State University. My empirical studies on culture, social perception and relationships have also been widely covered in GQ (Australia), Esquire (Middle East), Boston Globe, Vice News, Elle Magazine (UK), the Atlantic, Yahoo News, MSN News, Fox News, New York Post, and Daily Mail. My academic text, Cultural Psychology: Cross- and Multicultural Perspectives, has been adopted in classes at college campuses across the U.S. and overseas.

Learn more about Christine by following her on social media: Website, Instagram, Goodreads, and TikTok.Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on April 16, 2024 00:01

April 11, 2024

Rise to Rebellion: Historical Fiction

Rise to Rebellion, historical fiction by Julie Bates

Book and Author Info + an Excerpt + a Guest Post + a Giveaway!
Don’t miss any blog tours! Click the link here.

Rise to Rebellion

Summer 1776. Different missions call Faith Clarke and Jeremy Butler to Philadelphia, where delegates meet to determine the path of the rebellious American Colonies. Faith has been called back to her childhood home to make peace with her terminally ill mother, while Jeremy has been summoned by General Washington to report to Philadelphia to deal with a crisis impacting the Continental Crisis. Yet nothing is as it seems.

Her mother’s wandering mind reveals a secret that no one wants to discuss, but Faith realizes must come to light. A child, born out of wedlock, haunts her mother’s memories and destroys her peace. No matter to cost, Faith knows this child must be found for her mother to pass in peace, even as her own family tries to stop her. Only her older sister, Hannah is willing to help her find the truth that will allow her mother to die in peace.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Butler hunts for an assassin determined to kill a member of the Congress meeting to draft a proclamation from the American Colonies. All attempts lead back to Benjamin Franklin, who is at the heart of the negotiations to send a united message to the King of England. But who would want to kill Franklin, a man respected by all? Alone in a strange town, Jeremy enlists the help of Faith’s sister Hannah, a formidable widow with a mind of her own. Together, they work to keep Franklin safe while hunting a ruthless killer wandering the streets of Philadelphia.

While Jeremy seeks answers from Franklin’s estranged son, William. Faith and Hannah hunt for their long-lost sister, who they believe may still be living in Philadelphia. Neither of them realizes that in a city rife with rebellion, anyone could be tempted to rise up and revolt against those held responsible for the deepest of betrayals.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Fiction
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: September 26, 2023
Number of Pages: 318
ISBN: 9781685124670 (ISBN10: 1685124674)
Series: Faith Clarke, #3

To purchase Rise to Rebellion, click any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | Level Best Books

Read an excerpt:

Rise to Rebellion

Butler circled the room. Franklin found a comfortable seat where he was soon encircled by a mixed crowd as he exerted his charm. Surrounded by paramount families of Philadelphia, Butler felt certain the old man was safe. A light touch on his arm caught him by surprise.

Lizette Fournier smiled up at him with a guileless expression. “Forgive me, Master Butler, but I appear to be without a partner for this dance. Would you do me the honor?”

He allowed her to take his arm. Butler hoped he didn’t forget the steps. When he had served with Washington as a youth in the French and Indian War, the colonel had seen fit to teach him dancing. The colonel, now general, was both an excellent dancer and teacher. Butler felt a debt of gratitude to him as he led Mistress Fournier into a well-known country dance.

Lizette Fournier was light on her feet. Her delicate blue gown, with its frothy lace, reminded him of seafoam as it moved back and forth. Her eyes watched him as he turned and swayed along with her.

“You are a fine dancer, Master Butler,” she called as they drew closer. “I wonder that I have not seen you at some of our other gatherings.”

Butler waited until they were close again. “Regrettably, I have had little time for entertainment since I entered this fair city.”

“Really, I wonder what sort of business would keep an attractive man away from the very gatherings that allow men to make connections valuable in conducting a successful business.”

Butler nodded as they turned. “I have seen many of Philadelphia’s finest families represented here tonight, but not all business is conducted at a ball. The ladies expect better of us than to take time away from the festivities.”

“It would be a shame,” she agreed. “That’s why so many of our fine men slip away to the card tables so that they can drink and gossip with impunity.”

Butler laughed. “Is that how it is done? I will keep that in mind.” He bowed before her as the dance ended. “Perhaps I had best excuse myself and move to that room.” He moved swiftly before she could compel him to another dance. Fortunately, he had spotted the adjacent room set up for cards as they had moved across the dance floor.

Candelabras surrounded the group of square tables set up in an elegant room papered in blue and white toile print. Dark blue draperies partially drawn across the windows gave the room an intimate look. The windows were open to allow breezes inside and allow smoke from cigars and pipes to drift out into the night.

As he passed by the settee where Franklin was ensconced, he heard a giggle. He had been joined by a pretty young girl in a pale pink dress covered in bows. Butler watched as Franklin leaned over to kiss her cheek and chuckle heartily. Butler briefly wondered if he had been entrusted with the defense of an old lecher, but he saw nothing of concern from either Franklin or the girl as they sat talking. He moved to stand behind a chair close by.

Franklin basked in the attention of the young lady, her mama, and a few others as he shared a story about one of his experiments regarding electricity. “We soon discovered that lightning would strike the highest point in the vicinity in order to reach the ground, and,” he leaned over to whisper conspiratorially, “whatever it struck would explode as if shot from a cannon.” He leaned back and saw Butler. “Master Butler, could you find me some refreshment? Regrettably, my throat has gotten quite dry with the sharing of my scientific work.”

Butler shot Franklin a look. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Thank you, my good man.” He turned to the girl. “Now, my sweet Felicity, where were we?”

“You were about to tell us about attaching a key to your kite,” she replied. Chestnut brown curls were piled artfully on top her head while two or three large sausage-shaped ones drifted over her bare shoulder.

They had moved on to another of Franklin’s experiments by the time he returned. Butler handed him a frothy goblet and passed the other to the girl. Franklin drank deeply, draining the glass before setting it on a nearby table.

Butler smiled over at Franklin. “I believe I read that your son assisted you in many of your experiments.”

“William helped a great deal. He served as my assistant and recorder. He could be very useful when he chose.”

Felicity asked. “Where is your son now, Dr. Franklin?”

Franklin remained silent for several moments, his expression unreadable. “William is far away from me now.”

Butler left to get a drink for himself, pondering how two men once so close could grow so far apart. Avoiding the syllabub, which he found disgusting, Butler acquired a glass of wine and settled along a wall. Before long, he was joined by Frances Fournier, also with a glass of wine.

“It is a fine party, is it not mon ami?” Fournier’s glass was almost buried by the enormous cascade of ruffles flowing out from the cuffs of his jacket. The pale ivory of his waistcoat stood out in contrast to the blue of his suit. All were covered with embroidered roses that must have taken hours to produce. Fournier gazed with pride at the crowd filling his home. “My wife does an excellent job with these things.”

Butler nodded. “She seems very talented. You must be pleased to have such a beautiful and skilled lady at your side.”

Fournier nodded sagely. “She is a remarkable woman, my Lisette, and tolerant of my eccentricities.” He smiled expansively. “She will not notice if I slip away for a few hours with a like-minded friend.”

Butler wondered what Fournier was alluding to. There was very little a wealthy man could not discreetly do. “It is good she is an understanding woman,” he said at last.

“I have not seen you with the ladies, with the exception of my charming wife; perhaps you too prefer the company of men?”

The question was posed delicately.

Butler smiled to show he meant no judgment against his host. “I’m flattered you would ask, but that is not my interest. I lost my wife years ago and have no interest in forming an attachment with anyone.” He stepped back from the wall. “I think it best if I check on my companions before they take in too much of your well-stocked cellars. I wish you a pleasant evening.” He walked slowly into the crush, aware of the older man’s eyes on his back. Butler had no intention of commenting on his interests, although he suspected it was known in society. His mission was to protect Franklin, not judge other men’s choices.

Butler walked outside to clear his head. Strains of music drifted out into the shadowed garden, lit by a few scattered torches. A tall tree’s canopy provided a large dark space where one could shelter and not be disturbed. Butler stood beneath it, taking in the night air.

In the garden, whispers drifted across the ground. Young swains sputtered their affections to young ladies. A few men discussed an upcoming horse race on the edges of town the next day. One apparently was short of funds. Butler paid attention to that. A man desperate for money might be willing to share information for some coins.

A pair of women walked past. Their furtive glances caught his interest. Butler decided to follow. Gravel crunched under their feet as they walked swiftly away from the revealing light of torches that had been placed just outside the house. Butler kept to the shadows surrounding the fruit trees on the edge of the formal beds.

Within the raised beds, pale blossoms of flowers glowed in the shadowed garden. The waxing moon provided ample light to see the path. Butler listened to the hoot of an owl in the distance, warning smaller creatures that it was on the hunt. He watched as the women made for the pergola at the end of the main path. Painted white, it stood out in the darkness.

One of the women stopped as her skirt became caught in the boxwood edging one of the flower beds. As she bent to free it, Lisette Fournier whispered. “Hurry, it won’t be long before we are missed.”

Mistress Cranford rose. “I’m not tearing my skirt. The dressmaker delivered this yesterday.”

Butler lingered outside, concealed by trees and shrubs.

Fournier spoke first. “Has your husband revealed anything about where he stands in this conflict?”

Cranford’s voice sounded exasperated. “We are Quaker. He says we are neutral, but he meets with men like Franklin and George Clymer. He is angry at the threats the British have made. They imply that if he doesn’t support the King, he is a patriot even if he does nothing.”

Fournier nodded. “The British are of like mind. They have no use for pacifists.” She raised her head, looking at the sky. Her face was a pale oval, unreadable in the shadowed structure. “The British will come,” She said. “We need to prepare. Our husbands may choose to blindly ignore the danger, but we cannot. Our children depend on us to provide a future for them.”

“Elizabeth,” Lisette grasped her hand. “I realize this is difficult, but you can do this. Listen when he brings his associates home to dinner. Let me know what you hear; that is all you need to do.”

The other woman shook her head. “James won’t like it if I pry in his business. His family was disappointed he did not marry into a more affluent family. It has been better since Simeon was born. His father dotes on him and his sisters.”

“It is for your children you should do this. When the British come, they will take this town and punish anyone they believe sympathetic to the revolution.” Her voice deepened. “Men pay no attention to us, but we are necessary to their comfort and wellbeing. Therein lays your power. Be the perfect hostess and entertain your husband’s associates with loving kindness. They will speak and never realize you are present.”

Elizabeth Cranford drew in a breath. “This is a patriot stronghold. Do you really believe the British will come?”

“British Troops are gathering in New York, waiting for the right moment. It’s a matter of time before they march south.”

“But Washington,” Elizabeth began.

Lisette shook her head. “He works with militias: men of very little training and short commitment. My friends tell me they are not prepared to meet a professional army.”

Butler wondered who the lovely Lisette shared her information with.

“It’s time for us to return to the ball.” Lisette murmured. “I will call on you tomorrow, and you can let me know if James has expressed any opinions to his clients. I have heard that Master Hancock has met with him.”

Elizabeth nodded. “They have discussed business contracts. Master Hancock wants to expand where his ships go and find a way to avoid the British navy.”

Lisette snorted. “We’re all trying to avoid them, as well as the privateers that seek fat ships to loot.” She looked about before stepping out onto the pearly pale gravel that lined the garden’s walkways. Both women walked swiftly back toward the house, where the strains of a minuet drifted from the open windows. Butler watched them go, pondering what he had heard. Lisette Fournier was far more than a pretty woman. In the right hands, she could influence the course of the conflict here in Philadelphia. The question was, whose side was she really on? It might be possible to sway her to share intelligence in order to garner favor with the prevailing side. Butler recognized she could be a source of tremendous intelligence, but if he wasn’t careful, she could also be his doom.

Guest Post by Julie Bates author of Rise to Rebellion

Writing mysteries is not for the faint of heart. You spend your moments plotting nefarious crimes and horrific murders. While others peruse the latest celebrity cookbooks and bucolic gardening magazines, you have your nose stuck in The Poisoner’s Handbook pondering which would be the most plausible one to use for the criminal lurking deep within your imagination Even google searches appear suspect to say the least.

The most casual inspection of your computer’s cache displays endless research on how to hide a body, cleaning a crime scene and famous criminals to make local law enforcement blanch were they aware.

Crime writers lead a dangerous double life. Famous filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock once said “Make the audience suffer as much as possible.” In a nutshell, it is what all mystery writers aspire to do.

Will the hero survive to unmask the killer?

Is his/her romantic interest actually a clever psychopath?

Who had the most to gain or the most to hide?

These are the questions that drive a mystery. Solving the crime should not be easy. Nothing is more frustrating to an avid mystery reader more than figuring out the killer within the first few chapters of a story. Nor do we want to sit with our protagonist eating ice cream while the killer is out on a murderous rampage next door. We expect them to run about chasing clues and taking unimaginable risks while we curl up with our dog and drink cocoa on a dark rainy night.

A well written mystery satisfies the need for good to triumph over evil. While the real world exist in shades of gray where terrible events happen for no discernible reason there is comfort in a story where we know our heroine will triumph over the forces of evil. She can survive heartbreak, economic challenge and near death risks and come out stronger and wiser. In fiction, the villain is always caught, the hero and/heroine is safe from harm. If our hero believes tomorrow is going to be better, we can too. Somewhere, somehow a better day awaits.

Author of Rise to Rebellion — Julie Bates

Julie Bates enjoys reading and writing in a variety of genres.

After spending a few years writing freelance articles, her first novel Cry of the Innocent, premiered in June 2021, followed by A Seed of Betrayal in 2022. The Eight book series follows the timeline of the American Revolutionary War.

In addition, she has blogged for Killer Nashville and the educational website Read.Learn.Write. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Triangle Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Southeastern Mystery Writers of America (SEMWA) and The Historical Novel Society.

When not busy plotting her next story, she enjoys working in her garden, doing crafts and spending time with her husband and son, as well as a number of dogs and cats who have shown up on her doorstep and never left…

Learn more about Julie: juliebates.weebly.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @julibates1, Instagram – @juliebates72, Twitter/X – @JulieLBates03 & Facebook – @JulieBates.author

Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on April 11, 2024 00:01

April 8, 2024

Some Kind of Truth: A Thriller by Westley Smith

Some Kind of Truth, a mystery/thriller by Westley Smith

Excerpt + Book & Author Info + a Giveaway!
Don’t miss any blog tours, click the link here to read more!

Some Kind of Truth

A mysterious video. A cold case. A reporter hunting for answers to both.

Pittsburgh crime reporter, Steve James, returns home to find a mysterious package waiting outside his apartment door. At first, Steve fears the package could contain a deadly threat from a local mob boss pressuring him to retract his story, which helped put him behind bars. Instead, Steve finds a junior driver’s license belonging to Rebecca Ann Turner, a teenager who went missing from a party twenty-five years ago, and a USB flash drive containing a video of her murder.

Horrified by the contents inside the package, Steve is determined to find out what happened to Rebecca and why someone dragged him into uncovering this mystery. But as Steve sifts through the clues and weaves his way around those trying to prevent him from exposing the truth, he continues to struggle with personal issues stemming from his time as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, where he was filmed being tortured and nearly executed by the Taliban, making what happened to Rebecca all the more personal.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Published by: Wicked House Publishing
Publication Date: February 2, 2024
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781959798309 (ISBN10: 1959798308)

To purchase Some Kind of Truth, click any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE

The package was marked…

ATT: STEVE JAMES of the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE

…and wrapped in brown butcher’s paper as if it were a poor-man’s version of a Christmas present.

Steve had received anonymous packages before, some with leads to run down, others with incriminating evidence from a source he was working with. However, this package had not been delivered to the Pittsburgh Tribune like it should have been. It was left outside his apartment door.

Perplexed, Steve lifted the package, gingerly, from the floor. It was light and about six inches long by four inches wide. He shook it, but nothing moved inside.

He had not been expecting a delivery, certainly not one to his home by an anonymous person. His guts tightened into an uncomfortable, disconcerting knot. Turning, he looked down the hallway, to where the back stairwell led out to the rear entrance of the apartment building. Sunlight shone through the single window at the end of the hall and cut a sharp blade-like angle of light onto the floor. Dust particles floated in the air as if recently disturbed – maybe by the deliverer of the package.

Someone could have gotten into the building by the rear entrance, made their way up to Steve’s apartment, dropped the package by his door, and slipped back out before anyone noticed. He did not live in one of the new high-rises being built around Pittsburgh – apartments that came with all the security bells and whistles – but rather an old turn of the century building on the lower east side of Pittsburgh. The rent was cheap, and the landlord damn-near nonexistent, especially when it came to the safety and upkeep of the building. It was what Steve could afford on a reporter’s salary.

He looked back at the parcel in his hands. The sense of unease continued to coil his stomach. Was he being targeted like reporters after 9/11, with anthrax-sealed packages delivered to their homes and offices? Possibly.

The fact that his article “MOB IN PITTSBURGH” had helped put Anthony Palazzo, a local money launderer affiliated with the New York-based DeLuca Crime Organization, behind bars could have something to do with the mysterious package outside his door that afternoon. Again, he wondered what was inside and cautiously shook it, like a kid trying to figure out the present under the wrapping on their birthday.

Nothing moved, nothing rattled inside.

Steve knew he should leave the package alone; place it back on the floor where he found it, call the police, and have them look at it first. That was the smart thing to do. The right thing to do. There could be anything inside meant to bring him harm, especially nowadays, when reporters were being unfairly besieged for spreading false information to the public.

Against his better judgment, Steve forced the apprehension away like a fly at a picnic, tucked the bundle under his left arm, fished his keys from his jacket pocket, and opened the apartment door.

Once inside, he closed the door and peered through the peephole to the hallway. Still, the hall was empty, and no one passed by. Again, he felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle, and the hairs stand on end with nervousness.

Why was the package left and what was inside? Steve wondered.

Turning away from the door, he moved into the kitchen. He placed his laptop bag on the counter beside his keys, then removed a Zippo lighter and a pack of cigarettes and placed them beside the laptop bag. He put the brown package beside his things. It looked odd on the countertop, as if it were some evil present that had been left at his home – a gift from Satan himself.

There was nothing out of the ordinary with its appearance. Other than the handwritten address, there were no other identifiable words or labels on the outside. Gooseflesh rose across Steve’s body. Whoever delivered the package knew who he was, where he worked, and where he lived.

Normally, Steve had all large packages sent to the Tribune’s mailroom. He didn’t trust his landlord, Horace Baker. The slimeball charged an extra ten dollars a month to hold deliveries larger than what could fit into the small gold mailboxes in the lobby. He called it a ‘holding charge.’ Steve was sure it was illegal, a scheme to get more money from the tenants.

Steve was not about to pay the extra money. He had heard stories from others in the building that when they received their packages some were opened, searched, and sometimes things were missing. Of course, Baker claimed it was how the parcels arrived.

This particular package, sitting ominously on his countertop, should never have made it to his floor.

Or maybe it IS from Palazzo, Steve thought. It could have been a scare tactic to get Steve to retract his story, setting Palazzo free from prison, while simultaneously clearing the DeLuca Family of any wrongdoing. For all Steve knew, there could be a small explosive inside the box, just big enough to rattle his cage but not kill him. Or, if they wanted to get the job over with, they could have laced it with anthrax, just like reporters received after 9/11.

Yet, he wasn’t so sure Palazzo or the DeLuca Family were ready to make that kind of move against him. At the moment, Palazzo and the DeLuca Family were letting their mob lawyers handle the process through the courts with a defamation and source exposure lawsuit on Steve and the Pittsburgh Tribune.

No, Steve was confident it was delivered by someone else. But who? And more importantly, why?

He pulled a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey from the cupboard along with a small glass and poured himself a healthy snort.

Just to quiet the demons, Steve thought bitterly, taking a swig. Just to quiet the demons.

He studied the package while swirling the brown liquor around in the glass, knowing he should leave it alone and call the police. But intrigue was sinking its fangs into his mind, poisoning his thoughts with fantasies of what dwelled inside its dark recesses.

Someone knew Steve well enough to know he could never leave a mystery alone. He thumbed one of the cigarettes out of the box, popped it into his mouth and lit it with the Zippo lighter. He inhaled deeply. Smoke filled his lungs. Calmed his nerves. Helped him think straight – so he thought.

What’s inside? a shadowy voice spoke from the alcoves of Steve’s mind, pulling him from his reverie. He could not argue with this strange, archaic voice. He desperately wanted to know what was inside the package. Taking a long drag on the cigarette, he let the smoke out slowly between his teeth with a low sssss.

What to do? What to do?

There was only one thing to do.

Setting the cigarette in the ashtray, Steve picked the package up. He felt that familiar chill of disquiet crawl over him, like cold skeleton fingers walking up his spine, vertebra by vertebra.

“Enough of this guessing-game shit,” Steve said and tore the heavy brown paper away, exposing a white box underneath which resembled something a pastry would come in. The lid was sealed shut with a single piece of Scotch Tape.

Steve knew no one would send him sweets – maybe anthrax, maybe a bomb, but certainly not sweets. In a career that spanned more than twenty years as a crime reporter for the Tribune, Steve had made more enemies, like Anthony Palazzo, than friends. Such was the life, he supposed.

He peeled the Scotch Tape from the box and then lifted the lid slowly, as if a venomous snake were about to spring out and bury its sharp fangs into his face. With the box lid cracked, he peered inside.

Instead of finding something harmful, the box contained a USB Flash Drive secured in white tissue paper. Two words were handwritten on the front of the flash drive in black magic marker:/p>

PLAY ME!

Steve frowned. Why would someone send him a flash drive anonymously? Did it have something to do with the Palazzo story he’d spent the better part of two years working on? Some missing information that would, without a shadow of a doubt, ensure that Palazzo stayed behind bars for the rest of his life?

Or was it something unrelated?

Steve didn’t know.

Then he noticed the USB was not the only item inside the box.

Tucked beside the flash drive was a small piece of white plastic. Removing the plastic from the box, Steve found it was about the size of a credit card and coated with a reddish-brown dirt. He rubbed his fingertips together feeling a gritty dust, like a fine sand. Turning the card over revealed it was a Pennsylvania Junior Driver’s License issued to a Rebecca Ann Turner of 428 Water Street, Abbottstown Pennsylvania. Her birthdate was 10/02/1982. The issue date on the card was 11/23/1998 — twenty-six years ago. The top right-hand corner, where the expiration date should have been, was broken, the plastic chipped away, forever lost to time, leaving a jagged edge that looked sharp enough to slice through flesh.

The driver’s license photo of Rebecca Turner showed an attractive sixteen-year-old girl with blonde hair and bright blue eyes that sparkled with life. Her face was long, narrow, and innocent, holding the optimism of youth. Her beaming smile radiated from the picture, enhancing her natural beauty and charm. According to the driver’s license, Rebecca was born in 1982, which would make her forty-two years old now. But Steve got the sickening feeling that Rebecca did not live to see her forty-second birthday.

He looked back to the flash drive resting inside the box. He was unsure how the driver’s license and the USB were connected, but he was certain they were, or they would not have been delivered together.

What’s on the flash drive? Steve wondered anxiously. His heart began to race, and his palms grew moist with sweat. A horrible notion rushed through his mind that something awful had happened to Rebecca Turner, something the USB would ultimately reveal.

“H-holy shit,” he said aloud; the shudder in his voice surprised him. Someone wants you to find out what happened to this young lady, Steve ol’ Boy, and expose the truth.

Reaching for the cigarette in the ashtray, he brought it to his lips and inhaled. The smoke settled on his lungs with a comfortable bite that he relished.

He looked back to the box; his eyes lingered on its contents. Possible scenarios played across his mind as to why someone would want him involved. But none of these thoughts made much sense at the moment.

Steve took another drag and stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. He had smoked it down to the filter as he often did; a haze of heavy, thick smoke hovered around the ceiling. He picked up the glass of whiskey and finished it in one swallow, and then poured himself another – three fingers worth this time. His mouth had gone bone dry, but he wasn’t sure another shot – even three fingers worth – would wet his whistle.

The demons inside were growing, and Steve needed to calm them. Or, at least, he continued to tell himself that on a nightly basis.

Warily, he lifted the USB from the box. Dare he view whatever was on it, or call the police and let them handle the situation?

He shook the thought off. His reporter instinct had taken over. He needed to know what was on the USB, how it connected with the girl on the junior driver’s license, and why he was chosen to unravel this mystery before going to the police.

***

Trailer for Some Kind of Truth

Westley Smith, Author of Some Kind of Truth

Westley Smith had his first short story, Off to War, published when he was just sixteen. Recently, he has had short stories featured in On the Premise, Unveiling Nightmares, and Crystal Lake Entertainment.

He was the runner-up contestant in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s “Mysterious Photograph Contest,” where his name was featured in the magazine.

He sold his debut thriller, Some Kind of Truth, to Wicked House Publishing, it was released on February 2nd, 2024.

Find out more about Westley by clicking any of the following links: Goodreads, Instagram, Facebook.

Visit all the Stops on the Tour

Some Kind of Truth

04/08 Showcase @ The Mystery of Writing

04/10 Review @ Country Mamas With Kids

04/12 Review @ Stormy Nights Reviewing & Bloggin

04/15 Guest post @ Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense

04/16 Showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea

04/17 Book Talk with Fran Lewis Radio Interview

04/17 Review @ Just Reviews

04/18 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS

04/19 Review @ Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books!

04/20 Review @ Elicias Book Haven

04/21 Review @ tea. and. titles

04/23 Interview @ Hott Books

04/24 Review @ Novels Alive

04/25 Review @ @ mokwip8991

04/25 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews

04/26 Review @ Why Not? Because I Said So Book Reviews

04/27 Review @ Confessions of the Perfect Mom

04/29 Review @ Guatemala Paula Loves to Read

04/30 Guest post @ julzreads

05/01 Review @ julzreads

05/02 Review @ aratecla_the_bookrat

05/02 Review @ fuonlyknew

05/03 Review @ Melissa As Blog

07/12 Mysteries to Die For: Toe Tags Podcast

Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on April 08, 2024 00:01

April 7, 2024

Tall Tales of Alaska: The Red Dog Saloon

Tall Tales of Alaska: The Red Dog Saloon

Book & Author & Illustrator Info + Link to the SeriesFind more books! Click the link here.Tall Tales of Alaska: The Red Dog Saloon

Red Dog Saloon

Delve into the vibrant history of Alaska’s legendary Red Dog Saloon, a captivating destination nestled among the picturesque landscapes of Juneau. In this intriguing compilation of short stories, Tall Tales of Alaska The Red Dog Saloon: Stories of the Gold Rush & More, readers will embark on a thrilling journey through time, uncovering the captivating stories and historical moments that have made this iconic bar a magnet for curious travelers.

Within the pages of this book, you will be transported to the heart of Juneau, where the Red Dog Saloon has stood as a witness to both the wild days of the gold rush and the evolution of a vibrant, modern tourist destination. Each tale reveals a different facet of the Red Dog’s rich tapestry from its humble beginnings as a rowdy watering hole for prospectors to its transformation into a renowned music venue that has welcomed a variety of entertaining characters to amuse the saloons patrons.

Whether you’re a history enthusiast seeking to uncover the hidden gems of Alaska or a curious cruise ship traveler preparing for an unforgettable cruise ship experience, Tall Tales of Alaska The Red Dog Saloon: Stories of the Gold Rush & More, will ignite your imagination and leave you yearning to explore the historic depths of Juneau’s iconic Red Dog Saloon.

The Red Dog

Read About:

The Kodiak Grizzly bear, the world’s largest brown bearThe Duck Fart, a famous Alaskan shooterBlack Mary, one of Juneau’s first madamsPhineas Poon, one of the famous entertainers from the Red Dog SaloonThe Birdman of Alcatraz, an infamous criminal from AlaskaWyatt Earp, the quick trigger sheriff who helped tame the westTo purchase Tall Tales of Alaska, click the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords & Books2readThe Author of Tall Tales of Alaska: The Red Dog Saloon — W.R. Kozey

Tall Tales of Alaska W.R. Kozey was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, but has spent most of his adult life on the move. In 2017, W.R. met his wife abroad, and they spent the first four years of their relationship in transit. Every winter they’d find a new place to live: Mexico, Peru, Thailand, India, but Juneau would always be home.

W.R. and his wife would come back to Alaska’s capital in the summer time to work seasonally while the cruise ships were in port. However, during the pandemic, they made Juneau their permanent home, purchasing their house in the shadows of the Mendenhall Glacier.

Since the two settled down, W.R. has gone back to school, graduating with his Master’s degree and pursuing a PhD. During his studies, W.R. taught in a variety of disciplines including public health, history, and English composition. He enjoys all the courses he’s taught, English composition being his favorite, but he would like to eventually transition to Creative Writing.

Besides teaching, W.R. has moonlit as a curriculum developer, platform development specialist, and data liaison for research institutions as well as the state. But, if you ask him, his favorite side gig is bartending. It was bartending that helped him travel the world; helped him learn the craft of story telling; and it was the source of his inspiration for his first book: Tall Tales of Alaska: The Red Dog Saloon.

The Illustrator of Tall Tales of Alaska: The Red Dog SaloonSam Grubitz

Tall Tales of Alaska Sam Grubitz was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and graduated from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design.Grubitz works for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska where he manages the tribally owned screen-printing shop which specializes in screen-printing, embroidery, and laser engraving. He also owns a small business called Screens and Machines which is his brick and mortar, graphic, web, and print shop in Juneau, Alaska.

He chased a wonderful Indigenous Tlingit woman who is now his wife up to Juneau after they met in college. Grubitz loves to paint, draw and create all types of graphic art and is always eager for a new project. He has done several print runs for charitable causes including a Rossville, Kansas 5k run to support college scholarships, and many local projects for various businesses.

Grubitz also produces an Indigenous podcast called “Opening the Box of Knowledge,” which stars the President of Tlingit & Haida and conducts meaningful, uplifting and humorous interviews with native American artists, musicians, and politicians. Some of their guests have included Mary Peltola, Portugal the Man, as well as writers and actors from the hit series Reservation Dogs and Molly of Denali.

April 5, 2024

The Coldest Case: Cover Reveal

The Coldest Case by Tessa Wegert

Cover Reveal + Book & Author Info

News of a missing Instagram celebrity brings Senior Investigator Shana Merchant to a frozen island community of just eight people. When the visit turns deadly, her hunt for a killer collides with a cold case she’ll never forget . . .

It’s February in the Thousand Islands and, cut off from civilization by endless ice, eight people are overwintering on tiny, remote Running Pine. Six year-rounders, used to the hard work, isolation, an

d freezing temperatures . . . and two newcomers: social-media stars Cary and Sylvie, whose account documenting their year on the island is garnering thousands of followers, and thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury gifts.

The long-term islanders will tell you Running Pine can be perilous – especially for city slickers who’ll do anything to get the perfect shot. So when Cary doesn’t return from ice fishing one morning, his neighbors fear the worst.

With the clock ticking to find the missing influencer, a police team are dispatched to take the perilous journey to the island . . . but Sylvie, his frantic partner, will only talk to one person: newlywed Senior Investigator Shana Merchant.

Where is Cary – and what is it that Sylvie’s not sharing? With aspects of the case reminding Shana of an unsolved homicide from her past that haunts her still, she risks her own safety to help. But little does she know that a storm is coming – and if she doesn’t solve both crimes soon, she may become the island’s next victim . . .

To pre-purchase The Coldest Case, click here: AmazonTo add The Coldest Case to Goodreads, click here Read my review of Dead Wind !Tessa Wegert — Author of The Coldest Case

The Coldest Case

Tessa Wegert is the author of the popular Shana Merchant crime novels, which include Death in the Family (a Book Riot Best Locked Room Mystery), The Dead Season (“Deliciously twisty”—Bookreporter), Dead Wind (“Standout crime thriller”—Publishers Weekly starred review), The Kind to Kill (a Strand Magazine Top Mystery Novel), and Devils at the Door (“Extremely well-written”—Booklist).

To learn more about Tessa, including social media links: Click here.

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Published on April 05, 2024 00:01

April 4, 2024

The Big Lie: A Shane Cleary Mystery

The Big Lie: A Shane Cleary Mystery by Gabriel Valjan

Guest Post + Excerpt + Book & Author Info + A Giveaway!
Don’t miss any blog tour posts! Click the link here.

The Big Lie by Gabriel Valjan

A Shane Cleary Mystery
LOST: Poodle. Standard. Black. Studded collar. No tags. Goes by the name of Boo.

Sun Tzu may have said, ‘Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer,’ but he didn’t live in Boston, and he’s not Shane Cleary. Shane’s latest and most unexpected client, while not quite an enemy, is Southie’s most dangerous criminal. Everything screams he shouldn’t take the gig, finding the gangster’s lost dog, but Shane can’t resist the promised ‘bonus.’

His cat, Delilah, is against it, and his girlfriend, Bonnie, the lawyer, doesn’t know.

Life is neither easy nor simple for Shane. Bonnie asks for his help on a pro bono case, his friend Bill requests a sketchy background check, and a mafia henchman makes a peculiar request. Shane can’t help but think his client just might kill him anyway after he finishes the job.

Does Jimmy know a Truth that will change Shane’s life, or is it a Big Lie?

Praise for THE BIG LIE:

“Gabriel Valjan writes in a voice not heard since the golden days of the noir novel. His tough characters—good guys, bad guys, and confused folks just caught in the whirlwind—sparkle like the facets of a dark jewel, and his images linger in the mind after the book’s long over.”
~ SJ Rozan, best-selling author of THE MAYORS OF NEW YORK

“If Raymond Chandler were alive today, this is the story he’d write: Great characters, a noir-ish plot that never flags, writing that sizzles, and a relevant tale of the ways in which justice is, sadly, not blind.”
~ Mally Becker, Agatha nominated author of THE TURNCOAT’S WIDOW

“Whip-smart, pacy, and full of curves. A worthy addition to the PI oeuvre.”
~ Colin Campbell, Acclaimed author of the Jim Grant thrillers

“When you begin a crime novel with PI Shane Cleary getting hired by a gangster to find a stolen pooch, a standard poodle named Boo, there are several ways you can go, and most of them are downhill. Fortunately, Gabriel Valjan is at the helm of THE BIG LIE, which guarantees it heads in the right direction. Up. The dialogue is snappy, the retorts witty, and along the way we meet a host of unforgettable characters–hey, it’s Boston, what else would you expect?”
~ Charles Salzberg is the award-winning and Shamus Award nominated author of SECOND STORY MAN, CANARY IN THE COAL MINE and the Henry Swann series

Book Details:

Genre: Hardboiled Detective Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: March 2024
Number of Pages: 175
ISBN: 978-1685125301
Series: A Shane Cleary Mystery, Book 5

To purchase A Big Lie, click the following link: Amazon.

The Big Lie

Read an excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE:
BROTHER RAT

“A dog? You want me to find a dog?”

“That’s right.”

The head lifted, and eyes the color of Windex evaluated me. The slice of light from the streetlamp through the curtains behind him revealed a revolver on the armrest and a pair of pliers in one hand, which he squeezed to strengthen his grip. He used them to extract teeth from his victims. Whether he did it when they were alive or dead added to the legend and menace of Southie’s most infamous son. Another man stood near him.

I’m told life serves you the same lesson over and over until you learn what you need to learn before the next thing comes along. I’ve also been told that karma never forgets an address. Jimmy was proof of both. He almost killed me but didn’t. I should’ve killed him, but I couldn’t because he was protected, and not by the mob. A stained badge shielded the man sitting in my chair, in my apartment in Union Park.

My landlady had called me at Bonnie’s place. She told me I had visitors, and they wanted a word with me. She said Jimmy made a point to pet her two Corgis and offered her some advice. The thug recommended a brand of dog food so her dogs wouldn’t gain more weight. He emphasized canine physical fitness, which was pure Jimmy since he was a fitness nut.

Jimmy had muscles because like most of the young lions in Southie, he lifted weights. He sported a veined neck, muscular arms, and a thick chest trapped inside a tight polo shirt. I knew if I couldn’t take him, I was confident he’d feel me for days. We both weighed about 165 pounds, but I had a smidge more height to his five-eight. I had one more advantage over Jimmy, I could stand my ground and take a hit. Jimmy, like most jockeys of the weight room, walked around with toothpicks for legs because he neglected to train them. His pant leg rode high enough for me to eyeball pasty shins, black socks, and sneakers. No ankle piece there.

I read the room as I came in. The situation would play out in one of two ways. One is someone pulled a trigger, and my last thought was either part of the hardwood floor or, my brains were spaghetti against the wall and ceiling. The second option was I lived, forced to listen and learn how to avoid the same situation again. Like I said, a lesson in life and karma.

Jimmy murmured something to his bodyguard. It was low and slow, the kind of soft and secretive Irish whisper you’d expect in a bar’s last hour. I assumed he’d told his man to wait outside because the guy moved past me. The door to my apartment opened and closed. I didn’t see his face but caught a glimpse of the feet. Construction boots.

The pair of pliers indicated the chair near me. “Sit.”

“I prefer to stand.”

“Suit yourself.”

I peeled my jacket off, so he’d know I was armed. His eyes admired the holster. I knew what he was going to say, so I said it before he did. “Same rig as Steve McQueen in Bullitt.”

“Cross-draw don’t seem bright or effective.”

“Want to test me?”

His right hand pulsed with the pliers. A blued steel .357 slept on the left armrest of my favorite chair. His choice of firearm was an older model, not the kind Dirty Harry would carry, but it got the job done. Jimmy was right-handed, but that wasn’t the point. His eyes flashed, as a way to taunt me, and then focused. “Nah, I don’t feel lucky today, and all I want is for you to find my dog.”

“On second thought,” I said, “I think I’ll take that seat.”

“Excellent, we can have a civilized conversation then.”

I get all kinds of crazy for clients because my retainer and daily rates are reasonable. Paranoid businessmen hire me because they suspect a partner or a favorite employee is a thief. Neurotic spouses hire me because they see a frequent-flyer for a phone number on the bill from Ma Bell, or odd charges on their dearly beloved’s statement from American Express. Bonnie told me family law was the worst, and I agreed, but it pays the bills.

I’ve listened to more sob stories and provided more free advice than Ann Landers. In short, I’ve handled embezzlement, fraud, infidelity, and on occasion, missing persons, in addition to arson, murder, and narcotics. But this pitch to find a canine—a variation on a missing person or property—was new.

Jimmy, who didn’t like to be called Jimmy, was an extortionist, a murderer, and South Boston’s premier gangster, so it was hard for me to picture him heartsick over the absence of man’s best friend.

He said, “Don’t you have a cat?”

“Delilah.”

“Delilah, that’s right. You would be upset if she went missing, wouldn’t you?” His hand waved, pliers and all. “There’s a name…Delilah, as in Samson and Delilah. A female dog is called a bitch, but I never did learn what they called a female cat.”

“A molly.”

“You know, I’ve never cared for cats. Loyalty issues, moody and temperamental.”

“Rather ironic coming from you. Cats are excellent judges of character.”

“And what do you think your Delilah would say about me, if she could talk?”

“You wouldn’t want to know. Can we wrap this up?”

Delilah, he didn’t know, could talk. Sort of. She blinked once for Yes, twice for No, and meows were extra for emphasis. If she’d seen Jimmy now, she’d turn banshee and caterwaul profanities.

“You want me to find a dog?”

“A dog.”

“Your dog?”

“My dog.”

Jimmy had never been talky, or loud, but he commanded every room he was in with an unnerving silence. He neither drank nor smoked or used drugs. His mother was alive, and he looked after her like a doting son. His brother was successful on the other side of the tracks, in politics, and Jimmy went out of his way not to cast a shadow on frater eius.

“I’m aware that Shane Cleary doesn’t need my money. I know he does all right as a landlord for his Greek friend, with steady income from tenants, and this PI thing is something he does for kicks, to try to make life interesting.”

Those blue eyes sparkled in that truant light while he talked about me.

“Are you suggesting all that could vanish if I don’t take the case?”

“Not at all,” he said. “All I’m saying is I know things about you; things you might not know about yourself, things like personal history, and I don’t mean your falling out with the Boston Police Department.”

“Good to know, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“You were too good for them, like you’re too good to work for that dago in the North End.”

“And there it is. I earn my money, and you know it, Jimmy.”

“Yeah, you do. I had to say it before you tell me my money is no good.”

“Money makes the world go round,” I added.

“That’s right. Money does, and it’s all-American as apple pie.”

“I know your story, and you say you know mine. What if I don’t care what you know?”

“I do, and you will care about what I know. Speaking of I do, how come you haven’t asked that lawyer broad you’ve been seeing to marry you?”

“She doesn’t believe in marriage, and none of your business.”

Jimmy was a career criminal, and not someone I would associate with domesticity. Women close to him have disappeared, and yet there was little to nothing in his jacket for other misdeeds, thanks to his agent friend. Any priors going back to his teen years—like larceny, a spatter of robberies with a dash of assault and battery—was smoke on the water.

“Work this one case for me, Shane. It’s all I ask. I’ll pay you your rate and throw in the personal history as a bonus, if you’ll find my dog.”

“Personal history?”

“You haven’t read or seen it. Trust me, this is something you don’t know.”

“You said it yourself. I don’t need the money. As for your teaser about history …what if I don’t care?”

He stared at me. He was Windex and I was dirty glass.

“You will, I promise. That’s your problem in life, Shane Cleary. You care, and this one time, Jimmy is gonna set you straight.”

Jimmy was volatile as a bucket of gasoline, he liked to test boundaries. All he needed was fumes and a lit match. Like the time someone called him Old Blue Eyes in one of the taverns on Broadway. The poor souse probably meant it as a compliment after one too many beers. Jimmy didn’t see it that way. He especially hated Sinatra, the way he detested all Italians, so he stomped the guy’s face in.

His eyes glanced down at the weapon under my arm. The holster was such that the gun pointed up at the armpit. His eyes met mine. “Did you know my old man lost an arm? Crushed between two rail cars. You would’ve liked him, Shane. He was a quiet, proud man, what we would call socially conscientious today He’d clerk here and there at the Naval Yard, but he never worked a full-time job after he lost that arm.”

“Tough break.”

“Our fathers had something in common.”

Being Irish was my first thought, but I waited for it through tight teeth. I wanted to punch him in the face for making any comparison between us. I thought, I should’ve killed him when I had the chance. I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, either.

“We’re alike, you and I,” he said.

“First the teaser and now, flattery. I’ll bite. How do you figure we’re similar?”

“We’re both damaged. You came home from the war changed, like your old man.”

I couldn’t resist. “I went to Vietnam. What’s your excuse?”

That made him smile and say, “Know how we’re alike?”

“Don’t know, Jimmy. Maybe, some people would call us rats: me for my time with the BPD and you, well, you know.”

His face didn’t flinch or register emotion.

“We’re alike because we both believe we’re doing the right thing.”

I waited for the rationalization, how what he was doing with the FBI helped South Boston, his people, the maligned Irish. Jimmy was a psychopath, and his line of thinking was a special aisle at Toys “R” Us.

“I’m doing my part to clear this town of those wop bastards. No different from you cleaning the stables at the Station House, like when you testified against that crooked cop.”

“People within the department were crooked, Jimmy. He killed a black kid and staged the scene. There’s a difference.”

“‘Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto.’ Say what you will. Call me an informant. A snitch. Call me a rodent with whiskers and sharp teeth, but go look in the mirror, and tell me what you see, Brother Rat. Tell me how we’re not alike.”

“For starts, I was an only child. You weren’t.”

“You’re right. My brother, the smart one, helped me as best he could, like that teacher, that professor helped you.” He snapped his fingers. “What was his name?”

“Lindsey. Delano Lindsey.”

“Did you know I taught myself the classics? I did it, with a library card. See, we’re both strong on initiative and self-education. You look to me like you’re a man hot for Shakespeare. I bet you can quote something from the Bard. How ’bout it?”

“‘The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.’ Lear.”

Jim wagged a finger. “That’s good, but let’s talk shop now.”

“Talk about your dog?”

“No, personal history. Your old man went the way of Hemingway, didn’t he?”

My blood rose. Several long seconds died between us, about the amount of time it took for one of Ray Guy’s punts to land downfield.

“I’ll let you in on something you didn’t know about the day he did a Hemingway.”

Through clenched teeth, I told him, “I know all I need to know about my father, thanks.”

“Do you? ‘To you your father should be as a god.’ Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Jimmy rose and took his jacket. He dropped the pliers into a pocket and hung the jacket over his left arm. He inserted the gun into his waistband behind him. I sat there numb, confused, and intrigued. He said his man was outside, waiting in the car. Jimmy drove a black Mercury Grand Marquis.

He reached the door when, against my better judgment, I asked the question that betrayed my interest in the bait, his lure about personal history, “Where was the last place you saw the dog?”

“Roxbury. Dog groomer.”

Jim rattled off the address while my mind tried to picture him dropping off his pet in the black section of town. I had to ask him. “This dog have a name?”

“Boo.”

“As in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“Righto.”

“One last thing,” I said. “Breed?”

“Poodle. Standard. Black. Studded collar. No tags.”

***

The Big Lie — Guest Post from Gabriel Valjan

Tell us about the evolution of this book. How many drafts from start to finish? What is the editing process like for you?

The way I start a novel varies. There are times when a line of dialog floats up in my brain; other times, it is an image. When you’ve written five books with a main character like I have, you know your character’s way of seeing the world and how they use language. THE BIG LIE is the fifth Shane Cleary mystery, and it opens with:

“A dog? You want me to find a dog?”

A reader who doesn’t know Shane might sense an incredulous tone, and rightfully so, but it deepens as the scene unfolds because the man hiring Shane to find said dog had once tried to kill Shane. The reader learns that the dog is a standard poodle, not a breed one would associate with a mercurial killer. Dialog and Image have become a deadly ‘you shouldn’t laugh but you smile’ meet-cute.

The challenge for any writer is to get what is inside their head onto the page. That it works is a function of revision and editing. The first go at writing is to get everything on the page. Type words like Jackson Pollock threw paint. Get it all on the canvas, and sort it out later.

I am a ruthless editor. If I can say it in three words instead of ten, then seven words go inside the body bag. My reasoning is two-fold: I value my reader’s time. Anything extra is a potential distraction, especially when readers are looking for clues. I’m aware of attention spans and the competition an author has for eyeballs. Paragraph after paragraph of description may showcase lyricism but the reader may lose sight of the mystery, and the story will lag for momentum, and the stakes in the puzzle pieces of a mystery will appear to the reader as weak and not worth their time. I write to the bone because it’s a narrative strategy.

I write so that every word and every sentence serves a purpose.

The bane of every writer’s existence with the finished novel before it goes to press is missing words, repeated words, or gasp, it all sounded great in my head but awful when read aloud. To solve this problem, I use Microsoft’s Read Aloud feature. This is a feature that fellow writer and fellow Criminal Minds blog colleague Jim Ziskin told me about. Microsoft Word allows you to pick a male or female reader to read your work to you. The idea is you follow along with what is heard in the ears and match it to words on the screen. Gremlins begone, and it’s as close as you’ll get to an audiobook of your own work, outside of a professional studio. Read Aloud has spared me considerable embarrassment, so thank you, Jim.

Gabriel Valjan — Author of The Big Lie

The Big Lie

Gabriel Valjan is the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, Silver Falchion and Shamus nominated author of the Shane Cleary mystery series with Level Best Books.

He received the 2021 Macavity Award for Best Short Story. Gabriel is a member of ITW, MWA, and Sisters in Crime. He is a regular contributor to the Criminal Minds blog. He lives in Boston’s South End and answers to a tuxedo cat named Munchkin.

To learn more about Gabriel, click on any of the following links: Website, Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook.

Visit all the Tours on the Stops!

The Big Lie

03/12 Review @ Country Mamas With Kids
03/13 Guest post @ Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense
03/14 Showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
03/16 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
03/20 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS
03/21 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
03/22 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
03/22 Podcast reading of the excerpt @ Books to the Ceiling
03/23 Showcase @ Silvers Reviews
03/25 Review @ dianas_books_cars_coffee
03/27 Interview @ darciahelle
03/29 Review @ Novels Alive
03/31 Showcase @ The Mystery Section
04/01 Review @ elaine_sapp65
04/02 Review @ fuonlyknew
04/03 Review @ 5 Minutes for Books
04/04 Guest post @ The Mystery of Writing
04/05 Showcase @ Teatime and Books

Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on April 04, 2024 00:01

April 3, 2024

For Worse: A Debut Thriller

For Worse, a debut thriller by L.K. Bowen

Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!Don’t miss any debut author interviews, click the link here for more.For Worse by L.K. Bowen

Wait Until Dark meets Gone Girl in For Worse, a debut thriller that pulls the reader deep into a dark web of sinister plots for marital revenge.

Ellie is leaving her husband … again.

After twenty-two years of marriage and an unsuccessful separation, she can’t take it anymore. On the surface, she has a picture-perfect relationship. Jeff has been a steadfast spouse. But what seems like loyalty is in reality an obsessive desire for control. Ellie is slowly losing her sight, which means she needs more and more assistance, and Jeff will stop at nothing to ensure she feels helpless and reliant on him alone.

Determined to escape her psychologically abusive marriage, Ellie turns to an online chat room full of like-minded women in the throes of divorce. Despite their anonymity, these women quickly become Ellie’s closest confidantes. The chat room is a refuge, a place to which Ellie can retreat for solace and support.

Jeff continues to be manipulative and cruel, using Ellie’s failing vision to gaslight her into questioning reality itself. Desperate for freedom, she sinks deeper into the online world and is drawn into the dark web, where she discovers a group of women with a shocking solution for ending a marriage.

To purchase For Worse click any of the following links: Amazon, Target, BAM, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Audible, Indigo, and Blackstone PublishingInterview with L.K. Bowen, the Author of For WorseFor Worse centers on Ellie, who is in a psychologically abusive marriage. Tell us about Ellie and how she has navigated twenty-two years in that situation:

Like a lot of women, Ellie stayed in her unhappy marriage to Jeff because she didn’t want to put their daughter, Hannah, through the disruption of a divorce.

As Ellie puts it, she didn’t see how she could say to Hannah, I can’t live with him, but you have to (at least every other week, or whatever the custody arrangement might be). Throughout the book, Ellie gives hints as to how she managed in her marriage; one of her ploys was imagining that her pleasant, respectful workplace was her home, and her home was the office where she had a demanding, never-satisfied boss.

My personal favorite coping strategy is the Phantom Husband, that perfect partner that she conjures up whenever Jeff gets too obnoxious. She acknowledge the things that she loved about Jeff, his humor, their shared musical tastes, their joy over Hannah, and she tried to cling to those things as best she could. But she says at one point, when the ratio of good times to bad times goes from 80/20 to 20/80, it’s intolerable.

In For Worse, Ellie is also losing her sight to retinitis pigmentosa, which you share with your protagonist. Describe that condition and why you chose to write that challenge that you face into her:

Retinitis pigmentosa, or rp, is a degenerative retinal disease that gradually destroys peripheral and night or low-light vision. It has a wide range of degeneration: some people are blind by age 20, and then there are people like me–and Ellie–who are well past 50 and still have about five to ten degrees of usable central vision in broad daylight.

Most typically sighted people have about sixty degrees of central vision, and then they have their peripheral vision for the sides and above and below. When people say, “I saw it out of the corner of my eye,” they mean their peripheral vision, which you really do need to get around and certainly to drive. I struggled with the idea of giving Ellie rp, but I knew I couldn’t write about a non-disabled person and I also knew that giving her the inability to drive would make her even more trapped in her marriage.

Once I accepted that she had what I have, everything opened up in terms of her personality and her situation. I felt an enormous freedom to finally really express how I feel about going blind, and what life is like as a vision impaired person.

We would love to hear about your road to publication with your debut, For Worse:

I had a crazy road to publication. I have a good friend, Sarah Skilton, who’s published seven wonderful novels–check out Fame Adjacent and the hilarious Ghosting: A Love Story–and I told her about my ideas for For Worse from the very beginning.

She was immediately a huge fan (“obsessed,” was her actual word). It took me years to write it and I’d pass her pages every few months and she was incredibly supportive and enthusiastic, so much so that when it was done, she offered to see if her agent would be interested in repping it. Her agent was, and took me on as a client, and gave me some incredible notes that made the novel so much better.

Then we took it to market and Blackstone Publishing scooped it up. It was insane. I’ve had a fantastic experience with both my agent and with Blackstone. And as for Sarah….well, her support and generosity have enriched my life immeasurably and inspired my own desire to pay it forward as well whenever I can.

You have worked in the entertainment industry in LA before turning your skills to fiction. What can you tell us about how that job contributed to your storytelling?

I work for a company that does casting support for the entertainment industry. It’s called Breakdown Services, and if you’re an actor, you’ll know exactly what it is … but if you’re not, you won’t.

Breakdown provides amazing services to casting directors, talent reps and actors, but my job specifically is to read scripts that are about to go into production that still need to be cast; I write descriptions of the characters for the talent reps so they can submit their actors who best fit the roles. There are four of us who do this full time, and we read everything from big studio movies (many of which go on to win Academy Awards) to indie features to TV pilots and episodics.

I have probably read thousands of scripts in my three decades with Breakdown Services. Though a novel is a more leisurely story-telling journey than a screenplay, reading scripts has–I hope–given me a knack for realistic/humorous/entertaining dialogue and a sense of structure and pacing.

What can we find you doing when you aren’t reading and writing crime fiction?

Working full time. Walking. Napping.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new novel that was inspired by Ellie’s “Phantom Husband” in For Worse.

Here’s the logline: A woman successfully juggles a husband in New York and another husband in Boston–one of whom is imaginary. When a dead body is found on her worksite, she finds herself on the hook for the murder of a man who, as far as she knows, doesn’t exist.

Wow, I love this logline!Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:

I don’t really feel like I have any wisdom since I’m still so new at this. But one thing I’ve observed from my limited experience is, everyone has a different path, professionally and creatively; it’s important to find your own and not worry about anyone else’s.

Author Pet Corner!

Chap

Thank you for this. My beloved dog Chap died December 21, 2023 of congestive heart failure at age 10.

He was a great dog who would really look you in the eyes as if he were going to say something important (probably, “More food, please”). My family, my friends and I all miss him terribly and are grateful to memorialize him here.

I’m so sorry for you loss, but also how wonderful to have him in your life. What a beautiful boy.

L.K. Bowen

For Worse Debut author L.K. Bowen was born in Boston and made her way to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry.

Like Ellie, her protagonist in For Worse, Bowen has the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa, which is slowly destroying her vision.

To learn more about rp and other degenerative retinal diseases, or to contribute to finding treatments and cures, please visit www.fightingblindness.org

Learn more about J.K. by clicking either link: Website & InstagramElena Hartwell/Elena Taylor

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Published on April 03, 2024 00:01

April 1, 2024

The Guest House: Psychological Thriller by Bonnie Traymore

The Guest House, a psychological thriller by Bonnie Traymore

Book & Author Info + An Excerpt!
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The Guest House

The Guest House

He holds out his business card, and she plucks it from his fingers without touching them. “Hope to see you around, Allie Dawson,” he says. That was over a month ago. It seemed too good to be true, but Allie told herself to ignore the nagging feeling in her gut. That was her first mistake.

When she saw Laura Foster’s email welcoming her into a cohort of grant recipients, Allie literally jumped for joy. She was headed to Silicon Valley with a chance to bring her innovative product to market. She’s deaf with a cochlear implant, and she’s developed a screen that can clip onto eyeglasses and caption speech in real time.

But she had no idea how tight the rental market would be, or how cutthroat the competition is for everything from housing to venture capital. So, after a futile search to find a short-term apartment she could afford, she rented a guest house from a chummy real estate agent who approached her at a coffee shop.

But it’s clear now that she should have trusted her instincts. Because there’s something off about her landlord. And his moody wife. And the cryptic Hungarian guy renting his master suite.

Are they after her technology? She knows what it feels like to see her life flash before her eyes, and she doesn’t need that kind of stress right now.

So why is she still living there?

And has she already seen too much?

Innovation, greed, and danger collide in The Guest House, Silicon Valley Series Book 2, a stand-alone sequel to the best-selling hit page-turner The Stepfamily.
Praise for The Guest House

“This twisty, spine-tingling thriller will have you hooked to the very last page.” —Leslie Lutz, Award-winning author of Fractured Tide

“The Guest House grabs you by the throat from the very first page and never lets go.” —R.G. Belsky, author of the award-winning Clare Carlson series

Book Details:

Genre: Psychological Thriller
Published by: Pathways Publishing
Publication Date: March 1, 2024
Number of Pages: 300

Purchase your copy of The Guest House at Amazon.

Read an excerpt of The Guest House

PROLOGUE

One thing I’ve realized over the years is that not everyone has what it takes to go the distance when the time comes. If you want something done right, you need to be prepared to do it yourself. I’m committed to reaching my goals, whatever the costs.

If I could achieve them without spilling any blood, of course, that would be my preference. I have killed before though, and I’ll do it again if that’s what it takes to succeed.

But only if I have no choice. That’s what separates me from the crazies. I get no pleasure out of harming people. In fact, it leaves me feeling very empty. But I won’t stop until I get what I need. And I’ll eliminate anyone who stands in my way.

ONE
Allie

I’m half awake when I feel a thud reverberate through my apartment and shake the bed. I spring up, and my heart is immediately in my throat.

Is this what an earthquake feels like?

Grabbing my phone, I check to see if there’s an alert. It’s 3:17 in the morning, and there’s nothing of concern on my phone, but maybe it takes a while to get the word out. I’m new to California, so I have no idea what an earthquake feels like or if anyone even bats an eye at something like this.

I hold still for a few minutes, and I don’t feel any more shaking. I reach for my speech processor on the nightstand. I’m deaf, and without my cochlear implant I hear nothing. Now I’m concerned there might be an intruder or some other threat lurking outside my door.

The small guest house I rent sits behind a stately, expensive home, and the owners have been away for the last week. There’s a boarder who rents a suite inside the main house. I thought he was still around, although it’s hard to tell with him. The guy’s kind of a ghost, and I don’t normally run into him much.

Once my speech processor is in place, I notice some kind of intermittent scraping noise outside. A tingling sensation crawls up my scalp. They have a dog, and she’s not barking. But then I haven’t heard her at all this week, come to think of it. Maybe they took her with them?

I peek out the window, poised to call 9-1-1 if someone is burglarizing the house, and I spot my landlord—at least I think it’s my landlord—dragging a large duffel bag across the lawn. It seems heavy, and he’s straining to move it. He whips his head around towards me, and I quickly duck down and out of sight.

Did he see me?

My heart starts to race.

I hear a voice call out. “Hurry up,” it says.

A woman’s voice?

I’m terrified of the dark, so I keep the bathroom light on when I sleep. I’m hoping it’s not bright enough for him to see inside my place. I lift the curtain just a hair and look out again. His back is to me, so hopefully he didn’t notice me.

What the hell is he doing?

I thought they were away until tomorrow. Did they come home early and I didn’t hear them? But this is strange. And this living arrangement made me uneasy from the start. Maybe I need to look for another place, although the thought of that puts my stomach in knots. It’s a nice unit at a decent price, and the rental market is extremely tight here. Perhaps he has a good explanation for what he’s doing, although I can’t imagine what it could be.

I double-check the dead bolt on the door, turn off the bathroom light, and get back into bed. I’m not taking my speech processor off though, so I probably won’t be able to get back to sleep; I’m used to total silence. I grab my phone, hold it under my comforter, and start thumbing through apartment listings as I wait for the sun to rise.

One month earlier
TWO
Allie

I rush into Starbucks to grab a pick-me-up before I embark on my next round of apartment viewings. It’s packed in here, and I need to use the bathroom. Badly. I’ve never been to this Starbucks before. Rancho Shopping Center, according to my app.

“I’ve got a to-go order,” I say to the barista. “Is there a restroom in here?”

“Over there,” she says, pointing towards the other side of the café. “Past the pickup area.”

I’m also hungry and hot. But I’m on a tight schedule, so although I’d like to chill for a while, I need to keep going. I locate the restroom and, thankfully, there’s no line. When I come out, I rush up to the counter to look for my drink order. I pick up a few cups that could be mine and examine them, but my latte’s not ready yet. I let out a long sigh and glance at my watch.

A frazzled worker glares at me but quickly softens her look. I offer her an apologetic smile, not wanting to stress her out any further. I’m surprised she heard me over the whir of the blenders and the milling of the coffee grinder. They’re very backed up and seem hopelessly understaffed. I worked my way through college at jobs like that, so I know exactly how she feels. And if I can’t get my idea off the ground before my funding dries up, I might be right there behind that counter with her.

But I can’t be late for my next appointment, so if my order doesn’t come up soon, I’ll need to leave without it. I’ve just finished a two-week boot camp along with the other women in my cohort, a requirement of the organization that gave me the funding for my start-up venture. I’ve also been looking at apartments on this visit, and I’m starting to think I might have to give up and go back to Milwaukee, at least for now, which is not an ideal option.

The man standing to my right says something, but I don’t catch it. I can’t hear anything out of my right ear, and the background noise is making it harder. And I remind myself that this is exactly why I’m here, trying to bring my concept to market.

I turn to face him so I can read his lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

“New in town?” he asks.

“Yes. Is it that obvious?”

“You went to the wrong side of the store for your pickup,” he says, “and you’re holding a rental car key.”

His wandering eyes look out from a kind, almost jovial face. I glance down at the key in my hand, wondering if I should be more discreet. I don’t need to advertise the fact that I’m a single woman traveling alone.

“You’re very observant,” I say.

“Not always,” he replies.

I hope he’s not hitting on me. He’s nearly twice my age if I had to guess. There are a lot of rich guys around here who can probably get women half their age to go out with them. He’s dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, sporting a Patek Philippe on his wrist—and not an entry-level one. Money’s a compensating factor for some women, but not for me. Not for that big of an age gap. Then I notice a wedding ring and relax a little. Perhaps he’s just being friendly.

“Looking for a place to live?” he asks.

“Um, yes.”

“I’m in real estate,” he says.

“Oh.” I nod.

That explains it.

Now I’m going to get the sales pitch. I should tell him to move on and not waste his time. I’m not planning to buy. But I realize he’s just doing his job. Maybe I can learn something from him. Networking in person isn’t my strong suit, and I need to get better at it.

“Mike Tabernaky,” he says.

“Allie Dawson,” I reply.

“Is it just yourself, or do you have a family?”

“Just me.” Saying that out loud makes me feel vulnerable all of a sudden.

“Well, it just so happens we have a guest house behind our home that’s become available. It’s nearby, in Cupertino. Just over the border from Los Altos. Perfect for a single person.”

Generally, I’m a trusting person, but this seems a bit too good to be true. My mind flashes to the shower scene in Psycho.

“That’s great, thanks. But I think I may have found something.”

He nods as he chews on his lower lip.

“Allie? Your order’s ready,” the barista calls out.

“Well, that’s me,” I say. “I need to run. Nice to meet you, Mike.” I offer him a fluttery wave and flash my best Midwestern-girl smile. If I end up living in this neighborhood, I’ll probably see him again, so I don’t want to seem rude or unappreciative. Plus, he might know some venture capitalists he can introduce me to.

“Here. Take my card. In case it doesn’t work out.” He reaches out to me with his business card perched between his thumb and forefinger. I pluck the card from his fingers without touching them.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You’re welcome, Allie Dawson. Hope to see you around.”

I head outside and mentally prepare myself for another round of apartment viewings, trying to lower my expectations. The market’s supposedly softening for renters, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. And without a steady stream of income, I’ve been having a hard time qualifying for a place to rent. I gave up my stable job as a luxury branding specialist to pursue this opportunity. At the moment, I’m hoping that wasn’t the biggest mistake of my life.

It’s a competitive market, and I’m sure there are a ton of prospective renters who seem more desirable, with longer track records in the area. That’s why I’m a little overdressed for the occasion, in my red cap-sleeved Tory Burch dress paired with strappy black sandals. I want to make a good impression and try to appear a bit more mature than my twenty-nine years.

When I open the door to my rental, a white Kia Soul, the heat inside the car hits me and nearly knocks me off my feet. It’s late August, so hopefully it will cool down soon. They say it doesn’t get this hot here too often—just my luck. I see heat waves radiating off the black vinyl interior. I run around to the other side and open the door to air it out a little. I don’t want to show up sweaty and disheveled. Then I shut the passenger door, head back over to the driver’s side, and hop in.

The seat is warm but, thankfully, not burning hot. I sit down, strap myself in, and realize that I still have the business card in my hand. I tuck it into my wallet, start the car, crank the a/c, and pull up the address on my app. Then I take one last look in the rearview mirror, apply some lipstick, and fluff my hair. I make a mental note to find a hairdresser. My dirty blonde roots are showing, and I’m badly in need of a trim. Still, I’m presentable enough.

The dark circles under my eyes are gone because the loud people renting the front half of my Airbnb left yesterday morning, and I finally got a good night’s sleep. I’m not used to sleeping with my speech processor on, so any noise at all bothers me. I felt vulnerable sleeping without it in an unfamiliar place though, so it seemed safer to sacrifice deep sleep. Last night was better, and the extra hit of caffeine is starting to kick in.

I can do this.

***

Today’s apartment search was even worse than the previous ones, probably because it’s Saturday and everyone’s available. I had four appointments, and each rental had a steady stream of prospective tenants, including the unit that was totally unacceptable to me with no air conditioning, smelly, dog-pee-soaked carpets, and communal laundry.

Even the cramped one-bedroom suite I’m sitting in right now is better than that one, but I can’t afford this Airbnb for much longer, even if I could stand sharing part of a house with a revolving door of random travelers. I’m burning too much cash and energy on this trip, and although I filled out applications at the other three apartments, I’m not holding my breath.

Now I’m taking some time to regroup. I decide I’ll reach out to the organization that helped me with my pre-seed funding and see if they can give me some suggestions. I reach into my wallet to grab the executive director’s business card. But I come across the card I got from Mike Tabernaky, the real estate agent I met at Starbucks, with the guest house. I pull that out instead. He’s a luxury property specialist and the principal broker at the firm. Maybe he does have a pipeline of wealthy venture capitalists he can introduce me to. At the very least, I should try to connect with him on social media.

But why would he be giving his card out to people at Starbucks when the rental market is this hot? Perhaps he doesn’t want to deal with a parade of random strangers at his home? Or maybe he wants a single person, but he can’t say that in the advertising because of antidiscrimination laws. I do a search and find his website. It’s a small firm with two other agents and a few upscale listings on the site.

I tell myself that if I’m going to be a successful entrepreneur, I need to take some risks. If an opportunity like this dropped in my lap, maybe it’s fate. Part of the success story I’ll tell one day about how I was ready to give up when I found a place to live from a random guy I met at Starbucks who introduced me to so-and-so…and then it all fell into place.

Am I this desperate?

Yes, but I’m also not stupid. I’ll make an appointment to see the unit, and I’ll have my brother on the phone with me when I go see it, just in case.

It’ll be fine.

I pull out my phone, take a deep breath, and punch in Mike’s number. I’m a little surprised when it goes to voicemail and a little relieved. It would be more concerning if he was sitting around waiting for my call. Perhaps it’s rented already and I missed my shot. The thought of that makes me want it more.

I open up my email and start drafting a message to Mina Rao, Executive Director at Start-Her, the accelerator that’s sponsoring me, hoping that something comes through before I have to hang it up and head back east rather than burn through the money they gave me before I even get started.

THREE
Laura

It’s Monday morning and I’m in my home office when Mina calls. The ringtone wakes my sleeping three-month-old, and Kai starts wailing. I could kick myself for not remembering to silence my phone. I pick up the call, put it on speaker, and reach for him.

“This can wait, Laura,” Mina says to me as Kai continues his fussing.

It annoys me that my subordinate is second-guessing my decision to pick up the call, and I fight the urge to snap at her. She means well, but Mina’s not the only person in my life insinuating that I should take more time off. It’s wearing on my frazzled nerves. It’s not the baby or my career that’s making me stressed. It’s the horrible image that haunts my dreams. The one I can’t tell anyone about. But that’s not Mina’s fault, so I take a deep breath and let it go.

“No. He’ll settle down. Hang on a minute.”

“Take your time.”

I lift my shirt, place him on my breast, and grab a pen.

“Okay. What’s up?” I ask.

Mina runs through a slew of information in record time. She’s my executive director. We met at a now-defunct start-up that folded a little over a year ago. I’ve since founded an accelerator for female entrepreneurs, and my first class of ten awardees has received an initial round of funding. The timing is less than ideal with a newborn, but I’m not letting motherhood stop me. There are some promising ideas on the table, ones that could really make a difference in the world.

One woman developed a prototype of a blood-testing machine that could be a game changer in health care, if she can bring it to market. Another is working on a clip-on screen that would allow eyeglass wearers to read captions of conversations in real time. Now is not the time to step back.

“What happened to Allie Dawson? Did she find a place yet?” I ask.

Allie Dawson is working on the caption device, and her project excites me because it serves an unmet need in the market, it won’t get bogged down in a ton of regulatory red tape, and it’s not overly capital-intensive to produce.

“Not yet, but she has a lead on a unit in Cupertino. She’s got an appointment this afternoon, and she’s a little wary of going by herself, so I offered to go with her,” Mina says.

“Why?”

“It’s a guest house. Of some real estate broker guy who approached her at Starbucks.”

Mina gives me the rundown. It sounds fine to me, but I can see how a single woman might be a little uncomfortable renting a place from a stranger who befriended her at a coffee shop, although that’s what real estate professionals tend to do. It’s nice that Mina offered to go with her.

“Give me his name and I’ll check him out,” I say.

We go over the rest of the items on my list and sign off. I’m more tired than usual this morning and not only because of Kai. I had the nightmare again. It took hours for me to fall back to sleep, only to be woken again an hour later by my baby’s cries.

I can’t go on like this. I search my inbox for the therapist I contacted a few weeks back, to finally schedule an intake appointment. But a call comes in from a venture capitalist I’ve been courting, and then Kai needs to be changed, so it goes on the back burner once again.

***

My husband, Peter, enters my home office, and I glance at the clock. It’s after six already. The hours flew by, and I still haven’t reached out to the therapist.

“How was your day?” He places his hands on my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. Then he scoops up Kai and cradles him in his arms.

“Fine. And yours?”

“Always a ten.”

My husband’s been on cloud nine since I told him about our unplanned pregnancy. I must admit, I’d been looking forward to an empty nest after over a decade of raising my stepchildren. It took me a while to get used to the idea of starting all over. But I’m enjoying motherhood far more than I’d anticipated.

It doesn’t hurt that we came into some substantial money around the same time we found out about the baby, from stock gains at Peter’s biotech company, which brought a cancer drug to market. There are no financial pressures bearing down on us anymore. Not like there were before. But I’m not about to back down on my career, partly because I love what I’m doing, but also because slowing down might give me too much time to think about the craziness of last year.

Four attempts on my life.

The threat is gone, but not the anxiety. I sometimes wonder if Peter’s as jubilant as he seems. How can he be, after everything that’s happened? But his happiness seems genuine, and I’m even a little envious of his ability to move on and forget about it.

“I have some more work to finish up. Can you take him for a bit?”

“Just try and stop me.”

“Thanks.”

He starts walking out the door, and I go back to my inbox to search for the therapist’s email. Then he interrupts me again.

“Laura?”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you try and move the nanny to full-time?”

Ugh. We’ve talked this to death, and I’m so sick of repeating myself.

“I can manage for now. I don’t want someone here all the time, hovering over me. I told you.”

“You like her?”

“I do.”

“Then just get her here full-time. You can lock yourself in your office, and she can sit and wait around until you need her. It’s better than losing a good nanny. What if someone else offers her full-time?”

“Peter. Enough!” I throw up my hands. “I need to focus right now. If you want to help me, then please, give me some space. This isn’t helping.” He thinks I’m on edge because the baby and my career are too much for me. But that’s not the reason.

His eyes widen, and then he lowers them in defeat. It’s obvious my words stung. His expression is somber as he turns from me and walks out the door.

“Close the door, please,” I say, in a softer tone. Then I rest my heavy head in my hands and take a deep breath. I remind myself that he means well, even if he is annoying me.

I know I’m being short with him, and that’s another thing to put on my list for the therapist. How to get over the resentment I feel towards my husband. I pull up the therapist’s email, click on her scheduler, and secure an appointment for next week. Next, I locate the web page of Mike Tabernaky, luxury real estate broker. At first glance, he seems legitimate. But it does give me pause that someone like him is renting out his guest house. The market’s pretty hot right now, and he has some high-end listings on his page. It seems a little desperate.

I check his broker credentials on the state website, and he’s in good standing. No formal complaints. No red flags. There’s nothing in the criminal or civil databases either, aside from a few speeding tickets. Maybe he has kids in college, or perhaps he’s just the kind of guy who likes to maximize his property value. We live in an expensive area, and people do rent their guest houses. I tell myself it’s fine and mentally cross it off my list.

There’s more to do, as always, but none of it is urgent. It’s dinnertime, so I close my laptop and head out to join my family, vowing to be more congenial to Peter. But I’m not telling him about the therapist. He doesn’t know what’s bothering me, and it needs to stay that way for now.

***

Bonnie Traymore — Author of The Guest House

The Guest House Bonnie Traymore is the award-winning, Amazon best selling author of page-turner mystery/thrillers that hit close to home. Her books feature strong but relatable female protagonists.

The plots explore difficult topics such as jealousy, infidelity, murder, and the impact of psychological disorders, but she also includes bits of romance and humor to lighten the mood from time to time.

She’s an active status member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America.

To learn more about Bonnie, click on any of the following links: Website, Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Facebook & Twitter/X

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Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on April 01, 2024 00:01

March 29, 2024

Swinging Sixties Mystery by Teresa Trent

Swinging Sixties Mystery: Listen, Do You Want To Know a Secret, a historical mystery by Teresa Trent

Book and Author Info + an Excerpt + a Giveaway!
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Swinging Sixties Mystery: Listen, Do You Want To Know a Secret

A Swinging Sixties Mystery

Everyone has a secret, and in 1964, Dot Morgan’s new job at KDUD Radio is filled with them.

Her boss, Holden Ramsey, is a terrible flirt, but he’s also engaged to a beautiful socialite. When Dot finds out he’s hiding involvements with other women, these secrets lead to a grisly murder.

Can Dot figure out who is murdering the women in Holden’s life before she finds herself next on the hit parade?

To Purchase Listen, Do You Want To Know a Secret, click the following link: Amazon

Read an excerpt of this Swinging Sixties Mystery:

Listen, Do You Want To Know a Secret

I’ve known a secret for a week or two.

Nobody knows,

Just we two

~The Beatles

February 9, 1964

“Hurry, Ellie. It’s about to start,” Al called out.

“I’m just putting the popcorn in the bowl, Al. Keep your shirt on,” Ellie yelled back. The jaunty theme song to “My Favorite Martian” played in the background as it capped off the adventures of everyone’s favorite Uncle Martin.

“You’re not even married yet,” Ben said, “and you already sound like an old married couple.”

“Yeah, well,” Al said as Ellie squeezed in next to him, reaching for a handful of popcorn. “I don’t have to report to prison until June.” He gave us a smile, cheeks bulging with popcorn. “Isn’t that right, sweetie?” He looked like a mischievous squirrel.

Ellie gave him a sour grin and then playfully hit his shoulder. “You’re the luckiest man in the world.” She lowered her nose slightly, giving Al a piercing, no-nonsense gaze. “Go on and admit it.”

“Yes, dear,” Al responded automatically. I loved the way they bantered back and forth. You could tell they loved each other dearly.

Ben reached out and took my hand on the crowded couch, and I lay my head on his shoulder. What we had was different, but that was because we hadn’t been dating as long as Al and Ellie had. I tried to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, Ed Sullivan appeared in front of the gray-toned curtains. When they panned the audience, it was filled with women. Young women, and they all looked like they were about to witness the second coming. There were so many expectant looks to the stage. One girl had her fists clenched and held to her chin. I had seen the Ed Sullivan show for years, but never had I witnessed such awe-filled excitement.

“Just look at them all.” Ellie squinted at the television. “Do you see any men?”

Instead of answering her question, Al added, “Do you see anyone over thirty?”

Ed Sullivan looked somewhere between excited and terrified. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles,” Ed Sullivan yelled, and the screams rose to a feverish pitch.

I had never witnessed mass hysteria, but was sure I was seeing it on Ellie’s new Phillips television set. “This is unbelievable. Those girls are going insane.” The camera went from the audience to John, Paul, and George. Ringo was set up on a raised platform with his drums. They knocked out “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and with each measure the crowd screamed even more.

“I can barely hear the song for the caterwauling going on in the background,” Al said.

“I wonder if they can hear each other.” Ellie popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

“I told you the Beatles were big news.” Ben was the room’s professional reporter.

I couldn’t get over how excited the fans were. I considered myself a bit of an expert in popular music since I landed my job at KDUD, The Smile on Your Dial. I wasn’t spinning records, but I was answering the request line. We were getting more and more requests for the Beatles. Unfortunately, my boss chose Perry Como over John Lennon and Montavoni over Paul McCartney. Sometimes it felt like I was spending my days in a department store, listening to never-ending soulless melodies. Sales were down, and our listenership was too. If my boss would only switch to the popular music of the day, we’d be playing in everyone’s kitchen.

It was more than these girls’ crazy behavior in the presence of the Beatles. They bought the records. This was a big industry, and these four kids from England were taking America by storm. The rival station across town, KOOL, was playing them nonstop, and that’s who people were listening to on their radios. Ellie told me they even made jokes about our station. We were oldies for the oldies. As Charlie Brown would say, “Good grief”.

I needed to count my blessings. I had a job I enjoyed. I just hated to see how they were missing an opportunity with their choice of music.

Teresa Trent — Author of the Swinging Sixties Mystery Series

Teresa Trent is the author of the Swinging Sixties Mystery Series published by Level Best Books featuring The Twist and Shout Murder (2022), If I Had a Hammer (2023), and Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret (2024). She has been writing and publishing mysteries since 2011 starting with the Pecan Bayou Mystery Series and followed by the Piney Woods Mystery Series.

When Teresa isn’t writing novels and short stories, she spends her time creating narrated excerpts on her podcast, Books to the Ceiling, where she gets to use all that community theater experience from her teens and twenties along with a little audio editing she learned from her daughter. Teresa is a former English teacher, but also spent many years teaching music to preschoolers working with children of all abilities.

Teresa makes her home in Texas with her husband and son.

Learn more about Teresa by following her on social media: Website, Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook.

Visit all the Stops on the Tour!

Elena Taylor/Elena Hartwell

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Published on March 29, 2024 00:01