A is for All About the STAC Mysteries

 

This is the first of 26 posts in the Blogging from A-Z Challenge 2012, which is open to anyone.

STAC stands for the Sanford Third Age Club, and as its name suggest, it's a social club from the fictitious West Yorkshire town of Sanford, whose members are all aged over 50.

However…

Just because the central characters of the STAC mysteries are all heading for their dotage, doesn't mean they're targeted at an elderly readership. Anyone who enjoys old fashioned, cosy crime, will enjoy solving the puzzles in the tales.

Chairman of the club is Joe Murray, the curmudgeonly proprietor of the Lazy Luncheonette. Joe is irritable, tight-fisted and divorced. He runs the cafe with the help of his nephew, Lee, and two fellow members of STAC, Sheila Riley and Brenda Jump. Joe loves crime novels and fancies himself as a bit of a detective. His mind is razor sharp and even though he often misreads the clues before him, he always arrives at the correct solution.

Sheila Riley is the widow of a deceased police inspector, Peter. The same age as Joe, her knowledge of police methods, and her intelligent analyses pull Joe back from the brink of a leap into oblivion.

Also widowed, Brenda is often described by Joe as man mad. For Brenda, naughty is always nice. She is the emotional heart of the triangle, and her observations sometimes point Joe in the right direction, often without her being aware of it.

Sex never raises its head in the STAC investigations, much though Joe would prefer it to put in an appearance now and then. The two women, known collectively as Joe's Harem, are both attractive, but as Joe often reminds himself, they're best friends and they do everything together. He could never make a pass at one because he wouldn't be able to get rid of the other. Brenda is quite open about her 'adventures' with men, and we're sure that both Joe and Sheila indulge their respective libidos now and then, but that's as much as we'll ever know.

The Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries are cosy crimes. There is no serious violence, no bad language and the clues are all there for the reader to spot.

I originally self-published the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries on Amazon's Kindle, but in January of this year (2012) Crooked {Cat} Publishing picked up the first tale, The Filey Connection, and although there are no guarantees, they will be given first refusal on subsequent titles.

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The Filey Connection, first of the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, from Crooked {Cat} Books is available for the Kindle from Amazon UK and Amazon Worldwide and in all other formats from Smashwords