Messenger Out of Time

Ria Quinn #2

by Regina Clarke

During the annual Halloween festival in Shokan Falls , Ria Quinn discovers a prehistoric peat bog on the outskirts of town. It lies near an abandoned state hospital that was originally built as an insane asylum. As an amateur archaeologist exploring artifacts in Britain, Ria had come across unstable bogs before, places where ancient bodies lay hidden beneath. She just has to check this one out. Only, when she takes a few careful steps across it, the body of a woman surfaces, one Ria knows has not spent millennia in such a watery grave. Soon after, remarkable footage shows up in an old film she is given, suggesting the insane asylum may have been built over a Neolithic village, though this is in wild dispute. Ria is pulled into a mystery that inextricably links the woman in the bog to the asylum and to a Native American legend drawn out of the landscape of the Hudson River Valley. Despite the wishes (and orders) of local Sheriff Gareth Matheson and resistance from the mayor of Shokan Falls, she cannot help but investigate it all, with her golden retriever Hailey at her side. And when the mayor is found dead inside the ruins of the asylum, Ria must discover the truth about a secret held in silence for too long.

242 pages, Paperback

Published December 27, 2019

About the author

My intent is for the stories and books I write to bring others a good read, a respite from the frenetic pace we sometimes live, and most of all, a path into other ways of seeing.

RIA QUINN MYSTERIES is my cozy mystery series, beginning with "Hidden In Stone"... An amateur archaeologist transplanted from London to upstate New York discovers more than prehistoric artifacts when she settles into the small town of Shokan Falls, having a murder occur on the very day she arrives. I am writing Book 4 now, still to be titled...

The Standalone books--Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Mystery:
In MARI a young girl searches for her mother in a fantasy world that brings her knowledge of herself and a way out of darkness ~ A homicide detective in The Magic Hour faces mental collapse that sends him into a backwater town and a parallel dimension at the same time, and each one teaches him about love ~ In Retrieval a woman who manages a cafe in the desert encounters an alien presence that is both dangerous and familiar ~ The university town in Gene Pool becomes the target of a pact between the government and an unknown entity, while four friends race to unravel the doomsday scenario ~ In The Gatekeepers of Genthor, a brother and sister must fight an unseen enemy in a virtual world to save those they love ~ STOPOVER and Other Stories for a Rainy Night, is a collection of short mystery stories ~ My other books explore more alternate worlds, both in fantasy and science fiction, and all the books seek to explore matters of the heart. I hope indeed you enjoy them.

My stories have appeared in Thrice Fiction, Kzine, Bewildering Stories, Subtle Fiction, Mad Scientist Journal, Over My Dead Body!, T. Gene Davis's Speculative Blog, tNY Press, and NewMyths, among others.

I was a finalist in the Hollywood SCRIPTOID Screenwriter's Feature Challenge for my script about a mother seeking the disabled child she had abandoned, in "Second Chances." My book MARI was a finalist in the ListenUp Audiobook competition.

Life includes creative friends and a brilliant, talkative, and very green eclectus parrot named Harry. Home is in the evocative and hauntingly beautiful Hudson River Valley.

Reviews

[Virginia]

Curiosity, Archeology, Murder

This interesting series, set in the Hudson Valley,connects the present with the past. Ria Quinn, transplanted Londoner, settled into her new home, using her love of archeology and unbounded curiosity to uncover the past and solve a few murders. Looking forward to more of this series.

[Linda M. Kowalski]

Love the twists and turns as Ria finds her way to discover the murderer of two people in her new town in the US. Can hardly wait for book three in the series!