Mystery Reads

Poetic Justice by Lori James

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Poetic Justice is a murder mystery with a romantic twist. It’s set on a backdrop of characters ranging from a single mom, to high powered attorneys who are sure to draw you into their lives.

When Homicide Detective Mark Stevens receives a phone call to report to a bloody crime scene, he has no idea how his life is about to change. He faces the normal challenges of solving a murder. He also faces the challenge of confronting his past. Mark’s past has closed his heart. He chooses to be alone. When his heart is opened, by an unlikely visitor, he finds himself having feelings for the murder victim’s sister. However, he’s determined to remain professional. Now that he’s found his heart; can love be far behind?

The new, ambitious prosecuting attorney John Martin can’t wait to sink his teeth into his first murder trial. Seemingly lucky for him, a murder victim’s body is found his first day on the job. Not so luckily for him, there’s a tough judge and feisty defense attorney in his future.

Targeted Age Group:: 17+

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I’ve always had an interest in true crime and trial watching. When I decided to write a book, I knew it would be a murder mystery.

Dying Before “I Do” by Judy Fitzwater

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Jennifer Marsh is back in DYING BEFORE “I DO”!

Love and murder: two words that should never go together. But when Jennifer and long-time beau Sam Culpepper finally decide to tie the knot, murder rears its ugly head to intervene. Now Jennifer has more to contend with than choosing colors and flowers for the most important day of her life. She and Sam must thwart whoever is bent on keeping the secrets of an old kidnapping case. One man is dead, and young reporter Teague McAfee is next in line. Jennifer finds herself embroiled in a twisty tale of love gone wrong, while dodging her friends who are determined to give Jennifer and Sam the perfect wedding.

This 7th installment in the delightful JENNIFER MARSH MYSTERIES is sure to satisfy fans of the series. All of Jennifer’s writer friends–Leigh Ann, Teri, April, and Monique–plus Emmie Walker and Muffy are back to help Jennifer plan her wedding and solve the mystery as bullets, arrows, and poison threaten to derail it.
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Targeted Age Group:: general

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Dying Before “I Do” is the seventh in The Jennifer Marsh Mystery Series. Readers asked me to write another in this cozy mystery series, and I was very happy to once again find myself in Jennifer Marsh’s world. Jennifer is an unpublished mystery writer with a group of zany writer friends who are always willing to jump into the fray to help Jennifer solve whatever crime she’s currently involved in. In this book Jennifer and long time beau are finally getting married. The mystery part of the book, which involves an old kidnapping case, started out with my usual “what if” inspiration. Why are people suddenly dying and in danger over something that was over and done with four years ago? What if the kidnapping was more complicated than it at first appeared? I love mysteries that challenge me to write them and this was one of them.

It Had to Be You by Delynn Royer

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New York City, 1924

Determined to pursue her dream of becoming a crime reporter, heiress Trixie Frank believes she’s off to a running start when she lands a job at the most successful tabloid in Manhattan. Unfortunately, her high hopes fade fast when she’s assigned to the rewrite desk.

Sean Costigan is a demoted homicide detective on the commissioner’s blacklist. The last thing he needs complicating his life is a perky debutante with delusions of becoming the next great American journalist. Too bad she happens to hold one of the keys to solving his latest case, the Central Park murder of a notorious gangster. The other key? Sean’s childhood sweetheart, the victim’s widow, who has gone missing.

Sean soon has more trouble with dames than any good man deserves. But that’s the least of his worries. When he suspects deadly corruption within his own department, it’s not just his and Trixie’s careers that depend on finding the killer. It’s their lives.

Targeted Age Group:: Adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My love of mystery, romance and classic cinema. I’ve been a fan of old movies since I was a teenager, and one of my favorite romantic mystery films is The Thin Man. The dialogue is top-notch and the romantic chemistry between William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles is playful and fun.

Add to that, I love Manhattan as a setting, and I’ve always been fascinated by the 1920s—the bootleggers, the flappers, the speakeasies, the post-war abandon. It was a combination of all these elements that inspired me to try my hand at creating a sleuthing couple of my own.

Satan’s Garden: A Novel by Kit Lyman

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Dani and Keely imagined that life was more magical than others believed. If they had to be summed up, their one plus one would equal three. Together, they became something greater. It was twin sisters against the world.

But the world had different plans.

The man followed them to their secret tree house that unusually warm day in September. He only came for one, there and gone in the blink of an eye.

“Satan’s Garden” takes you on the six-year journey of two sisters who learn what it means to survive. It’s a story of resiliency, hope, and above all, a bond that cannot be taken away. It teaches us how quickly life can change and yet how much of it we can change ourselves.

Targeted Age Group:: 16+

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Although I originally pursued comedy as a screenwriter, I have always been drawn to the thriller genre and its evolution over the years. Psycho-thrillers are challenging to write and exciting to imagine, and their authors have been pushing the boundaries more and more. Desensitization is a concern for writers because it creates this plaguing pressure to be more shocking than the next, to be darker and more twisted. I was inspired to take a step back and not give in to that pressure. “Satan’s Garden” does capture the horrors and devastation that we may come across in life, but those parts aren’t what I hope to leave behind.

The Doppelganger’s Dance by Libi Astaire

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Jane Austen meets Sherlock Holmes when a crime wave sweeps through Regency London’s Jewish community and the adventures of wealthy-widower-turned-sleuth Ezra Melamed are recorded for posterity by Miss Rebecca Lyon, a young lady not quite at the marriageable age.

In this fourth volume of the series, David Salomon, a young violinist and composer, has left New York to find fame and fortune in Regency London. But disaster strikes not long after he arrives. Someone is stealing his compositions before he can perform them and soon he is the laughingstock of the beau monde that he had hoped to conquer.

With few friends and even fewer resources, he turns to Ezra Melamed for help with finding the thief. But who would wish to harm a young stranger? The deeper Mr. Melamed looks into the violinist’s story the more jarring notes he finds, making The Doppelganger’s Dance one of the most discomposing mysteries of his career.

Targeted Age Group:: Adults

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
While doing research for an earlier book in my Ezra Melamed Mystery Series, which is set in Regency England, I ran across a mention of a piano-making shop. Since I love music, I had to read about this shop, the sorts of pianos that were made there, the new technologies that were being used in the race to construct a better pianoforte, etc. And as I was reading it occurred to me that I had found the subject of a future mystery story – which became The Doppelganger’s Dance, a mystery about technology, greed and, of course, music.

Deadly Decor by Karen Rose Smith @karenrosesmith

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Book 2 in Karen Rose Smith’s Caprice De Luca cozy mystery series.

Quiet Kismet, Pennsylvania, may look like any other small town, but as a home stager, Caprice De Luca can see behind closed doors–and it seems someone has designs on murder. . .Life is a full house for Caprice these days. She’s dating, she’s rescuing adorable cocker spaniels, and she’s decorating the roomy interiors of Kismet’s most well-heeled residents with fun fantasy themes. But she’s worried about her pregnant sister. Bella’s marriage is coming apart like a bad wallpaper job, and to make matters worse, she’s decided to meet up with a former flame Bob Preston, a house painter Caprice frequently employs. When he’s found dead in a pool of green paint swirling with blood, it’s time for Caprice to stage an investigation. With all eyes trained on Bella’s husband, Caprice shifts her attention from finding the perfect curtains to finding the perfect culprit. . .

Catch up with Caprice’s adventures in STAGED TO DEATH, Book 1 of the Caprice De Luca home staging mystery series.
Book 3 GILT BY ASSOCIATION will be available in February 2015

Targeted Age Group:: 18 and up

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Since this is book 2 in the Caprice De Luca Home-staging series, I wanted to continue Caprice’s interest in solving crimes, staging houses and taking in stray animals. I also wanted to resolve Caprice’s sister’s family problems.

Stealer of Horses by Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson @vickiebrit

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The famous Carlo painting Stealer of Horses sells for cash in a small Wyoming town and gallery owner Sheldon Spence gives the $200,000 to his wife, who walks over to the bank to make the deposit…and never returns.

A witness claims to have seen a frightened-looking Susan Spence in a battered old Chevy, speeding out of town. And each succeeding clue reveals a different angle on her disappearance. Sheriff Jeff McQuede begins to wonder if this is more than a simple case of kidnapping and robbery. Was Sheldon involved in Susan’s disappearance? Or did Susan and a lover fake the scheme, planning to run off with the money they stole from Sheldon? The identity of a victim found shot behind the wheel of the Chevy holds the key to one ominous question: Is Susan Spence a kidnap victim—or is she part of some sinister ploy?

Targeted Age Group:: General Readership

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
We actually heard a similar story about a woman who went to make a large bank deposit and didn’t return for a long period of time. There were concerns at the time that she might have been kidnapped and abducted. While there was a logical reason for her temporary disappearance, this event inspired our story.

Stinger Maguire by Mike Bove

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Taryn Maguire was good at hitting the shot called a stinger, good enough to get on the PGA Tour.
Taryn was called “Stinger.” He was a top golfer and known as a humanitarian.
He was brutally murdered after returning to his hometown, Willowtree, Arizona, for a charity event.
Bruce DelReno, a retired postman and golf enthusiast, found the body and becomes emotionally involved in the murder investigation.
With his friends, including Ben Samuel, his Apache sidekick, he uncovers secrets long held by people in Willowtree.
When Stinger’s own secret is discovered it becomes a bigger story than his death.
Fans of “Willowtree,” the first Bruce DelReno Mystery, will find more of Bruce’s unique relationships with friends, the police, witnesses, and suspects.
And, of course, more of his dry humor, and love of his wife, dog, food, and golf.

Targeted Age Group:: YA/Adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The second of my Bruce DelReno Series, this book continues the adventures of a senor sleuth and his friends. Aside from the mystery and its resolution, this story deals with a major concern of our society, heightened in recent sports news. That underlying theme is a simple commentary on our society. To name it here would be a spoiler.

Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost

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Four Days with Hemingway’s Ghost is not a story of spooks and goblins. It’s a powerful story about two men from two very different times. One man is mortal, the other is immortal. One is painfully ordinary, the other world famous.

Jack Phelan is a forty-two-year-old underachiever who lives in South Florida. Although he mows lawns for a living, he’s not what you might expect. He’s got an exceptionally sharp mind and is a self-educated Hemingway aficionado.

After Jack gets into an unlikely accident he’s flown by helicopter to the nearest hospital, where he remains in a coma for four days. But somehow, minutes after he blacks out, he finds himself in Key West, Florida–rubbing shoulders with an aged Ernest Hemingway.

Hem has been sent back down to help determine whether or not Jack has what it takes to write a book for “The Main Man above the clouds.” But what Ernest doesn’t know is that the book is to be about him. And that its purpose is to change the world’s perception of the swaggering, hard-knuckled, macho myth he has become.

Over the next four days, Jack Phelan and Ernest Hemingway travel to the legendary author’s old haunts and meet up with many of his long gone friends. Some of these reunions are rollicking good times, others are highly emotional tests of strength. But wait. When their time together comes to an end, the story is still not over. That’s when things really get interesting.

Tom Winton was born and raised in New York City. During his working career he has done everything from working on a railroad gang in the Colorado Rockies to driving a taxicab in Manhattan. He has also been a mailman, a salesman, an entrepreneur and more. He lives in Hobe Sound, Florida, with his wife Blanche and their ill-tempered, but loveable, Jack Russell terrier, Ginger. They spend part of their time in Carmel, Maine. Tom’s debut novel, Beyond Nostalgia, was released in February of 2011. This book has more than once been likened to such classics as Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird. Praised as “a 20th century Gone with the Wind,” Beyond Nostalgia has been on four different Amazon Bestseller lists. Mr. Winton’s second novel, The Last American Martyr, came out in August of 2011. It has been on six Bestseller lists, at the same time.

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