Mystery Reads

Red Dog Saloon by R.D. Sherrill

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Six men commit an unspeakable act during the foolishness of their youth while at a country bar. Twenty years later, long after the Red Dog Saloon has burned to the ground, someone has come back for revenge. Now they fear for their lives as the mysterious reaper takes them one at a time. Meanwhile the county sheriff is trying to unravel the mystery of why his normally quiet town has become a killing field.

Targeted Age Group:: 15 and up

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
The inspiration came during a Sunday morning service. The minister was preaching about how you can be forgiven for your sins in Heaven but you still have to pay the price here on earth. That’s what gave me the idea of that for some acts there is no redemption.

Definitely Dead by Lois Winston

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When her career is outsourced to Asia, fledgling romance author and empty-nester Gracie Elliott wants a job that will allow her time to write. So she opens Relatively Speaking, becoming a wing woman to the senior set. Since her clients need several hours each morning to find their teeth, lube their creaky joints, and deal with lower GI necessities, and they always turn in after the early bird specials, she has plenty of time to pen her future bestsellers.

Gracie deliberately avoids mentioning her new business venture to husband Blake until after she signs her first client. Blake joins the company as a not-so-silent partner, tagging along to make sure Gracie doesn’t cause a septuagenarian uprising. When Client #13 is found murdered in the parking lot behind the Moose Lodge, Gracie knows, no matter how much Blake protests otherwise, she can’t wait around for the police to find the killer if she wants to save her livelihood.

Targeted Age Group:: adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I’ve always loved the old Thin Man movies from the 1940’s and wanted to create a modern day spin of them. With my husband and wife sleuthing team, the wife is the sleuth, and her husband tags along to try to keep her out of trouble.

Empty Places by Martin Roy Hill

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The year is 1987. Battle-scarred news service correspondent Peter Brandt
returns from covering the wars in Central America to bury his ex-wife, Palm
Springs TV reporter Robin Anderson, after her brutal murder. When Peter
discovers the local police refuse to investigate Robin’s murder, he sets out
with an old friend, retired cop Matt Banyon, to find her killer. They unearth
secrets old and new – a shadow world of sex and drugs, political corruption, and
a wealthy Cuban freedom fighter with a suspicious past. In a final,
cliff-hanging struggle, Peter faces his own demons – and death in a dark and
empty place.

Targeted Age Group:: Adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I am a former journalist, and covered many of the events described in this novel. I wanted to write a novel that explored the what the United States was truly like in the decade of the Eighties.

SOPHIA by Nigel Cooper

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A story of love, loss, and mania

Sometimes your state of mind has a dark side…

SOPHIA: 22-YEAR OLD CONCERT CELLIST, SOON TO BE ENGAGED, A PERFECT BOYFRIEND, A PERFECT FAMILY, A PERFECT LIFE

But Sophia’s picture-perfect life is about to take a drastic turn for the worse. After the tragic untimely death of her beloved boyfriend, Spencer, something happens to her – something dark.

After a period of post-traumatic stress, Sophia develops a severe personality disorder. Gone is the gracious upper middle class girl. In her place stands a dysfunctional young woman on a frenetic path of self-destruction and mayhem.
Sophia’s world starts to fall apart. Something dark has got a grip on her mind and it refuses to let go. Her psychologist has never seen a case quite like it and is at a total loss. Sophia has recoiled into a dangerous and sinister place in her mind, but now it’s spilling out into the real world with a vengeance.
She proceeds to tear her family apart, alienate her friends and destroy her career; soon there will be nothing left.
Can her new best friend, Delphine, save her before it’s too late?

Targeted Age Group:: 16 upwards

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My ex career as a concert pianist

Featured Book: It’s Just One Of Those Days by Melissa Burke

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What Liz expects is a normal day at work. Making pizzas, avoiding her short-tempered boss, trying to ignore the guy she’s convinced she doesn’t like… all part of her uneventful and boring life. What she gets instead is an unexpected nightmare beyond anything she could have ever imagined. Abducted by a violent man and trapped in her own personal prison, Liz sees no hope of escape. Then again there are a few twists – surprises that leave Liz shocked, in awe, and thinking that maybe she has a chance at survival after all.

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The Origin Of Murder by Jerold Last

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Roger and Suzanne take a vacation cruise through the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador. Suzanne finds a dead body floating with a couple of bullet holes in its back floating in the Pacific Ocean and we’re off to solve another deadly mystery. Among the suspects is a treacherous travel agent with an eye-opening secret, a cheerful couple of bird watchers from Germany, a happy honeymooning couple, two sensual sisters from San Francisco, two recent retirees from Australia working through their bucket list, and two middle-aged Montevideo residents seeing the wonders of the world while they can. Lurking in the background behind the scenes is a mysterious Ecuadorian general. One reviewer says, “A fast-paced, exciting mystery I didn’t want to set aside till finished… A great continuation of the series!”

Targeted Age Group:: Adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Rediscovering my wife’s journal from our own tour of the Galapagos Islands a few years ago. It gave me most of the background material I needed to write this novel.

The Deadly Dog Show by Jerold Last

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Private detective Roger Bowman is hired to impersonate a wealthy sponsor showing a champion German Shorthaired Pointer named Juliet at dog shows in California. His undercover assignment is to ferret out whether some of the winners are cheating. Before long, bodies of murdered judges start popping up at dog show venues and Roger’s wife Suzanne is being stalked by a mysterious admirer. With Juliet’s help, Roger and his fellow detective, professional dog handler Bruce, find a key clue. The trail leads from San Francisco to West Texas. Reviewers love the whodunit mystery and the inside information about how dog shows work.

Targeted Age Group:: Adult

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My wife breeds and shows German Shorthaired Pointers. I write mystery novels. The stars converged and we decided it was time to have my series characters solve a series of murders at dog shows.

Bad Night by Nigel Cooper

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Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

Based on a true story

A short story about a young man who thought his 15-mile journey across London late one night could not possibly get any worse – talk about Murphy’s Law on steroids. When he eventually does reach his house, things get worse; much worse.

What makes Bad Night even more interesting is the fact that it is based on a true story. This actually happened to a friend of mine several years ago. We’ve all heard somebody recount something bizarre, unusual or just plain outrageous, that happened to them, or somebody they know, and you probably thought to yourself, ‘you couldn’t make it up.’ Well, in this case I didn’t have to as it really happened. Naturally I’ve changed the names of the two characters in the story to protect their identity.

Targeted Age Group:: 13 to 48

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
It’s based on a true story of what happened to a friend

Mediums Guild by Lee Fishman @leefishman1

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Real estate agent Margo Fellshur can’t catch a break in a slow housing market. With her teen-age daughter dreaming of high end colleges, hopes of financial stability grow dimmer by the minute. For extra cash, the single mother works weekends as a psychic, reading cards at parties – and she’s good at it. Too bad she can’t resolve her own issues.

As a kid, Margo took her intuitive ability for granted. Couldn’t everyone see auras and hear the thoughts of their friends? Discovering tarot cards helped Margo focus, creating more faith in her “second sight”.

A chance encounter connects Margo with Greg, a pilot whose brush with death leaves him shaken. They click and he asks for her help in finding his sister and her friend, who disappeared months before. Margo recruits fellow psychics but they come up short until a dream changes everything.

Targeted Age Group:: Adult readers

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
It was a story that wouldn’t go away. Some scenes in my novel, Mediums Guild are based on real life happenings. Years back, I found myself working part-time with a group of psychics. At parties and fund raisers, we shared our intuitive knowledge through tarot and palm readings. Several incidents occurred within this group of friends and they’ve always stayed with me.

Featured Book: The Big Bend by Gary Showalter

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About The Big Bend by Gary Showalter

Terry Rankin, sole proprietor of Rankin Personal Security Services in Orlando, Florida, accepts a private meeting with a potential client. Sheila Adamson is looking for a bodyguard to protect her from her abusive husband, but Rankin refuses to take the job until she begins divorce proceedings. Moments later, Mrs. Adamson is dead and Rankin is buried beneath the rubble of his house, knocked flat by a car bomb planted in the dead woman’s Jaguar. When he’s questioned by the local police, Rankin learns that Adamson’s attorney has also turned up dead, his Cadillac riddled with bullets. Suspecting there is more to these murders than a domestic dispute, he teams up with Orlando cop Cathy Diamond for a thrilling—and treacherous—adventure that will lead them deep into the heart of the Everglades and hot on the trail of a dangerous criminal. In Rankin’s sardonic bodyguard-turned-investigator, Gary Showalter has created a new hero for fans of hardboiled mysteries.

“The Big Bend” is followed by “Hog Valley”, “Twisted Key” and “Lonesome Cove”. The fifth novel in the series, “Standing Wave”, is due for release in October, 2014.

Get the book from Amazon.