Author Snapshot!

Cracking Open Fall’s Best New Books!

Where oh where did the summer go? It’s already Back to School time! And as the kids will be hitting the books, here’s your chance to do the same with some great new mysteries and thrillers!

As I love reading their comments, I asked authors this issue to share their favorite quotes from their latest works and what inspired them. Here’s what they had to say:

 

Death Promise, Jacqueline Seewald – Sequel to Death Legacy, originally published by Five Star/Cengage before it closed its mystery line. http://jacquelineseewald.blogspot.com/.

About the Book:
New York psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Reiner is contacted by a woman who claims she was married to his father after his mother’s death and his father’s disappearance from his life. Tiffany Tyler asks Daniel to take charge of the girl she claims to be his half-sister. But when Daniel tries to make contact, it seems the girl has vanished.

Daniel wants to hire Michelle Hallam to help him investigate the situation in Las Vegas, Nevada. She runs an international “consulting firm” previously owned by her deceased uncle, a former British intelligence agent. While searching for the missing young girl, things become complicated, involving Michelle and Daniel in a mystery, as well as romance and murder, not to mention placing their own lives in peril.

Inspiration:
Jacqueline Seewald: “The first novel proved popular with many readers. This encouraged me to write another book featuring the two main characters. Originally, I conceived of Death Legacy as a stand-alone romantic mystery. However, my subconscious insisted that Michelle and Daniel really needed at least one more good story.”

Favorite Quote:
Michelle Hallam’s line of work is very dangerous. When Dr. Daniel Reiner proposes to her, she responds: “Married to me, you could end up dead.” Near the end of the book, Daniel proposes again and says: “Take a chance. Roll the dice, Ms. Hallam, and I don’t mean in Las Vegas but in the casino of life. Marry me.”

 

 

 

Glitter Bomb, A Scrapbooking Mystery – Laura Childs and Terrie Farley Moran – This is the 15th book in the series and the third co-authored by the pair. They are now working on the next book, Mumbo Gumbo, due out in 2019. http://www.laurachilds.com/, http://terriefarleymoran.com/

About the Book:
Scrapbook shop owner Carmela and her BFF Ava are excited for Mardi Gras. But while watching the Pluvius parade in the French Quarter, the King Neptune float explodes, sending a plume of glitter into the night sky – and killing a local hedge fund bigwig. Carmela’s ex Shamus is tossed off the float, too, but soon becomes a key suspect. Running her own shadow investigation, Carmela tries to clear Shamus while dodging the watchful eye of her fiancé, Detective Edgar Babcock.

Inspiration:
Laura Childs: “I’ve been very lucky in that I have friends in New Orleans who are heavily involved in Mardi Gras. So I’ve visited float dens, attended the Comus and Rex balls, and even marched in a Mardi Gras parade. When you see the enormous floats with all the lights, flames, and huge characters it’s awe-inspiring. So it’s an easy next step for me (as a mystery author) to imagine a huge float erupting in flames and basically becoming a murder weapon.”

Terrie Farley Moran: “Once I read the outline Laura had written and knew that the murder was taking place during a Mardi Gras parade, I drew on how I felt arriving in NOLA the day after Mardi Gras ended. (We were there for St. Patrick’s Day.) The post Mardi Gras letdown throughout the town was undeniable and I kept imagining that was how Carmela and Ava felt after witnessing the tragedy.”

Favorite Quote:
Carmela’s head swiveled toward the float in time to see Neptune’s trident rise like an unsteady jet, trailing into the velvety dark night sky. She watched, openmouthed, as it split into a thousand pieces. A plume of flame soared from the hole in the deck left by the now-shattered King Neptune. The fire spit in all directions and reached toward the glitter showering down on the crowd. Tiny flecks of gold became tiny glowing scorches. The flames shot higher and as the glitter rained down, handfuls of it clumped together, ignited, and fell, blazing, back to the float.

 

 

Ice Blonde, Elaine Viets – The novella is book 3 in the Angela Richman, Death Investigator series. http://elaineviets.com/.

About the Book:
Juliet LaRouche, the daughter of a wealthy Chouteau Forest family, sneaks out of her house to go to a high school party with her forbidden boyfriend, Dex, a low-rent mechanic’s son. She wears only heels and a blue velvet dress in sub-zero Missouri weather. At the party are drugs, booze, and rivals for Juliet’s dazzling blonde beauty.

On the drive home, Juliet has a fight with her boyfriend, runs into the woods near her house and disappears in the snow. Was Juliet kidnapped? Murdered? Or is she hiding out with a high school stud? And what’s happened to Dex? Why has her boyfriend disappeared? Death investigator Angela Richman fights to find the missing girl and save a young man’s life.

Inspiration:
Elaine Viets: “The book was inspired by what I learned taking the Medicolegal Death Investigators training course at St. Louis University and what I know about rich kid parties in St. Louis. The setting, Chouteau County, is mythical, but it’s based on my time as a reporter in St. Louis and the rich parts of St. Louis County, where the one-percent live.”

 Favorite Quote:
“Juliet left the house in a blue velvet strapless dress, high heels and a light-blue velveteen jacket,” her mother, Midge, said. “She had her cell phone in a little silver purse.”
“That’s all?” I said.
“She refused to wear her boots, heavy coat, or even gloves,” Midge said. “She said it would spoil her look.”
“I remember being like that at her age.” I smiled.
“I do, too,” Midge said. “But now her vanity could  . . . could . . .” I mentally finished the sentence Midge couldn’t say: could kill her.

 

 

Low Down Dirty Vote: A Crime Fiction Anthology – Eleven authors, including Anthony, McCavity and Edgar winners, address the timely topic of voter suppression in this new crime fiction anthology. http://lowdowndirtyvote.com/.

About the Book:
In her story, “Civic Duty”, contributor Camille Minichino’s character Booker T. Nelson is tempted by an “easy money” ad. All he has to do is linger at the local polls and lure people away from the voting booth. He’s close to earning that much needed cash when he spots his long-ago high school teacher in the line and his life changes. http://www.minichino.com/

Inspiration
The project was led by writer Mysti Berry who wanted to do something meaningful in support of voters’ rights. She’s donating all proceeds from the book to the ACLU fight against voter suppression.    Read more about the anthology and its inspiration behind it at The Rap Sheet, http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-story-behind-story-low-down-dirty.html

Camille Minichino: “I was inspired to join this project by so many news stories of people being deprived of their voting rights—directly or indirectly. I read, for example, that in one state a gun permit works for voter ID; a student ID does not! Other states cut back on voting locations, skewing toward eliminating them in areas populated by minority citizens. Still others have undertaken illegal removal of names from the voting rosters (a suit in this regard is underway in one state). Taken together, I saw that voter suppression is a real issue for our democracy, and leapt at the chance play a small part in fighting it.”

Favorite Quote:
Boo doubts the white guy at the podium is really named “Jim” and says: “Sure you are. No way do you want us to be able to find you again.” Boo figured his name was something like Walker or Spencer the third. Something rich.

I should talk, Boo murmured. Stuck with some famous black brother’s name from a hundred years ago.

 

 

The Dead of Night, Jean Rabe – Book two in the Sheriff Piper Blackwell series set in small town Indiana. See where it started in The Dead of Winter. She is now working on book three, The Dead of Summer. http://www.jeanrabe.com/.

About the Book:
As Sheriff Piper Blackwell rushes to a clandestine meeting with an aging, paranoid veteran who believes spies are trailing his every move, she is caught in a fierce thunderstorm. Pounding rain drums against the bluff, washing away the earth and revealing a grisly secret someone tried to bury a long time ago. Putting a name to the skeleton on the bluff, and searching for the thief who robbed the old veteran of his life’s earnings, sends Piper delving into the sleepy towns that dot her rural county. Now she’s digging into pasts perhaps best left alone.

Inspiration:
Jean Rabe: “My father-in-law lives in a senior apartment building in Quincy, IL. While visiting him, I met two Navy veterans (my f-i-l is also a Navy veteran), and I sat and listened to their stories – and took lots of notes. I created a character named Mark the Shark; one of the men was named Mark, and I wrapped their personalities and snippets of Navy life into him. My father-in-law often believes that someone has stolen something from him (he misplaces things), and so Mark the Shark has something stolen from him and enlists Piper’s aid to get it back. I love creating stories from people I watch. The next Piper book (The Dead of Summer) has some characters I’ve pulled from melding other folks—shady individuals this time.”

Favorite Quote:
Character Mark the Shark: “Out in them shoals, I hooked something with size to it and it broke. The sky was lightening, all pale and pretty like a Kinkade painting, and so we saw it clear the surface. ‘Bout shit my pants, I did. Excuse the language, ma’am. Easy a dozen feet long, maybe longer, probably longer, half of it tail. It snapped the line and we got the hell out of there. It was a goddamned big shark. My mate Gerald, he’d been studying to be a marine biologist before the war. He said it was my namesake, a thresher shark. We looked it up in a book when we got back to the ship. Threshers are a mackerel shark, you know, nocturnal with big eyes to help them see in the dark.”

Happy Reading! See you next time!