Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE BEACH HUTMURDERS (The Charity Shop Detective Agency Book #2) by Peter Boland on this Books ‘n’ All Promotions Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
It’s almost summer in Southbourne and the ladies of the Charity Shop Detective Agency are ready for another season of sun, sea and . . . murder.
Amongst the rows of charming brightly painted cabins, an elderly man’s beach hut is set on fire in the middle of the night — while he slept inside.
By day, Fiona, Sue and Daisy volunteer at the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop. But, by night, they investigate crimes. And they’re determined to get to the bottom of this murder.
Malcolm Crainey was a bit of an eccentric, but he was harmless really. Who would want to kill him?
The ladies soon uncover a long list of possible suspects. Neighbours who hated Malcolm for refusing to swap huts. Members of the snobby beach hut association who took umbrage with Malcom’s quirky beachcombed cabin decorations.
Then another hut is burned down in the dead of night. Thankfully there was no one asleep inside this time. But the pressure is on — can Fiona, Sue and Daisy find the culprit before the beach hut murderer strikes again?
THE CHARITY SHOP DETECTIVE AGENCY MYSTERIES SERIES:
THE CHARITY SHOP DETECTIVE AGENCY
THE BEACH HUT MURDERS
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My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
THE BEACH HUT MURDERS (The Charity Shop Detective Agency Book #2) by Peter Boland is an engaging amateur sleuth cozy mystery and the second book in The Charity Shop Detective Agency series. This series features three senior volunteers at the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop who also work together to solve murders in the small English town of Southbourne. This book, even though it is the second in the series, is easily read as a standalone.
Summertime in Southbourne has residents looking to cool down on Mudeford Spit. People day trip in to use the beach and there are also several beach huts for those who can afford them. One night a beach hut burns to the ground and the resident is saved, but later dies of smoke inhalation. The Spit’s liaison officer hires the Charity Shop Detectives to find out who committed the arson that led to the death.
As the ladies investigate, there are many leads, but they all lead to dead ends and the CCTV is no help either. When another hut is burned, they are happy to find their new friend was not home, but they are still stuck with no hard evidence. When a third hut burns and almost kills a couple with their two children, the ladies are desperate for a breakthrough and take desperate measures which could end their sideline as detectives.
I enjoyed this outing of the Charity Shop Detectives more than the first. Fiona, Sue, and Daisy are all delightfully quirky and individually unique with just the right skillset when they come together to investigate clues and solve their cases. The secondary characters are just as fun, and the dialogue is witty. I feel the plot is intriguing and well-paced, the red herrings and twists are well placed and kept me guessing throughout. I was surprised by the conclusion and by the epilogue even more so.
I recommend this cozy mystery for an engaging amateur sleuth cozy mystery read.
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Author Bio
After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn’t very good at it. He liked designing buildings, he just couldn’t make them stand up — a big handicap in an industry that’s partial to keeping things upright. So he became an advertising copywriter, the highlight of which was creating an ad featuring Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman. He then tried his hand at writing his own stories and quickly realised there’s no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about six months). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing and drinking beer in a garden chair.
An unpaid bar bill leads Flavia Albia to her most bitter and complex case yet.
Decades earlier Appius Tranquillus Surus wrote his will: it freed his slaves and bequeathed his businesses to them. He left an orchard to the Prisci, a family he was friendly with, on the condition that his freedmen could still take its harvest.
The convoluted arrangement has led to a feud between the two families, each of which has its own internal strife. Endless claims and counterclaims lead to violence and even death. Lawyers have given up in exasperation as the case limps on. The original will has disappeared, along with a falsified codicil – and might there be another one?
But is there a solution? Two youngsters from each side of the divide, Gaius Venuleius and Cosca Sabatina, have fallen in love, which could unite the feuding families. There is only one problem: were Sabatina’s grandmother and father really liberated in the Surus will? If not, the stigma of slavery will stop the marriage and the dispute will rage on forever.
Reconciliation seems impossible, but Albia will try. Her investigation must cut through decades of secrets, arguments, lies and violence to reach a startling truth.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Fatal Legacy by Lindsey Davis is the 11th book in the Flavia Albia series. It takes place during the First Century in Rome.
The plot has Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, taking over her father’s business as a private informer. She only has two hard and fast rules – avoid political and family cases because nothing good comes of either of them. Unfortunately, since Albia isn’t good at avoiding either, it’s really more of a guideline. So, when her Aunt Junia demands Albia track down a couple of deadbeats who owe her money, it’s an offer Albia can’t refuse.
It turns out to be a relatively easy job, requiring only some half-hearted blackmail, and it leads to some new work – tracking down some essential paperwork for the debtor family. But nothing is truly easy in Rome – if Albia doesn’t find the paperwork that proves that family’s ancestor was a properly freed slave, the family could lose everything. The more she digs, the more skeletons she finds in their closet, until murder in the past leads to murder in the present. Now, it’s serious, even deadly, and Albia has precious little time to uncover the truth.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the series?
Lindsey Davis: After writing twenty books in my much-loved Falco Roman detective series, I fought to be allowed a new direction. ‘Master and God’ examined the reign of the paranoid emperor Domitian, which I then used as a new, darker background to extend my Roman detective idea – only this time using a female protagonist. After twenty years, I felt that readers were more familiar with Rome than when I started, so I could now face them with a woman’s life in the Golden City. I thought this would be a refreshing nuance, good for me as a writer too.
EC: How did you get the idea for the character Flavia Albia?
LD: She was originally seen in a Falco story that was set in Roman Britain; I made her a tragic survivor of the Boudiccan Rebellion. Falco and his wife rescued her and brought her to Rome, adopting her as a daughter. Then I realized that I had created an interesting, very feisty character. In the Falco series I had great fun showing her as a troubled adolescent, but very perceptive about the new society she has joined.
EC: How did you get the idea for this story?
LD: It starts with a small everyday event, when two people fail to pay their bill for lunch. Albia is called in to chase them down and retrieve the money – so first, I had to work out how she might do that as a debt collector. She is hired to find some family documents. Slowly, lives are explored, leading into an extraordinarily complex family saga, covering several generations, and every kind of trouble that might afflict warring relatives. It’s a kind of mad soap opera plot, where eventually everything is found to lock together. Behind the events we laugh at, however, is a poignant discussion of ancient slavery: how it worked in a domestic situation, the vital importance of acquiring freedom, then the terrible consequences if someone who believed they were free could not prove it, or were they mistaken. I knew that if Albia could not provide a happy legal solution, she would have to obtain justice for the victims.
EC: Can you please describe Flavia?
LD: she is smart, determined, cynical. And a London Street urchin, but she is also the beneficiary of a good Roman education. She gives us a new perspective from that of the true Roman. Falco: sees Rome as a woman, an outsider, and someone who must fight hard to be accepted. She has a wild courage. And although no longer a scavenger herself, she never forgets how it felt, which gives her profound sympathy for others who are suffering or under threat of losing everything. Privilege will not spoil her. She has been slow to trust her new security, but I think she’s got there.
EC: Why the Roman Empire for the setting in the 1st Century?
LD: Because my first Roman novel was about the Emperor Vespasian and his mistress, Antonia Caenis (The Course of Honor). I came to know that period, then Vespasian’s accession after the madness of the Julio-Claudians made a suitable background for Falco, also striving to impose some order on the world he lives in. There is surviving Latin literature from this period, and of course the time capsule of the Vesuvius eruption. And I use archaeology as my starting point; there has been lots of good information discovered during my lifetime. That is still continuing, which keeps up the interest.
EC: How did Flavia grow since the first book in the series?
LD: She found mature true love, primarily. She stabilized, and accepted domesticity, where she takes responsibility for others and ruefully sees herself, with Tiberius, as the sensible center of a household and a family business. It makes her even angrier about anything that threatens the peace of people’s domestic environment and their right to personal ambitions. After a bad start in life and the tragic end of her youthful first marriage, she now accepts that even she may be allowed happiness.
EC: What role did women play in the Roman Empire?
LD: Much, much more than men have always said! Never mind the small aristocracy, who were as different and peculiar then as they are now (though not always: Vespasian was heavily influenced by his grandmother, mother, and obviously Caenis). It is evident from tombstones and inscriptions that in most of Roman society, women, especially as part of a domestic couple, were equal partners in the basic family unit. They were not supposed to go to law (but could do so) yet they could hold their own property, run businesses, and their influence is greater than the old established view. I am having fun exploring how females could fight what was supposed to be a patriarchal system. Sadly, the one profession that doesn’t seem to have been open to them is my own: we know of no successful female novelists!
EC: Did you intentionally make this story not as gruesome as the last?
LD: Yes. Absolutely. ‘Desperate Undertaking’ was based on known examples of horrible events on the Roman stage; some readers loved it, but I know some felt squeamish. I’m none too keen on live deaths in theatre myself. So next, I set out to write a story where it might appear nobody had died by foul play at all; I even make a running joke about the lack of a body. Of course, in the end it turns out that this is not the case, because in a crime novel there has to be murder. In fact, there are two killings, but one was a long time ago and the other happens very quickly!
EC: Why did most characters lie in the story?
LD: Because they are bad people! Or, you could say, normal people with secrets.
EC: What about the next book?
LD:Death on the Tiber published in April 2024 UK; July 2024 USA.
The plot has a group of well-heeled tourists arrive in Rome; when they leave, one is no longer with them. The body of a drowned woman is dredged from the Tiber, clearly the victim of foul play. It is believed she came to Rome from Britain. Rome is descending into serious gang warfare. A key mobster figure has died and will have a spectacular funeral; all the city crime lords – and their indomitable women – will be jostling for power in the aftermath. As Albia reluctantly investigates, she comments on the complex organization Rome uses to defeat the criminal underworld. She herself has allies, but they may be no help when she must confront an old enemy. She then faces a hard personal decision. Will she be consumed by the need for revenge, jeopardizing her new-found happiness?
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for DEADLY DEPTHS by John F. Dobbyn on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a Kingsumo giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Description
The death by bizarre means of his mentor, Professor Barrington Holmes, draws Mathew Shane into the quest of five archeologists, known to each other as “The Monkey’s Paws”, for an obscure object of unprecedented historic and financial value. The suspected murders of others of the Monkey’s Paws follow their pursuit of five clues found in a packet of five ancient parchments. Shane’s commitment to disprove the police theory of suicide by Professor Holmes carries him to the steamy bayous of New Orleans, the backstreets of Montreal, the sunken wreck of a pirate vessel off Barbados, and the city of Maroon descendants of escaped slaves in Jamaica.
By weaving a thread from the sacrificial rites of the Aztec kingdom before the Spanish conquest of Mexico through the African beliefs of Jamaican Maroons and finally to the ventures of Captain Henry Morgan during the Golden Era of Piracy in his conquest and sacking of Spanish cities on the Spanish Main, Shane reaches a conclusion he could never have anticipated.
Genre: Mystery, Crime Thriller Published by: Oceanview Publishing Publication Date: August 2023 Number of Pages: 320 ISBN: 9781608095483 (ISBN10: 1608095487)
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
DEADLY DEPTHS by John F. Dobbyn is an edge-of-your-seat treasure hunt thriller and intricate crime mystery mash-up novel that kept me turning the pages well into the night. This is a standalone novel that is a great mystery/thriller read and while the author is new to me, he does have other published books I will be checking out in the future.
Law professor Matthew Shane also has a love of archeology from his mentor, well known archeologist, Professor Barrington Holmes. Holmes is found dead at his office desk, and it is determined a suicide, but Matthew knows his mentor would never commit suicide.
His search for the truth leads him to a group of five archeologists, including the deceased Barrington, that call themselves “The Monkey’s Paw”. They were entangled in a mysterious expedition and since their return, they are being killed one by one.
Joining forces with the remaining members of “The Monkey’s Paw” and the help of an enigmatic Turkish antiquities dealer in France, Matthew is on a worldwide chase that may cost him his life, too.
I really loved this story. It is full of surprise twists, red herrings, and treachery. Matthew is determined to discover the truth, no matter the peril. He is an honorable, adventurous, and strong protagonist that is easy to cheer for throughout the hunt. The history of the Aztec artifact everyone wants, and the history of the Maroons of Jamaica were both interesting and well positioned throughout the plot to never interfere with the pace. The plot is well paced, fast and seldom lets up even when the plot goes back in time to the diary of a Welsh privateer. The climax was intense, and it leads to a very satisfying conclusion to both the mystery and the treasure hunt.
I highly recommend this high intensity action-adventure mystery/thriller!
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Excerpt
We arrived at an area of private docks in a town called Oistins. The driver stopped at the base of a wharf that anchored power boats of every size, speed, and description. One power yacht stood out as the choice of the fleet. The Sun Catcher. My guide hustled us both directly to the carpeted gangplank that led on board a vessel that could pass for a floating Ritz Carlton.
The engines were already revving. I was escorted to a padded deck-lounge with maximum view on the foredeck. I had scarcely settled in, when we were slicing through late-afternoon sea-swells that barely caused a rise and fall.
My guide, still in suit and tie, brought me, without either of us asking, a tall, cool, planter’s punch with an ample kick of Mount Gay Rum. For the first moment since Mick O’Flynn told me that someone was asking for me, I made a fully-considered decision. This entire fantasy could easily turn into a disaster that could outstrip New Orleans and Montreal together, but to hell with it. It was just too elating not to accept it at face value – at least for the moment.
My mind was just settling into a comfortable neutral, when I heard footsteps from behind that had more heft than I imagined my guide could produce. I made a move to swing out of the padded deck-chair, when I felt the touch of a hand with authoritative strength on my shoulder. The voice that went with it had the same commanding undertone.
“Stay where you are, Michael. I’ll join you.”
A matching deck-chair was set beside me. I found myself looking up at a shadow against the setting sun that appeared double my bulk and yet compact as an Olympic hammer-thrower. The voice came again. “You’re an interesting study, Michael. I may call you ‘Michael’, right? I should. I probably know more about you than anyone you know. You might have guessed that by now.”
An open hand reached down out of the shadow. I took it. The handshake fit the shaker. It took some seconds for the feeling to come back into mine.
Before I could answer, the voice was coming from the deck-lounge beside me. “No need for coy name games. You know that I’m Wayne Barnes. And you know that I’m one of the, shall we say, associates in that little clique we call the Monkey’s Paws. In fact, your escort here, Emile, tells me it was the mention of my name that swung your decision to get on that plane.”
He nodded to my nearly empty Planter’s Punch. “Another?”
Before I could answer, he gave a slight nod to someone behind us. Before I could say “Yes”, or possibly, but less likely, “No”, a native Bajan in a server’s uniform was at my left taking my empty and handing me a full glass.
I was three good sips into the second glass before I said my first word since coming aboard. I looked over at Wayne. I seemed to have his full focus. His engaging smile seemed to carry a full message of relaxed hospitality, and none of the threatening undercurrents I was scanning for. “You have an interesting way of delivering an invitation, Mr. Barnes”
He raised a hand. “Wayne.”
“’Wayne’ it is. You must have an interesting social life.”
“I do. Do you find it offensive?”
I looked over the bow, past the deepening blue crystal water to the reddening horizon. I felt the soothing caress of the slightly salted ocean breeze. I took one more sip of the most perfectly balanced planters punch of a lifetime, and looked back at Wayne. “Not in the slightest. Yet.”
“Ah yes, ‘yet’.”
“Right. I’m sure this won’t impress you, Wayne, and it’s not a complaint, but I’ve had a week full of enough tragedy to fill a lifetime. Hence the ‘yet’.”
His smile and focused attention remained. “I know more about your week, perhaps, than even you do. But go on.”
The second planter’s punch was having a definitely mollifying effect. “I have no idea what you mean by that last statement, Wayne, so I’ll just pass on. Given that week, and the abrupt transport from hell on earth to . . . paradise on earth, I’d have to be Mrs. Shane’s backward child not to listen for a second shoe to drop.”
The smile expanded. Still no alarms. “Or perhaps you’ve come into a sea-change of good luck, Michael. Why not go with that?”
“Why not indeed? For the moment. Just one question. ”
“Alright. One question. For now. Make it a good one.”
“Oh it is. It’s a beaut. Ecstatic as I am with all this, why the hell am I here?”
That brought a bursting laugh. “I think I’m going to enjoy having you around for a couple of days, Michael. You have an instinct for the jugular. No chipping around the edges. We won’t waste each other’s time.”
“Thank you. But that’s not an answer.”
“No it isn’t.” He looked out to the diminishing sunset. “The only answer I can give you at the moment that would do justice to the question is this. And you’ll just have to live with it for now. You’re here for a quick but depthful education. I think you’ll find it well worth two days of your life. Are you in?”
“Do I have a choice?”
We both looked back at the rapidly diminishing shore-line behind us. “None that comes to mind. Now are you in?”
That brought a smile from me, another healthy sip of the planter’s punch, and a deep breath of the ocean-fresh breeze. “I’m in.”
We chatted through the sunset on far-ranging subjects that had no association whatever with Monkeys Paws, Maroons, murder-suicides – in fact nothing that gave a clue as to why my gracious host had chosen my company over the undoubtedly vast range of his acquaintances. By then, the moon had risen.
At some point, I was aware that the engines had stopped. The splash of two anchors could be heard on either side. The sun had set. The shift from twilight to a darkness, penetrated only by a quarter moon went unnoticed.
I was slowly sipping away at my third or possibly fourth Planter’s Punch, when I became aware of a bobbing light approaching from the port side. Without interrupting the flow of conversation, I noticed that Wayne was following its approach with more than the occasional glance until it reached the side of the yacht.
Within a few minutes, my original guide, still in suit and tie, approached Wayne’s side with an inaudible whisper. I sensed that a bit of steel crept into Wayne’s otherwise conversational tone. “I’ll see him.”
I began to get up to provide privacy. Wayne held my arm in position. “Stay, Michael. Let your education begin.” My guide nodded to someone behind us and lit his path with a small flashlight.
I settled back, as a fiftyish man with narrow, cautious eyes and thinning grey hair that might have last been combed by his mother came up along Wayne’s right side. The loose wrinkles in his ageless cotton suit indicated that he might have been close to six feet, but for a constant stoop as if to pass under an unseen beam. The stoop caused his head to bob and gave him the look of one asking for royal permission to approach.
Wayne’s eyes turned to him. I noticed the stoop of the back became more noticeable. Wayne’s voice was calm and soft, but it commanded his visitor’s full attention. “Do you have it? I assume you wouldn’t be here without it, yes, Yusuf?”
The thin mouth cracked into a smile that conveyed no humor. “Of course. Of course. But perhaps our business . . .”
Wayne nodded toward me. “No fear. Mr. Shayne is here for an education. We shouldn’t deprive him of that, should we?”
The smile on the man’s lips did not match the apprehension in the tiny eyes, but he nodded. “As you say.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
The man gave a slight glance to either side as if it were the habit of a lifetime. He reached into some deep pocket inside his suitcoat. I noticed a slight but tell-tale hesitation before he slipped out what appeared to be a hard, flat, roundish object, about seven inches across. It was wrapped in several layers of ragged cloth.
He held it until Wayne extended a hand and took it onto his lap. He laid it on the small tray on his stomach. He looked back at the man, who simply forced a smile .
“I assume it all went well?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Barnes. No problems,”
Wayne smiled back. “How I do love to hear those words.”
My eyes were glued to Wayne’s hands as he carefully peeled back one layer of cloth after another. When he turned over the last layer, the object in the shape of a disc sent out instant glints of reflections of the rising moonlight.
I could see Wayne running the tips of his fingers over the entire jagged surface of the disc. He took a flip cigarette lighter out of his pocket, opened it, and lit the flame. When he held it close to the object, I could make out the resemblance of a human face, coarsely pieced together from chips of green stone.
Wayne held it up toward me and ran the flame in front of it.
“Do you recognize it Michael?”
“I’m afraid not.”
He nodded. “Most wouldn’t. Your friend, Professor Holmes, would spot it immediately. The Mayans made death masks to protect their important rulers in their journey to the afterlife. They go back to around 700 A.D.”
“What stones are these? They look like jade.”
“Good spotting. The eyes were made of rare seashells.”
“And I assume valuable?”
He laughed again. “Right to the crux of the issue. Right, Michael.”
He turned the object over and ran his fingers over the back side of it. “One that apparently goes back as far as this, and belonged to the ruler we have in mind, the right collector will pay half a million. Isn’t that right, Yusuf?”
Yusuf’s grin was beginning to become genuine. “Oh yes. Oh yes. And more, as you would know, Mr. Barnes.”
Wayne swung his legs over the deck-lounge toward me. He sat up and very carefully replaced the wrapping that had covered the mask. He stood up and walked toward the man. “And the key to its value is that it is absolutely authentic.”
Wayne looked down at the grinning eyes of Yusuf for several seconds. I think I let out a yell that came from the pit of my stomach when Wayne hurled the wrapped object over side of the yacht, into the pitch blackness that absorbed it with barely a splash.
I thought that the man would crumble to the deck. He barely held his balance. In the blackness of the night, I couldn’t make out his features, but I know to a certainty that every drop of blood left his face.
Wayne called a uniformed attendant.
Before the man moved, Wayne took hold of his arm. I was almost as frozen to the spot as the man. I think we were both certain that he would be following the object into the blackness below.
Wayne held him close enough to speak directly into his ear, but spoke loudly enough, I’m sure, so that I could hear.
“It’s a fake, Yusuf. I’m sure you know that. But you’ll live to do me a service. You’re a delivery boy. Nothing more. I want you to take a message back to Istanbul. I want you to say just this. ‘You had my trust. I give it sparingly, and not twice. Rest assured, we’ll speak of this again.’ Do you have that Yusuf?”
The man had all he could do to nod.
Wayne signaled his attendant. “Take him back.”
The man was escorted, practically carried toward the back of the vessel. In a few minutes, I could see running lights heading away from the yacht.
Wayne sat back down. “What do you think, Michael? One more Planter’s Punch before dinner?”
I could only smile at the abrupt change of tone and subject.
“No? Then shall we go in to dinner. The chef should be prepared by now.”
When he stood up, I saw that he took something from under his deck-lounge. My mouth sprung open when a glint of light from an opening door of the yacht cabin lit up the death mask. I could see amusement in the smile of my host.
“What on earth did you throw overboard?”
“Oh that. I substituted my lap tray in the wrapping for the desk mask. I’ll keep the mask.”
“But if it’s a fake.”
“It is, but a fake by a well-respected forger of these antiquities. It has enough value for that reason alone to pay the expenses I’ve already incurred in acquiring it. Shall we go to dinner?”
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Author Bio
Following graduation from Boston Latin School and Harvard College with a major in Latin and Linguistics, three years on active duty as fighter intercept director in the United States Air Force, graduation from Boston College Law School, three years of practice in civil and criminal trial work, and graduation from Harvard Law School with a Master of Laws degree, I began a career as a Professor of Law at Villanova Law School. Twenty-five years ago I began writing mystery/thriller fiction. I have so far had twenty-five short stories published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery magazine, and six mystery thriller novels, the Michael Knight/Lex Devlin series, published by Oceanview Publishing. The second novel, Frame Up, was selected as Foreword Review’s Book of the Year.
All of the fun, none of the heartache…as long as they stick to the agreement.
The proposition is simple: if ER nurse Claire Harper and her roommate, firefighter Graham Scott, are still single by the time they’re forty, they’ll take the proverbial plunge together…as friends with benefits. Maybe it’s the wine, but in the moment, Claire figures the pact is a safe-enough deal, considering she hasn’t had much luck in love and he’s in no rush to settle down. Like, at all. Besides, there’s no way she could ever really fall for Graham and his thrill-seeking ways. Not after what happened to her father…
Just as things begin to heat up way before the proposed deadline, Graham’s injured in a serious rock climbing accident—and he needs Claire’s help to heal. She’ll do whatever it takes to nurse him back to health…even if it means moving in to Graham’s bed and putting up with his little dog, who hates her. But with this no-strings arrangement taking a complicated turn, keeping “for now” from turning into “forever” isn’t as easy as they’d planned.
THE ROOMMATE PACT by Allison Ashley is a delightful and fun roommates to lovers rom-com, contemporary romance. I fell right into the premise, banter, and romance from page one. This is easily read as a standalone romance even though it does have some carryover characters from book one, Would You Rather.
ER nurse Claire Harper is not interested in any man who is a risk-taker after the loss of her father, but with a hectic work schedule and no boyfriend, she makes a pact one night while at the local bar with her roommate that if both are still single at forty, they will marry each other. She really doesn’t believe it will happen because besides being a firefighter and a recreational rock climber, both very risky, he also has a small rescue dog, Dorothy, that hates her. But a weird chemistry is starting to build between them.
When firefighter Graham Scott is seriously injured in a rock-climbing fall, Claire rushes to his side and will do anything to help him heal including putting up with Dorothy. Can they move from roommates to friends with benefits, to something more?
I loved Claire and Graham both so much. They are both interesting characters on their own, but Ms. Ashley takes them on an emotional journey of growth that is both believable and heartfelt. Graham is so carefree, and you can feel shallow, but when opening up emotionally with his journaling, he pulled at every one of my heartstrings. I always love the addition of a dog to a story and Dorothy was great as she was on her own journey of acceptance. There is something very special about these two, not only their chemistry, but also their emotional journey to love.
I highly recommend this exceptional rom-com, contemporary romance!
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About the Author
Allison Ashley is a music-loving, coffee-drinking mom of two who loves love stories. She’s an oncology pharmacist and spends her days focused on helping patients through one of the hardest things life can throw at them. Her escape has always been books—specifically books about happiness, love, and laughter—and it was inevitable that she’d eventually write her own. She promises to always write stories with deep romance, intense connection, and humor…but most of all, that coveted happy ever after.
Private Investigator Sarah Booth Delaney and her partner Tinkie are in Sheriff Coleman Peters’s office, consulting Coleman about cold cases, when Elisa Redd storms in with a case of her own. She wants Coleman to reopen the investigation of her missing daughter, Lydia Redd Maxell, the heiress to a large fortune who disappeared along with her friend Bethany nearly seven years ago. Lydia and Bethany were rumored to be working as human rights organizers abroad, but Elisa suspects Lydia’s problems might have stemmed closer to home. Now Lydia’s husband, Tope, is set to inherit the fortune, and Elisa believes he’s behind the disappearance.
Sarah Booth and Tinkie soon connect the case to a series of mysterious disappearances over the years, as well as to a perplexing recurring dream. With another woman’s life at stake, the friends follow an increasingly twisty trail all over Sunflower County, leading them to a tree and an empty grave in the county cemetery. A grave that’s said to be haunted…
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Elise’s Thoughts
Tell-Tale Bones by Carolyn Haines is a borderline novel between a Cozy Mystery and a regular mystery. It has suspense, intrigue, and very determined women heroines who seek answers and justice.
Seven years ago, a wealthy heiress has disappeared. Her mother wants to hire Sarah Booth’s private investigative firm to find out if she is dead or alive. Sarah enlists the help of her partner, Tinkie, her soulmate, Sheriff Coleman, some eccentric friends, and a ghost, Jitty, who is the connection between Sarah and her late family. They consider Tope Maxwell a prime suspect in his wife, Lydia’s disappearance. Using the atmosphere of abuse the author was able to reference Edgar Allen Poe and even brought him in as a book character.
There is plenty of action and the clues allow readers to try to solve the crime with the characters.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the series?
Carolyn Haines: It is a series with the characters growing and changing throughout. There are twenty-six books in all. I had just completed a two-book series on southern historical fiction and was searching for another storyline. I heard two funny women bickering with each other in my head. I wrote down their conversations and had one of them dead, Jitty. This is how the series began.
EC: Can you describe Jitty?
CH: She is the ghost of the main character, Sarah Booth’s great, great grandmother’s nanny. Jitty and the grandmother had a very close friendship and depended on each other. Jitty also functions as Sarah Booth’s subconscious. She keeps Sarah on the straight and narrow with her annoying tactics. Jitty impersonates everything. She never helps solve the mystery but clarifies the ethics for Sarah.
EC: How would you describe Sarah?
CH: Smart, tenacious, very direct, a Tomboy, and not a Southern Belle. She was raised to take action to defend the helpless.
EC: How about Sarah’s friend and PI partner, Tinkie?
CH: She is a Southern Belle. She was raised in privilege. She manipulates men and wraps them around her finger. She is the old-fashioned debutante girl: very smart and pretty. In the first book, Sarah Booth was wary of her. After Tinkie hires Sarah to solve a mystery, she allows Sarah to pursue her PI instincts. By the third book, they are PI partners. Tinkie is excellent with money and can get information and facts from others.
EC: What about the women who have gone missing, Lydia and Bethany?
CH: Both women had formed a friendship. Lydia’s husband is abusive, and people suspect he may have killed her. He now wants her declared officially dead to inherit her wealth. Lydia is more passive and tender while Bethany is bold, stands up for herself, and independent.
EC: Why Edgar Allan Poe?
CH: I loved him. A psychic had a dream about Poe and tells Sarah. The story looks a lot like an Edgar Allen Poe one with super scary scenes.
EC: Why the quote about social media?
CH: You must mean this one, “Hiding behind the social media anonymity of an email address, they allowed their meanness free rein.” There is so much meanness and cruelty on social media. People can jump on others where they cannot defend themselves. They do and say things they would never do in person, face to face. I was a former journalist. My father told me, ‘If you are ashamed to sign your name to something don’t print it.’ For me, if someone is ashamed to say something directly to someone’s face, don’t say it.
EC: How would you describe the bad husband, Tope?
CH: He can be charming, but is cruel, creepy, abusive, evil, and is someone who enjoys breaking women’s spirits.
EC: Why talk about Afghan women?
CH: I was writing this book when the Biden administration was pulling out of Afghanistan. It just got in my brain and heart. I was really upset on what happened to them. The situation is so painful to me.
EC: What about Coleman and Sarah’s relationship?
CH: The books are written over a time period of two years in Sarah’s life. Coleman is the County Sheriff who is the man of her heart. They were best of friends in high school but not romantically involved. She now realizes what is important to her is integrity, a good heart, and a good value system. She realizes Coleman has these qualities and that they share a value system. They are a team from now on. Eventually, they will get married and have a child, but not while I am writing the series.
EC: Next books?
CH: It will be out in May 2024 and is titled Light, Camera, Bones. The plot has a movie being filmed in Greenville Mississippi on the river. One of those making it disappears and the investigation shows there is a Bull shark in the river. The book after this comes out in October 2024 titled Tender Bones about Elvis impersonators in his hometown of Tupelo Mississippi.
I am also writing a book with a partner that does not have a contract yet. It is like The Bad Seed meets To Kill a Mockingbird. It will be about a child serial killer. My co-writer is a friend of mine named Mandy Haynes. She lives on the property. I tell people she is my illiterate illegitimate daughter since she cannot spell “Haines” correctly. LOL.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for COLD PURSUIT (Ryland & St. Clair Book #1) by Nancy Mehl on this Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a Kingsumo giveaway. Good luck on the giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Description
Ex-FBI profiler River Ryland still suffers from PTSD after a case went horribly wrong. Needing a fresh start, she moves to St. Louis to be near her ailing mother and opens a private investigation firm with her friend and former FBI partner, Tony St. Clair. They’re soon approached by a grieving mother who wants them to find out what happened to her teenaged son, who disappeared four years ago. River knows there’s almost no hope the boy is still alive, but his mother needs closure, and River and Tony need a case, no matter how cold it might be.
But as they follow the boy’s trail, which gets more complicated at every turn, they find themselves in the path of a murderer determined to punish anyone who gets in his way. As River and Tony race to stop him before he kills again, an even more dangerous threat emerges, stirring up the past that haunts River and plotting an end to her future.
Genre: Christian Suspense Published by: Bethany House Publishers Publication Date: July 2023 Number of Pages: 336 ISBN: 9780764240454 (ISBN10: 0764240455) Series: Ryland & St. Clair (#1)
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My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
COLD PURSUIT (Ryland & St. Clair Book #1) by Nancy Mehl is a fast paced and gripping Christian suspense and the first book in this new series. These stories feature ex-FBI profilers, River Ryland and Tony St. Clair who have left the FBI and are opening their own private investigation firm.
Watson Investigations is opened by River Ryland and Tony St. Clair in River’s hometown of St. Louis. River left the FBI with PTSD after her last horrific case and her mother needs her now after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Tony follows and has mild aphasia and some loss of feeling in his hand and feet after being shot four times by the same perp. The killer is now in prison, but the DNA is not only his and there may be a follower who wants to finish the job of killing River.
At the same time, they get their first P.I. case. A mother whose son has been missing for four years comes to them for help finding him. She knows he is probably dead, but she would like his remains to put him to rest. They begin the investigation and follow a convoluted series of clues and help from people in his life that lead them to a surprisingly close suspect who is determined to punish anyone who makes him mad.
This is an intense suspense read with well-drawn protagonists. Their introduction in the prologue starts you off with a bang and this is the over-arcing plot that will continue in the series and keeps you on the edge-of-your-seat even as you follow their first P.I. case from start to finish in this book. The evidence, clues and twists come at you quickly even as they intertwine so this book is difficult to put down. I read Christian suspense/fiction from other authors and do not mind religious dialogue, prayer, or religious references, but there is too much for me in this story. It pulled me out of the thrills and chills. Overall, I really did enjoy the cold case mystery, the potential of romance between the two protagonists, and the threatening serial killer in the background who we know will return in the future.
A great start to a new Christian suspense series.
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Excerpt
Prologue
River Ryland was convinced that madness exists only a breath away from genius. The man who stood in front of her and Tony had proven this to be true. He’d kept his identity hidden from the FBI’s best. Now River and Tony’s lives were about to end, and there was no one to save them.
Moonlight caused the river to sparkle as if it were layered with precious jewels. But the image didn’t provoke a sense of beauty. It spawned a feeling of terror so deep and evil that her body betrayed her. She couldn’t move. Why were they even here? She and Tony were behavioral analysts for the FBI, not field agents. They wrote profiles for the agents who were trained to confront insanity. A call from another agent had brought them here. “Come and see,” she’d said. “It’s important. I think we got it wrong.”
This was someone they trusted. Someone whose opinion mattered. Jacki was so smart. So naturally intuitive. And so surely dead. Why hadn’t River been alerted by the quiver in her voice? Why hadn’t the profiler profiled her friend and realized she was in trouble? She’d failed Jacki, Tony, . . . and herself. And now, without a miracle, she and Tony were going to die on the bank of this killer river—with moonlight standing guard over their execution.
“Come closer,” the man said to River, his face resembling a Greek theater mask. Was it Comedy or Tragedy? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t think. Even though she willed her feet to move, she stayed where she was. It was as if her shoes had been glued to the ground. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
The man swung his gun toward Tony. “I said move. If you don’t, I’ll shoot your friend.”
River forced her feet from the spot where she stood. It took every ounce of strength and willpower she possessed. She locked her eyes with Tony’s. Slowly, she made her way toward the man in the moonlight, his gun glinting in the soft light as he pointed it at her. A line from Shakespeare’s Othello echoed in her mind. It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she is wont and makes men mad.
She turned her face toward the man who planned to take her life. She knew she shouldn’t panic. She knew how to fight. How to defend herself. She hated feeling so helpless. So afraid. This was the moment she desperately needed to summon the trained agent inside of her. The one who knew how to confront evil. Yet she was aware of how powerful this man was. How deadly. He’d killed eleven women that they knew of, not counting Jacki, but he’d teased authorities with letters claiming up to eighty. Although it sounded impossible, it wasn’t. Transient women went missing every day. Hookers. Teenagers living on the streets. The number could be right. The one truth that was indisputable? No one had ever survived him. No one.
When she was close enough to smell his sour breath, in one quick move, he swung the gun back toward Tony and fired four times. Tony fell to the ground.
River started to scream his name, but before she could make a sound, the killer’s hands were around her neck, squeezing. Choking the life out of her. Suddenly, something clicked on in her brain, like her alarm clock in the morning. She had to help Tony—if it wasn’t already too late. She struggled, hitting at this horror of a human being. This man full of death and destruction. Then she rolled her eyes back in her head and stopped breathing, holding her breath for dear life. And that’s exactly what it was. Life. Hers and Tony’s. She went limp, hoping the monster would think she was dead.
He finally dropped her on the ground and walked toward his car. She needed to gulp in air but was afraid he’d hear. Breathing in a little at a time hurt her chest, yet she had no choice. She began to crawl quietly toward the gun he’d taken from Tony. It lay only a few feet away. She had no idea where hers was, but that didn’t matter.
She heard him close the trunk. She scrambled as quickly as she could until her fingers closed around the barrel of the gun, but before she could pick it up, he was behind her. He hit her on the head, and she felt herself losing consciousness. She could only stare up at the moon and hate it for watching this happen.
The next sensation she experienced was throbbing pain in her head and neck. Her first reaction wasn’t relief, it was surprise. The pain was awful, but didn’t that mean she was alive? A flash of euphoria gave way to terror when she realized she couldn’t move. Where was she? Why was she wet? She couldn’t see anything, and her hands were bound in front of her. Her fingers reached out and touched something hard. What was it? When she realized she was trapped inside some kind of container—and that water was leaking in—she screamed out in horror. She was in a large chest. All of the Strangler’s victims had been found in the Salt River, and most of them were inside old trunks. But they’d been dead when they went into the water, and she was still alive. He’d done it on purpose because she’d come too close. He needed more than her death. He wanted her to experience the terror he knew his madness could create.
River struggled with all her might, but she couldn’t get free. She pulled her hands up to her mouth and tried to use her teeth to rip through the duct tape wrapped around her wrists. She realized immediately that there was too much of it. She couldn’t make enough progress to help herself before she was completely submerged. The river was seeping in, slowly but surely. She was on her side, and half of her head was already under water. She cried out in terror as she tried to push herself onto her back so she could clear her nose and mouth, but there wasn’t enough room. As hope faded, she did something she never thought she’d do again. Something she hadn’t done in many years. She prayed.
“God, please. If you’re real, if you care anything about me, save me. Get me out of here. I’m sorry I’ve been so angry at you. If you give me another chance . . .” She couldn’t get the rest of the words out because water filled her mouth and she began to choke. She’d swallowed some of it, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She was suffocating. Drowning. Just when she’d decided to give in to the inevitable and let death overtake her, something flashed in her mind. Right before the Strangler hit her . . . there was something. A movement on the hill behind them. Was someone watching? Had they gone for help? Was there a chance? As much as she wanted to believe it, another part of her thought it would be best to just relax and float away. Hope only brought disappointment, and she’d experienced too much of it. Still, she couldn’t help but grab onto a slim chance that . . .
That’s when she felt it. Movement. Something jostled the trunk. Was she being lifted out of the river? As the water level began to decrease inside the trunk, River began to cry. She was going to live. “Thank you, God,” she croaked. “Thank you.”
He was convinced he’d been born to be exceptional. He was certainly smarter than these weak, feckless creatures who revolved around his genius. Was he a god? Or was he a demon? Who was smarter, God or Lucifer? It seemed Lucifer had certainly ruined the plan of the Almighty. If God was really the Creator of all things, how was it that one of His creations was able to rebel and cause such havoc on Earth? Seemed to him that the devil was the winner of that particular contest.
So, on whose side was he working? Being honest about it, he didn’t really care. He only knew that the desire to rid the world of those who were unworthy of life burned in him like a fire. One that he had no power or will to quench. It was his destiny. His reason for living. His fate had been decided for him many years ago, and he’d accepted it gladly. Lucifer or Jehovah. It didn’t matter.
Some would call what he’d done sin. But what was sin anyway? Perhaps it was the road less traveled because of fear of retribution. He didn’t fear judgment. His god didn’t threaten him. Instead, he only fueled the glorious desire that clawed and scratched inside him, demanding release.
He especially enjoyed pitting himself against those who called themselves righteous because they had the ability to forgive. Forgiveness was for the feeble-minded. He would never forgive. He hated anyone who considered themselves moral or spiritually justified and had promised the voice that whispered in the darkness that he would never fail to respond to its unending song of reckoning against them.
He laughed suddenly, the sound echoing around him. These idiotic cattle thought they’d defeated him, but he had a surprise for them. All he had to do was wait. They would rue the day they’d tried to cage him.
The killing hadn’t stopped. It had only just begun.
Chapter One
Brian woke up shivering again, calling out for his mother and father. As he looked around the small room he rented in the rundown boarding house, reality sunk in. He had no idea where his parents were, and even if he could find them, they didn’t want him. They’d stuck him in that residential facility until he was eighteen, like some kind of unwanted dog left in the pound. They’d paid the hospital boatloads of money for all those years, yet when he’d been released there was no family waiting to take him home. So why was he still having the same nightmare? Would it ever leave him alone?
Before they’d kicked him out, the social worker at the hospital had found him a job, but if he wanted to keep it, he had to visit a therapist every week. He hated going, but he couldn’t walk away from his job. Although he didn’t make much, at least he could pay for this room. Fredric, a kind man who’d worked in the hospital cafeteria, had helped him find this rooming house and had even paid his rent for two months. Brian was grateful for Fredric’s help, but this place was really awful. Paint peeling off the walls. A shared bathroom for all three rooms on this floor, which was usually dirty. The guy who lived across the hall drank and didn’t flush the toilet. And at night the cockroaches came out. Brian didn’t blame Fredric. He’d done everything he could with his limited funds. Brian blamed his parents. They were rich. They could have helped him. Kept him safe. Brian hated them with every fiber of his being.
When he was very young, they were attentive—even loving. But as he grew older, and they realized he was different, everything changed. Although he’d never met his father’s father, he’d heard the whispers—that Brian was crazy, just like his grandfather had been. When he first began to tell his parents what he was experiencing, they seemed concerned. Then when doctors informed them he was hallucinating and that he needed professional help, the way they looked at him changed. The word schizophrenia became his enemy—and his identity.
At first, his father appeared to care for his broken son, but as his mother applied pressure, he began to distance himself—just as she had. It was clear he wasn’t the child they’d wanted. And then his brother was born. And his sister. They were perfect. As he grew older and his problems began to increase, it was obvious that his mother only saw him as an embarrassment. Something that interfered with their perfect lives. Thankfully, in their eyes, God had shown them mercy and given them the children they deserved, so sending him away solved their dilemma. He had a memory of his parents fighting one night. His father wanted Brian to stay with them, but his mother had threatened to leave him and take his ideal children away. Finally, his father gave in. Brian hated him even more than his mother for caving in to her demands. For turning his back on the son that needed him so desperately. After he went to live in that terrible hospital with its white walls, disinfectant smells, locked doors, and abusive staff, his parents began to visit him less and less. The more he begged them to take him home, the more uncomfortable they became, and by the time he was thirteen, they stopped coming altogether. As he remembered the anger he’d felt, bad words swirled around in the air, each letter a different color. As they turned red, he mouthed the words he saw, and rage built inside him. He would need to release it soon.
Suddenly his alarm clock went off, causing the air around him to pulsate. He hit the alarm and pushed himself up from the bed. It was an especially cold November. The blanket he’d purchased from Goodwill wasn’t enough to keep him warm, especially in this drafty room, but it was all he could afford if he wanted to pay his rent and eat. As his teeth chattered, the word cold floated in front of his eyes. He couldn’t hold back a sneeze that made his mouth feel funny. He swiped at the bad words that started flying around his head.
“Stop it!” he said loudly. Immediately, he put his hand over his mouth. What if someone complained because he was too loud? No matter what, he couldn’t lose this room. He had nowhere else to go, and he didn’t want to live on the streets. That was a nightmare he couldn’t face.
The afternoon sun shone through a gap in the curtains on his window, but it brought no warmth. He took off his sweatpants and sweatshirt and hurried over to the decrepit chest of drawers where he kept his clothes. He pulled out his work pants and some clean underwear. Then he went over to the hooks on the wall where he hung his three work shirts. There was only one clean shirt left. He’d have to go to the laundromat tomorrow. That could be a problem since he had to see his therapist in the morning. He’d have to wake up early to get everything done. He glanced at the clock on the top of his dresser. Four o’clock. He needed to leave by five-thirty to get to work on time. At least the cleaning company left him alone, since they trusted him and knew he would get the job done. As long as he had a place to live and he could keep his fifteen-year-old car running, he would keep showing up.
His supervisor usually only showed up once a week to collect Brian’s time sheet. He used to check his work, but he didn’t anymore. Most importantly, the man never gave him the look. Brian hated that look. The one he saw on his parents’ faces before they’d shipped him off. Rage burned inside him toward normal people who laughed at him and treated him as less than human. As he headed toward the bathroom, the word blood pulsated in front of his eyes, and he could almost taste its sugary aroma in his mouth.
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Author Bio
Nancy Mehl (www.nancymehl.com) is the author of almost fifty books, a Parable bestseller, as well as the winner of an ACFW Book of the Year Award, a Carol Award, and the Daphne Du Maurier Award. She has also been a finalist for two Carol Awards, and the Christy Award. Nancy writes from her home in Missouri, where she lives with her husband, Norman, and their puggle, Watson. To learn more, visit nancymehl.com.
