Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: An Evil Heart by Linda Castillo

Book Description

On a crisp autumn day in Painters Mill, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder responds to a call only to discover an Amish man who has been violently killed with a crossbow, his body abandoned on a dirt road. Aden Karn was just twenty years old, well liked, and from an upstanding Amish family. Who would commit such a heinous crime against a young man whose life was just beginning?

The more Kate gets to know his devastated family and the people—both English and Amish—who loved him, the more determined she becomes to solve the case. Aden Karn was funny and hardworking and looking forward to marrying his sweet fiancé, Emily. All the while, Kate’s own wedding day to Tomasetti draws near…

But as she delves into Karn’s past, Kate begins to hear whispers about a dark side. What if Aden Karn wasn’t the wholesome young man everyone admired? Is it possible the rumors are a cruel campaign to blame the victim? Kate pursues every lead with a vengeance, sensing an unspeakable secret no one will broach.

The case spirals out of control when a young Amish woman comes forward with a horrific story that pits Kate against a dangerous and unexpected opponent. When the awful truth is finally uncovered, Kate comes face to face with the terrible consequences of a life lived in all the dark places.

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Elise’s Thoughts

An Evil Heart by Linda Castillo is once again another home run.  She blends an intense crime mystery with some light-hearted scenes and detailed insight about the Amish community.

The story opens with twenty-year-old Aden Karn being violently killed with a crossbow. He was well-liked, kind, funny, hardworking, and engaged to be married.  Now Kate Burkholder, Painters Mills police chief, must find his killer. But as she delves into Karn’s past, Kate begins to hear whispers about a dark side and wonders if Aden Karn wasn’t the wholesome young man everyone admired.

Then there are the scenes that show Kate is getting ready to wed her longtime love, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent John Tomasetti.  She is trying to make amends with her family after leaving the Amish community.  Now readers see how her family is also reconciling her departure from their culture and is willing to participate in the wedding celebration. 

The gripping scenes that include family, jealousy, lies, betrayal, and friendship will have readers turning the pages at a brisk pace.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Why a crossbow weapon?

LC: I never did fire a crossbow but did speak to my neighbor who is a hunter and had used a crossbow. I read a lot of stories about it and saw some videos. In the UK people have been shot or murdered using this weapon. I thought it is an interesting and unusual choice of weapon. The bolts are incredibly powerful, fast, and accurate. The broadhead tip could graze and nick someone to cause injury. The bolt (arrow) has tremendous velocity and can penetrate bone and even go through it.

EC:  The scene with the murder was horrific?

LC:  When I first wrote that scene, I wrote it as a shooting. It felt a little familiar and I decided to dig deeper. I started looking at different crimes and happened upon the crossbow weapon. I chose the broadhead bolt because the tip of it has four wings which will cause a tremendous wound. Instead of a wound there will be four slits in the shape of a cross. It cannot be pulled out but to get it out it must go all the way through.

EC:  Also interesting was that the Amish person was riding a bike, not a buggy?

LC:  They do.  I had lunch with an Amish man in 2019.  He rides his bike everywhere.  I got the idea from him.  I wanted to make the story a little bit different, fresher, yet accurate.

EC:  Do you ride a bike to get the description you wrote about in the book?

LC:  I used to, but not where we live now in rural country. When we lived in Dallas my husband and I rode bikes all the time.  I did write the description from my experience of being able to cover ground a lot faster.

EC:  How would you describe the killer?

LC:  They were cruel and wanted to cause pain. They are calm and confident.  The killing was targeted, planned, and cold blooded. There were strange motivations so inwardly they did not take away all the blame.

EC:  How would you describe Aden, the victim?

LC: He appears to be an enigma. The first couple of chapters describe him as an outstanding citizen, bright, and kind.  A typical Amish young man about to embark on his life. Pretty early in the book Kate starts to realize there is something else going on and not everything is as it appears. She recognizes that this guy has secrets with a dark side. I explore the question of how someone’s lifestyle could put themselves into a situation that leads to a bad end.

EC:  In the last couple of books do you explain more about the steps of a homicide investigation, which makes the story more interesting?

LC:  It was not intentional, but I did want to get the police procedural aspect correct. I did in the last couple of books spend a good bit of time on the investigation. Part of the reason is that they were difficult investigations. Even though I am the writer and know the answer I must go through the struggle of going through the crime.  I want it to be reasonable and credible, not coming out of left field. I hope readers enjoy this.

EC:  Readers get to understand more about Tomasetti the cop?

LC:  He is strong, obsessive, intense, direct, and driven. His experience tells him what will happen and causes him to be cynical. I also went into his backstory more. What happened to him was a life alternating event. He has come very far and has grown since the first book in the story. Readers learn where his family is buried when he takes Kate there. This helps them to get closure. It was a very satisfying scene for me to write.

EC:  Readers also find out a little more about Kate’s sister Sarah?

LC:  She is traditional, a peacekeeper, an optimist, a diplomat, and they are getting closer. Because of the darkness with the story, I wanted to add some lightness and comfort, which was Sarah. For example, the scene with the wedding dress. Kate must take off her gun to get measured for the dress.  Kate told Sarah how uncomfortable she was with some of the things on the wedding dress and said she wants to brighten it up more. Sarah came up with the idea of the sash because she is smart enough and kind enough to read between the lines. They had good common ground.  I think this is an important scene.

EC:  Why do you think that was an important scene?

LC:  Kate is coming to acknowledge that she is not Amish but still can have an important relationship and be close to her family. She is not turned off to her Amish heritage. She chose a middle ground for her wedding between the Amish and English worlds by getting married in a Mennonite wedding. In the end, this is the message of that wedding dress scene and the wedding scene.  The wedding scene where the bishop came was also important. When Kate was young, she had a love/hate relationship with him.  Throughout this entire series he has been a hard man to her sometimes. Yet, it meant something for him to show up at her wedding as a friend, not as the bishop.

EC: Next book?

LC:  The working title is The Burning and should be out in early July next year. Kate must adjust to being married but is feeling the tick of the biological clock, of having a baby. She has always envisioned herself with family.  But in the next several books she must balance being married and being a Police Chief in a high-risk profession. The murder in the next book is centered around the birth of the Anabaptist reformation movement. The Amish were burned, drowned, hanged while being persecuted.

THANK YOU!!

***

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.

Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Sadness on the Island by Stewart Giles

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for SADNESS ON THE ISLAND (DI Liam O’Reilly Mysteries Book #10) by Stewart Giles on the Books ‘n’ All Promotions Blog Tour.

Below you will find a book blurb, my book review, the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Blurb

Detective Liam O’Reilly has reached a low point in his life.

The love of his life has just been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and his daughter is about to move out of the apartment they’ve shared for the past year.

Even his cats are bringing him down, and he doesn’t think life can get much worse.

But then everything is suddenly put into perspective when news of a horrific incident comes in.

A man has arrived home to find his entire family slaughtered. His wife and children have been brutally murdered. The family dog has also been viciously attacked.

O’Reilly soon forgets his own woes and throws himself headlong into the case. His own sadness can wait.

But soon, O’Reilly realises things are rarely as they appear to be. Not all sadness is real. Sometimes there is something much deeper running beneath the surface, and as he gets closer to the truth, his own misery is forgotten when he comes face to face with an evil so dark, he starts to wonder if sadness is destined to be the norm from now on.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/114470601-sadness-on-the-island?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=fIWAMdG51L&rank=1

DI O’REILLY MYSTERIES

Book 1 – Blood on the Island

Book 2 – Lies on the Island

Book 3 – Fear on the Island

Book 4 – Malice on the Island

Book 5 – Revenge on the Island

Book 6 – Christmas on the Island

Book 7 – Silence on the Island

Book 8 – Secrets on the Island

Book 9 – Chaos on the Island

Book 10 – Sadness on the Island

Book 11 – Danger on the Island

***

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

SADNESS ON THE ISLAND (DI Liam O’Reilly Mysteries Book #10) by Stewart Giles is an intricately plotted murder mystery/police procedural that had me reading this book in the series from start to finish in one sitting. While it is not necessary to read the previous books to follow the criminal investigation, the recurring characters personal lives and circumstances continue to evolve in each book, and I am glad I read them in order.

DI Liam O’Reilly has noticed a general feeling of sadness, not only in his personal life, but throughout the island of Guernsey. His girlfriend has been diagnosed with cancer, his daughter has moved into a home of her own, and his cats are in revolt.

And then he is called to a triple homicide. A mother and her two children have been brutally murdered and set on display. When O’Reilly arrives the family dog is barely alive in the backyard and the husband is sitting at the dining room table with a blood covered shirt playing chess.

As O’Reilly and his team investigate the murders, not all the clues are adding up and when they do, O’Reilly does not believe the easy resolution. This crime is so dark and twisted that sadness may be the norm.

I love this protagonist and all the recurring characters in this series. It is as if I am just catching up with old friends when I get a new book, but with the added bonus of a new crime mystery to solve. O’Reilly’s personal issues were more prevalent in this book, and it is interesting to read his personal evolution which has been a lot since the first book in the series. This crime mystery and the subsequent police investigation are extremely well plotted around the game of chess with many twists and red herrings that kept me guessing. No spoilers, but I believe you will agree that the resolution of the mystery is brilliant, and the resolution of O’Reilly’s personal issues is believable. Nothing though prepared me for the emotionally charged ending. I need the next book immediately!

I highly recommend this addition to the series.

***

Author Bio

After reading English at 3 Universities and graduating from none of them, I set off travelling around the world with my wife, Ann, finally settling in South Africa, where we still live.

In 2014 Ann dropped a rather large speaker on my head and I came up with the idea for a detective series. DS Jason Smith was born. Smith, the first in the series was finished a few months later.

3 years and 8 DS Smith books later, Joffe Books wondered if I would be interested in working with them. As a self-published author, I agreed. However, we decided on a new series – the DC Harriet Taylor: Cornwall series.

The Beekeeper was published and soon hit the number one spot in Australia. The second in the series, The Perfect Murder did just as well.

I continued to self-publish the Smith series and Unworthy hit the shelves in 2018 with amazing results.  I therefore made the decision to self-publish The Backpacker which is book 3 in the Detective Harriet Taylor series which was published in July 2018.

After The Backpacker I had an idea for a totally new start to a series – a collaboration between the Smith and Harriet thrillers and The Enigma was born. It brought together the broody, enigmatic Jason Smith and the more level-headed Harriet Taylor.

The Miranda trilogy is something totally different. A psychological thriller trilogy. It is a real departure from anything else I’ve written before.

The Detective Jason Smith series continues to grow. I also have another series featuring an Irish detective who relocated to Guernsey, the Detective Liam O’Reilly series. There are also 3 stand alone novels.

Social Media Links

Website: www.stewartgiles.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stewart.giles.33

Twitter: @stewartgiles

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Reckoning by Baron Birtcher

RECKONING

by Baron Birtcher

September 4 – 29, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for RECKONING by Baron Birtcher on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.

Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Synopsis

Ty Dawson is a small-town sheriff with big-city problems, in this riveting crime thriller from the award-winning author of Fistful of Rain.

As lawman, rancher, and Korean War veteran, Ty Dawson has his share of problems in the southern Oregon county he calls home. Despite how rural it is, Meriwether can’t keep modernity at bay. The 1970s have changed the United States—and Meriwether won’t be spared.

A standoff looms when the US Fish & Wildlife Service seeks to separate longtime cattleman KC Sheridan from his water supply—ensuring the death of his livestock. If that’s not enough trouble, a Portland detective is found dead in a fly-fishing resort cabin. Though the Portland police, including the victim’s own partner, are eager to write off the tragedy as a suicide, Ty has his own thoughts on the matter—as well as evidence that points to murder. His suspicions soon mire him in a swamp of corruption that threatens nearly everyone around him. Turns out that greed and evil are contagious—and they take down men both great and small . . .

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123226006-reckoning?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=36Qh6a5Bzl&rank=1

Reckoning

Genre: Neo-western crime thriller
Published by: Open Road Integrated Media
Publication Date: June 2023
Number of Pages: 300
ISBN: 978-1-5040-8280-8
Series: Sheriff Ty Dawson Series, #3

***

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

RECKONING (Ty Dawson Mysteries Book #3) by Baron Birtcher is a twisted suspenseful thriller/historical mystery/police procedural mash-up featuring a rural county Oregon sheriff and rancher set the late 1970’s that kept me reading well into the night. This is the third book in the Ty Dawson series, but I was able to easily read it as a standalone.

Sheriff Ty Dawson is a Korean war veteran, rancher, and rural Meriweather County sheriff in southern Oregon. Ty gets called out to an elderly neighbor’s ranch belonging to KC Sheridan and his wife when the US Fish & Wildlife Service fences off the longtime water supply for his cattle. Sheridan’s wife’s brother lost his ranch to the government and is now instigating his militia friends to make a stand to save KC’s ranch.

At the same time, a Portland detective is found dead in a resort cabin. His partner and the chief of police in Portland all want the death classified as a suicide and the case closed. Ty and the medical examiner know he was murdered, and he is willing to fight against the PPD to discover the truth.

Ty and his deputies work to keep the standoff at the Sheridan ranch from escalating, while also following leads in the murdered detective case. Ty is determined to find the truth, but it will cost him.

I love Ty Dawson and now want to go back and read the first two books in the series. He loves his wife and daughter, still has nightmares from his time in Korea, and has a strong sense of justice that must be satisfied. Set in the late 1970’s, historical references, significant events and lack of current technology are all intertwined throughout the story without slowing the pace. The two investigations are intricately plotted and perfectly paced. I was surprised to learn how the two investigations are tied together at the climax of this story. Greed, political corruption, drugs, and prostitution are all in abundance in this investigation with plenty of twists that keep you guessing. This is a new to me author that I am very happy to have found.

I highly recommend this addition to the series, and I am looking forward to reading more Ty Dawson books in the future.

***

Excerpt

Prelude:

A TRANSITIVE NIGHTFALL

NO CHILD IS brought into this world with any knowledge of true evil. This they learn over the passage of time. In my experience as a Sheriff, and as a rancher, I have found this precept to be true.

Time passes nevertheless, even if it passes slowly. Here in rural southern Oregon, sometimes it seemed as if it hadn’t moved at all, advancing without touching Meriwether County, except with glancing blows.

That is, until the day it caught up with us all, and came down like a goddamn hammer.

CHAPTER ONE

ORDINARILY, AUTUMN IN Meriwether County would come in hard and sudden, like a stone hurled through a window. But this year it snuck in slow and mild, lingered there deceitfully while we waited for the axe to come down.

The sky that morning was turquoise, empty of clouds, the altitude strung with elongated V’s of migrating geese and a single contrail that resembled a surgical scar, the narrows between the high valley walls opening onto a broad vista of rangeland some distance below. I had expected ice patches to have formed on the pavement overnight, but the weather had remained stubbornly dry, even as temperatures closed in on the low thirties. I tipped open the wind-wing and let the chill air blow through the cab of my pickup as I stretched, and drank off the last dregs of coffee I had brought for the long southward drive from the town of Meridian.

I had received a phone call at home the night before from an unusually distressed KC Sheridan. I had known KC for as long as I can remember, a pragmatic and taciturn cattleman whose family history in the area dated back to the late 1800s, much like that of my own. Three generations of Sheridans had stretched fence wire, planted feed-grass and run rough stock across deeded ranchland that measured its acreage in the tens of thousands, and whose boundaries straddled two separate counties, one of which was my jurisdiction.

But the decade of the ’70s thus far had not been any kinder or gentler to cowboys than to anyone else, and KC and his wife, Irene, had found themselves increasingly subject to the fulminations and intimidation of both local and federal government. While the Sheridan ranch had once numbered itself among a dozen privately held agricultural properties in the region, KC now found himself surrounded on three sides by a federally designated wildlife refuge that had swollen to encompass well over three hundred square miles; a bird sanctuary originally conceived under the auspices of President Theodore Roosevelt’s white house. All of which would have been perfectly fine and acceptable to the Sheridan family, given the understanding that the scarce water supply that ultimately fed into the bird sanctuary belonged to the Sheridans by legal covenant, as it had for nearly a century.

I turned off the paved two-lane and onto a gravel service road, headed in the direction of the ridgeline where KC sat silhouetted against the bright backdrop of clear sky, mounted astride his chestnut roping horse. KC climbed out of the saddle as I parked a short distance away, switched off the ignition and stepped down from my truck. KC trailed the horse behind him as he moved in my direction, took off his hat and ran a forearm across his brow, then pressed it back onto his head. His hair and his eyes shared a similar shade of gunmetal grey, and the hardscrabble nature of his existence as a rancher had been recorded in the deep lines of his face.

“What the hell am I supposed to do about these goings-on, Sheriff?” KC asked, and cocked his brim in the general direction of a reservoir that was the size of a small mountain lake. Two men wearing construction hardhats were surveying a line on the near shore where a third man studied a roll of blueprints he had unfurled across the hood of his work truck.

“Is that who I think it is?” I asked.

“They aim to fence off my water. My cows won’t last a week in this weather.”

“Have you talked to them, KC?”

He nodded.

“’Bout as useful as standing in a bucket and trying to lift yourself up by the handle. It’s the reason I finally called you, Ty. I didn’t know what else to do.”

The vein on KC’s temple palpitated as he cut his eyes toward the foothills and spat.

“I’ll have a word with them,” I said. “You wait here.”

A wintry wind had begun to blow down from the pass, pushing channels through the dry grass and the sweet scents of juniper and scrub pine. A harrier swept down out of a cluster of black oaks and made a series of low passes across the flats.

I averted my eyes as the sun glinted off the US Department of Fish & Wildlife shield affixed to the driver side door of a government-issue Chevy Suburban. The man studying the blueprints didn’t bother to lift his head or look at me as I stepped up beside him.

“Care to tell me why you and your men are trespassing on private ranch land?” I asked.

The man sighed, scrutinizing me over the frames of a pair of steel-rimmed reading glasses. He had a face that put me in mind of an apple carving, and a physique that resembled a burlap sack filled with claw hammers.

“Who the hell are you now?” he asked.

“Ty Dawson, Sheriff of Meriwether County. That’s the name of the county you’re standing in.”

He took off his reading glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket, hitched a work boot onto the Suburban’s bumper and offered me an approximation of a smile.

“Well, Sheriff, I’m with Fish and Wildlife—that’s an agency of the federal government, as I’m sure you’re aware—and I have a work order that says I’m supposed to put up a fence. And that’s exactly what me and my crew are doing here.”

I gestured upslope, where KC Sheridan stood watching us, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“You’re on that man’s private property,” I said.

The government man made no move to acknowledge KC.

“I don’t split hairs over those types of details, Sheriff. The work order I’ve got lays out the metes and bounds of the line, and me and my crew just install the fence where it says to. It ain’t brain surgery.”

“Scoot over and let me have a look at that site map.”

“I oughtta radio this in.”

“You do whatever you think you need to,” I said. “But do it while I’m looking at your map.”

He lifted his chin and looked as though he was conducting a dialogue with himself, then finally stepped to one side. I studied the blueprint for a few moments, looked out across the rock-studded range and got my bearings.

“Looks to me like the boundary line for the bird refuge is at least a hundred yards to the other side of this reservoir,” I said. “Your map is mismarked.”

“The agency doesn’t mismark maps, Sheriff.”

“They sure as hell mismarked this one. You need to stop your work until this gets sorted out.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Care to repeat that? There’s clearly been a mistake.”

“No mistake. You need to step away, Sheriff.”

“Let me explain something to you,” I said, removing my sunglasses. “It’s the law in the State of Oregon that the water that comes up on Mr. Sheridan’s property belongs to Mr. Sheridan. Period. If you fence off his reservoir—especially this late in the season—you’re not only stealing his water, you’re murdering his herd.”

The agency man lifted his foot off the bumper, set his feet wide and faced off with me. He slid both hands into the back pockets of his canvas overalls and rocked back on his heels.

“Now it’s my turn to try to explain something to you, Sheriff: I been given a job to do, and I intend to do it. If you don’t walk away right this minute and leave me to it, I will be forced to radio this in. Long and the short of it is, the guys who will come out here after me will have badges, too. And their badges are bigger than yours.”

“I won’t allow you to trespass onto private property, steal this man’s water and kill his livestock.”

He glanced at his two crewmen staking the line then turned his attention back to me.

“You going to arrest us?” he asked.

“What is it with you agency people? Why is it that your first inclination is to slam the pedal all the way to the floor?”

“When me and the boys come back out here, it won’t just be the three of us no more.”

“I’m finished talking about this,” I said. “Pack up your gear and go.”

I could feel his eyes boring holes into the back of my head as I picked my way back up the incline where Sheridan stood waiting for me.

“I can tell by your stride that you had the same kind of dialogue experience I had with that fella,” KC said.

“Bureaucrats with hardhats.”

“I ain’t no cupcake, Dawson. But, you know that those sonsabitches have been tweaking my nose for years.”

“Those men are part of a federal agency, KC, make no mistake. If you’re not careful, they’ll try to roll right over the top of you.”

“What do you call what they’re doing right now? I don’t intend to lay down for it.”

“I’m not saying you should.”

“What, then?”

“Get on the phone and call Judge Yates up in Salem,” I said. “Ask him if he can slap an injunction on these clowns until we get it sorted out.”

Sheridan’s horse pinned back his ears and began to shuffle his forelegs, responding to the tone our conversation had taken. KC calmed the animal with a caress of its neck, dipped into the pocket of his wool coat, snapped off a few pieces of carrot and fed it to the gelding from the flat of his palm.

“I’ll do it, Ty, but I swear to god—”

“KC, you call me before you do anything else, you understand?”

Excerpt from RECKONING by Baron Birtcher. Copyright 2023 by Baron Birtcher. Reproduced with permission from Baron Birtcher. All rights reserved.

***

Author Bio

Baron R Birtcher is the LA TIMES and IMBA BESTSELLING author of the hardboiled Mike Travis series (Roadhouse Blues, Ruby Tuesday, Angels Fall, and Hard Latitudes), the award-winning Ty Dawson series (South California Purples, Fistful Of Rain, and Reckoning), as well as the critically-lauded stand-alone, RAIN DOGS.

Baron is a five-time winner of the SILVER FALCHION AWARD, and the WINNER of 2018’s Killer Nashville READERS CHOICE AWARD, as well as 2019’s BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR for Fistful Of Rain.

He has also had the honor of having been named a finalist for the NERO AWARD, the LEFTY AWARD, the FOREWORD INDIE AWARD, the 2016 BEST BOOK AWARD, the Pacific Northwest’s regional SPOTTED OWL AWARD, and the CLAYMORE AWARD.

Social Media Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BaronRBirtcher/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/reckoning-by-baron-birtcher

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/974486.Baron_R_Birtcher

Purchase Links

Amazon 

Barnes & Noble 

Goodreads 

Open Road Media

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Deep Tide by Laura Griffin

Book Description

With two brothers on the police force, Leyla Breda is well aware of the rising crime in her small beach town, but she never expected it to show up on her doorstep. When Leyla finds one of her employees murdered in the alley behind her coffee shop, she’s deeply shaken, and as a new law enforcement officer in town begins to circle her place of business, her instincts only sharpen.

Sean Moran is on an undercover assignment. The seaside community of Lost Beach may look like a picturesque postcard, but his team suspects it’s a point of intersection for several crime syndicates that the FBI has been investigating for years. Even so, when the brash and beautiful Leyla Breda starts bossing him around, he’s immediately intrigued. He knows her brothers want him to back off, but every time he sees her, he feels more of a spark.

Leyla’s connections in the local community and Sean’s skills allow them to go deeper into the case together than they would be able to go alone. But when a single crime spirals into something much darker, Sean’s carefully planned mission takes a deadly turn.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Deep Tide by Laura Griffin is the fourth book in the “Texas Murder Files” series.  As with the other three, readers will not be disappointed.  The stories have likeable characters and intense action.

The heroine Leyla Breda is the sister of two local police officers, Joel, and Owen.  She meets the hero, FBI Special Agent Sean Moran, at the wedding of her brother Joel.  But Sean is also there as an undercover agent to investigate a tech billionaire believed to be associated with multiple crime syndicates.

Leyla runs both a popular coffee shop and a pastry shop. After finding that one of her employees was brutally murdered, Leyla and Sean team up to find the killer.  She puts herself in dangerous situations which increase exponentially when she tries to help Sean with the undercover mission.

Readers are awarded a bonus because there is not just one strong heroine in the story, but two.  Nicole Lawson is assigned as the lead detective on the case.  She is young, the only woman on the police force, and has great instincts.  At first, she and Sean butt heads, but over time they realize they can trust each other and begin to work together. Nicole and her partner Emmett discover that the murder could be linked to a case Sean is working on.

Along with the budding romance between Sean and Leyla, there is intense action, suspense, and chemistry between characters that are off the charts. Readers will have to hold on to their hats as Griffin takes them on a thrilling roller coaster ride.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: The idea for the story?

Laura Griffin: The main character has been in previous books in the series.  Readers wanted to know when Leyla would get a book. This is her story, but also pulls together all the other characters from previous books.  Thus, a wedding between Joel and Miranda where Leyla is the chef who caters the wedding.  It was a lot of fun to write.

EC:  You made Leyla a chef, are you a cook?

LG:  My mother-in-law used to be a caterer.  I did some research about working in an industrial kitchen and took some cooking classes as well. I learned how to decorate a cake.  This was one of my most favorite forms of research.  One of the things I learned to make was a puffy French sandwich cookie called Macaron. They are tricky to make.  I am a cook but not a gourmet cook like Leyla.

EC:  How would you describe Leyla?

LG:  She is guarded and does not wear her emotions on her sleeve.  She is cynical when it comes to relationships.  Sometimes she is prickly, competitive, and controlling. Leyla uses food to express her love for people.

EC:  How would you describe Sean?

LG: Very determined and smart.

EC:  What about the relationship between her and Sean?

LG:  She is immediately attracted to him.  Sean can chip away her hard exterior. He is protective of her but not in the same way as her brothers. They want to shield her from everything. He was tenacious while she was evasive. She does not have a lot of trust in men. At first, she writes Sean off, but he is persistent.

EC:  There was a scene in the book where she jumps forty feet into water -is that realistic?

LG:  I did some research, and it is possible without getting severely injured. It depends on the circumstances and how someone falls.

EC:  Inner law enforcement rivalry?

LG:  I had the rivalry with my characters Nicole, who is on the police force, and Sean, who is FBI.  She thought he was territorial, pushy, possessive, and petty.  She has worked with the FBI in the past and found them to be very controlling, but Sean shows her he will share information. The investigation moved forward because of their partnership. He dispelled the stereotypic FBI agent.

EC:  Encrypted phone apps?

LG: It is based on something that really happened.  There are encrypted phone apps used by criminal organizations to shield themselves. It is a double edged sword.  It can also shield journalists who are investigating these criminal organizations.  The reporter in the story shows how he uses these apps that protects him, where he is invisible.  This is how a lot of technology is used: either for good or nefarious reasons. This is a moral gray area.

EC:  The next books?

LG:  It is titled, The Last Close Call, a stand-alone suspense novel. It takes place in central Texas with the topic of genetic genealogy. The heroine uses DNA to trace people. It comes out in October.

The next book in “The Texas Murder File Series” is Nicole and Emmett’s story, out in the spring.

THANK YOU!!

***

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.

Feature Post and Book Review: Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag

Book Description

He performs his profane ceremony in a wooded Minneapolis park, anointing his victims, then setting the bodies ablaze. He has already claimed three lives, and he won’t stop there. Only this time there is a witness. But she isn’t talking.
 
Enter Kate Conlan, former FBI agent turned victim/witness advocate. Not even she can tell if the reluctant witness is a potential victim or something more troubling still. Her superiors are interested only because the latest victim may be the daughter of Peter Bondurant, an enigmatic billionaire. When Peter pulls strings, Special Agent John Quinn gets assigned to the case. But the FBI’s ace profiler of serial killers is the last person Kate wants to work with, not with their troubled history. Now she faces the most difficult role of her career—and her life. For she’s the only woman who has what it takes to stop the killer . . . and the one woman he wants next.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/84847.Ashes_to_Ashes?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=SvbPDKsvLV&rank=1

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

ASHES TO ASHES (Kovac and Liska Book #1) by Tami Hoag is the start of a new series featuring a former FBI agent who is now a local law enforcement victim advocate and a high-profile FBI serial killer profiler who share a personal past. This book does have graphic scenes of violence and torture, but it is expected when I read a serial killer suspense by this author and she adeptly mixes the gruesome with a humanizing empathy for the victims, witty dialogue, and a subplot second chance romance that will carry on through the series.

The Minneapolis papers have named him “The Cremator” after his killing of two prostitutes who he tortured and then left burning is public parks. His third victim is a billionaire’s daughter and that has the police and politicians scrambling.

Former FBI agent now victim advocate Kate Conlan is assigned to a teenage witness who claims to have witnessed “The Cremator” setting the latest victim on fire and FBI profiler John Quinn  is called in by the billionaire’s father to assist the Minneapolis authorities. As they work together to catch a sadistic killer who continually taunts the police, they are also dealing with a complicated past from when Kate left the FBI five years previously.

As Kate and John get closer to catching the killer, the killer still has some twisted surprises in store for Kate. Will she survive the attention of “The Cremator”?

I enjoyed this serial killer thriller/police procedural/romantic suspense mash-up from start to finish. There are graphic scenes of torture against women, but this is a serial killer thriller story, so I expected them, and Ms. Hoag is adept at giving me the chills without making the scenes seem gratuitous. The story is more suspense/thriller than romance, but there are two seriously hot sex scenes as Kate and John work through their complicated pasts and come together for the future books in the series. I will say that the revelations surrounding the killer’s identity surprised me and made for a tense and exciting conclusion. As you may have noticed, Conlan and Quinn are not Kovac and Liska which is why I did not give this book more stars. Kovac and Liska are the Minneapolis detectives in this story and while they are important players and had great wise-cracking dialogue, I did not feel they were the focus like Kate and John.

Not for the faint of heart, but I enjoyed the start to this series and I am looking forward to continuing the series.

***

About the Author

Tami Hoag is the #1 international bestselling author of more than thirty books published in more than thirty languages worldwide, including her latest thrillers–COLD COLD HEART and THE 9TH GIRL. Renowned for combining thrilling plots with character-driven suspense, Hoag first hit the New York Times Bestseller list with NIGHT SINS, and each of her books since has been a bestseller. She leads a double life in Palm Beach County, Florida where she is also known as a top competitive equestrian in the Olympic discipline of dressage. Other interests include the study of psychology, and mixed martial arts fighting. A woman of eclectic tastes, to say the least, Tami was recently asked to list seven things people may not know about about her: 1. I was once offered a job by a private investigator. 2. I have a license to carry concealed weapon, but never do. I took the course for research purposes. 3. My high school guidance counselor encouraged me to become an actress, but I thought that was too impractical (Of course, there’s nothing practical about being a writer, either, but at least I’m not obligated to look good on a daily basis.) 4. I used to sing at weddings. 5. While I have no intention of ever getting married again, I love watching Say Yes To The Dress 6. I have legitimate knockout power in my right hand, and I’m not afraid to use it. 7. When I’m stressed out, all tech devices around me go haywire. I’ve stopped watches, and fried hard drives. I once killed a television in a store display by merely touching it. I’m better off sticking to life’s simple pleasures–like books!

Social Media Links

Website: https://tamihoag.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TamiHoag

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tamihoag

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/tami-hoag

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Cold Light of Day by Elizabeth Goddard

Cold Light of Day

by Elizabeth Goddard

February 20 – March 17, 2023

Virtual Book Tour

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for COLD LIGHT OF DAY (Missing in Alaska Book #1) by Elizabeth Goddard on this Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tour.

Below you will find a book synopsis, 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 Synopsis

Police Chief Autumn Long is fighting to keep her job in the quiet Alaska town of Shadow Gap when an unexpected string of criminal activity leaves her with a wounded officer, unexplained murders, and even an attack on her own father. Despite her mistrust of outsiders, she turns to Grier Brenner, a newcomer who seems to have the skills and training Autumn needs to face this threat to her community.

Grier is in Alaska for the same reason so many others are–to disappear–when Chief Long enlists his help. He emerges from the shadows and proves his mettle, but his presence in her life could be a deadly trap for them both. If his secret is exposed, all will be lost. And he’s not sure even Autumn could save him.

As the stakes rise and the dangers increase, Autumn and Grier must rely on each other to extinguish the deadly threats.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61140802-cold-light-of-day?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=LZwgN1MnY2&rank=1

Cold Light Of Day

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Published by: Revell
Publication Date: February 2023
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780800742041 (ISBN10: 0800742044)
Series: Missing in Alaska, 1

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

COLD LIGHT OF DAY (Missing in Alaska Book #1) by Elizabeth Goddard is a fast-paced Christian romantic suspense and the first in a new series set in small town Alaska. Shadow Gap’s police chief and a mysterious newcomer are enveloped in a crime spree that could cost them everything.

Police Chief Autumn Long is trying to prove herself and keep her job after taking over after her father’s disability retirement, but a crime wave is enveloping their small town. When she witnesses a newcomer to town rescuing a woman from drowning, she wonders why he rejects the attention gained by his rescue.

Grier Brennan is trying to stay under the radar and to himself, but his background will not allow him to let a person drown and he gets tangled up in all the activity happening around the attractive police chief. As bullets fly and the body count grows, Grier reluctantly joins forces with Autumn to find the killer.

Autumn and Grier investigate the murders and discover their pasts have entangled them with the same enemies in this crime wave and could be the death of them both.

The action and investigation plot lines that tie Autumn and Grier together were exciting and fast paced throughout. The stakes continue to rise and kept me turning the pages. The Alaskan wilderness itself is integral to the intensity of the story and provides both beauty and danger. Autumn and Grier are strong characters and believable in their situations, but I had a harder time connecting them as a romantic couple, especially since Grier does not reveal his secret until much to late in the plot for me to believe Autumn could trust him romantically. It is a Christian romantic suspense, but I really did not feel romantic elements pulling these two together. The balance of this story is much more slanted to the suspense and police investigation than a romance. There are mentions of faith and prayer which I did not feel interfered with the flow of the story. I enjoyed this start to the Missing in Alaska series and would be interested in reading more.

Overall, a good start to the series with an exciting suspense plot.

***

Excerpt

ONE 

Southeast Alaska  

August 

Autumn Long had no plans to give up without a fight,  

even though it might be killing her a little every day. As the bush plane sank lower, her view of the gla cier spilling into the valley behind a forest exploding with reds,  oranges, and browns fell away. Lofty mountains on each side  of the fjord filled her vision. 

“Hold on, Chief. We’re almost there.” Pilot Carrie James  flew her bush plane straight up the Lynn Canal—one of the  longest, deepest fjords in the world. The snowcapped Kaku han Mountains rose lofty on the right, the Chilkat Range near  Haines to the left. And across from Haines to the west—Glacier Bay National Park. 

Autumn ignored the mounting dread she felt and focused  her thoughts. She had better get her act together and earn back  the trust of the city council and the people she swore to protect  in the small town of Shadow Gap, one of many communities  dotting the Inside Passage of the Alaska Panhandle. 

She’d stayed overnight in Anchorage for a meeting that left  her drained to her bones. She’d taken an Alaska Airlines flight to and from Juneau, and now Carrie was delivering her up to  the northernmost part of the Panhandle. Wearing her brown  bomber jacket and a headset, sitting in the cockpit of her Helio  Courier—the ultimate bush plane—Carrie was a bush pilot  poster child. 

The plane flew lower, following the Chilkoot Inlet until Carrie  banked east, flying over the Lewis Inlet that branched off. “That’s  why I’d better say this before I lose the chance.” Autumn wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. 

Carrie angled her head toward Autumn and arched a brow.  “I know you didn’t ask for my opinion.” Carrie looked forward  again. “But you didn’t do anything wrong. Out here we take  care of our own. The land is harsh. Brutal in ways the lower  forty-eight can’t imagine. We have to watch out for each other,  and that’s all you’ve ever done for the people of Shadow Gap.” 

“Yeah, well . . . thanks, Carrie.” Tell that to Wally. He’d had  it out for her from the first day she took her position as police  chief. 

Carrie waved a hand in mock incredulity. “Shadow Gap isn’t  even classified as a town, much less an organized borough, so  who needs a city council anyway?” 

Or a police department, some might say. 

Autumn cracked a smile. “Glad to know at least some people  still want me around.” 

Despite the many limitations of a small-town budget, they’d  at least equipped their chief and three officers with loaded Ford  Police Interceptor SUVs. After all, her officers were trained to  carefully collect and preserve evidence as well as to tend a  wounded moose in the road. They had to know how to do it  all in small-town Alaska. Because, yeah, she thought of Shadow  Gap’s community of 1,252 people as a town. Shadow Gap was  just outside of the Haines and Skagway Boroughs. Alaska didn’t  have counties, so there were no sheriffs. 

Best of all—or worst of all, depending on which side of the law you were on—Shadow Gap had lost their Alaska State  Trooper. Not enough crime to support one or budget to afford  one if there was enough crime. 

Autumn had nothing to complain about, except the results  of her trip to Anchorage left a— 

“What’s that?” Carrie drew Autumn’s attention to the water.  “Someone’s out there, floating in Lewis Inlet. I saw hands wav ing, signaling.” 

“Have you got—” 

“Here.” Carrie handed off binoculars. 

“Fly in close, Carrie. I want to get a better look. We have to  help if we can.” Autumn peered through the binoculars and  struggled to find what she was looking for, instead only captur ing the deep, dark waters. Then . . . “I see the hands. But, oh no, whoever is out there is going under.” 

“But look! Someone’s swimming out to them. So maybe  there’s a chance.” 

“They won’t last long. Those waters are cold.” Autumn  adjusted the binoculars, searching, searching . . . there. “I see  what looks like the rescue swimmer.” Was that . . . Grier? “How  close can you land?” 

“Close enough. Once on the water, I can angle in closer.” “If he can get to the woman, we’ll take them both the rest  of the way to get help.” 

Because there was no way the woman wasn’t going to suffer  from hypothermia in these temps, unless she had on the ap propriate attire. Same for Grier. 

Come on, Grier . . . save the girl. 

Shadow Gap needed a hero. A ray of hope shot through her,  and though maybe she shouldn’t have the thought, it popped  into her head all the same. She didn’t mind that a town hero  would take the attention away from the police chief’s long list  of transgressions. 

Though, if she were choosing heroes, she would have chosen a longtime resident over an outsider—or as the locals liked  to call them, cheechakos, and meant in a negative way. She  wouldn’t go so far as to use that term for this particular man.  Grier had shown up in Shadow Gap a few months ago to fish  in the Shadow Gap Salmon Derby. A tourist who decided to  stay. Wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last. 

Autumn dropped the binoculars as Carrie skillfully landed  the plane on the water. The pontoons smoothly connected, and  Carrie guided the plane, heading toward where they’d last seen  the woman in need of a rescue. 

Her struggle could well be over. 

Please don’t drown . . . don’t die. But Autumn didn’t see her anywhere. A fist squeezed her  heart.

***

Author Bio

Elizabeth Goddard is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of more than 50 novels, including Cold Light of Day and the Rocky Mountain Courage and Uncommon Justice series. Her books have sold nearly 1.5 million copies. She is a Carol Award and Reader’s Choice Award winner and a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist. When she’s not writing, she loves spending time with her family, traveling to find inspiration for her next book, and serving with her husband in ministry. For more information about her books, visit her website at www.ElizabethGoddard.com.

Social Media Links

ElizabethGoddard.com
Goodreads
BookBub – @ElizabethGoddard
Instagram – @elizabethgoddardauthor
Twitter – @bethgoddard
Facebook – @ElizabethGoddardAuthor

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | Baker Book House

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KINGSUMO GIVEAWAY

https://kingsumo.com/g/7dgvg8/cold-light-of-day-by-elizabeth-goddard