Mystery – Page 30 – Readers Alley

Category: Mystery

Spellstruck by Summer Prescott

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Did you love watching Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie?

How about cats, a good murder mystery, and just a touch of magic?

Babs Baldwin is a decorating diva, who loves the small luxuries in life – a nice purse, a good latte, and a well-put-together room. Her Interior Decorating business is humming right along, until she meets a mysterious couple, who just bought a house, that’s supposedly haunted.
Babs doesn’t believe in such things, but even she has to admit that there’s something fishy going on, when a body is discovered.

The owner of the bakery next door is a small-time medium, who wants to read her tea leaves, and she badgers Babs mercilessly, until at last she relents, with surprising results.
A mysterious box. A magical charm. A tragic past.

Babs is a reluctant amateur sleuth, but she has to get to the bottom of the mystery, or her own life might be in danger. Will the daring diva find the killer? Or will she be the next victim?
Find out in this fast-paced, humorous, mildly paranormal Cozy Mystery!

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About the Author:

Summer Prescott is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author, who has penned nearly one hundred Cozy Mysteries, and one rather successful Thriller, The Quiet Type, which debuted in the top 50 of its genre. As owner of Summer Prescott Books Publishing, Summer is responsible for a combined catalog of over two hundred Cozy Mysteries and Thrillers. Mentoring and helping new Cozy writers launch their careers has long been a passion of Summer’s, and she has played a key role in the incredible success of Cozy writers such as Patti Benning and Carolyn Q. Hunter.

Summer enjoys travel, and is honored to be a featured speaker at the International Writer’s Conference in Cuenca, Ecuador, in May 2018. The event draws writers from all over the world.
In an exciting development, Summer has recently been asked to write monthly for her favorite magazine, Atomic Ranch. Having been an Interior Decorator before giving up her business to write full-time, Summer is thrilled by the opportunity and looking forward to having her writing published in the only magazine to which she actually subscribes.

Summer is a doting mother to four grown children, and lives in Champaign, Illinois with her Standard Poodle, Elvis.

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Tea’d Off By Lorraine Bartlett

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With the grand relaunch of Victoria Square’s tea shop, Tealicious, just days away, Nona Fiske decides it’s time to sabotage it and its owner, Katie Bonner. With gossip, innuendo, and outright lies, Nona tries to turn the other merchants on the Square against Katie. But Katie has learned how to deal with people like Nona. Can she kill with kindness?

This story takes place between the Victoria Square mystery novels Yule Be Dead and Killer Ink.

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About the Author:

The immensely popular Booktown Mystery series is what first put Lorraine Bartlett’s pen name Lorna Barrett’s name on the New York Times Bestseller list, and garnered a coveted Agatha nomination for best novel of 2009, but it’s her talent — whether writing as Lorna, or L.L. Bartlett, or Lorraine Bartlett — that keeps her there. This multi-published, Agatha-nominated author pens the the acclaimed Victoria Square Mystery series, and the exciting Jeff Resnick Mysteries, and has many short stories and novellas to her name(s).

Lorraine has done it all–from drilling holes for NASA, to typing scripts in Hollywood. She has also been a copy editor, an MSDS coordinator, a data-entry clerk, a secretary, a used-book seller, an antiques dealer, and an Administrative Assistant. In her writing life she has been a man, a woman, a scientist, an investigator, a cop, a bookseller, a jilted bride, a widower, a doctor, a nurse, a car, an extraterrestrial, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Lorraine lives in Rochester, NY, with her husband and two felines.

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The Girl Buried in the Woods by Robert Ellis

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With Detective Matt Jones on medical leave after hunting down a brutal serial killer on the East Coast in THE LOVE KILLINGS, his supervisor from Hollywood Homicide makes a late-night visit. A body has been found buried in a remote park high above Los Angeles. Because LAPD resources are maxed out, Jones is ordered to come off leave and work the case. Unfortunately, he makes a quick discovery, and it’s grim. The murder victim is a fifteen-year-old girl.

Driven by the horror of the crime, Jones and his partner, Denny Cabrera, burn through the investigation like a wildfire. But as they turn over clue after clue, nothing adds up until they make an even more gruesome discovery.

There’s another dead body out there, and now, no one is safe—especially Jones, who uncovers evidence that the murders may be linked to a turf war between an infamous mob figure and the power of Wall Street. But even worse, the big shots in city government are in on it, too. One suspect after the next shares the same goal—to pin the murders on Matt Jones and watch him run for his life.

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About the Author:

Robert Ellis is the international bestselling author of Access to Power, The Dead Room, the critically acclaimed Lena Gamble novels City of Fire, The Lost Witness, and Murder Season, and the Detective Matt Jones Thriller series, City of Echoes, The Love Killings, and The Girl Buried in the Woods (2019). His novels have been translated into more than ten languages and selected as top reads by Booklist, Publishers Weekly, National Public Radio, the Chicago Tribune, the Toronto Sun, the Guardian (UK), People magazine, USA Today, and the New York Times.

Born in Philadelphia, Ellis moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a writer, producer, and director in film, television, and advertising. His books have garnered praise from a diverse group of authors including Janet Evanovich. But perhaps Michael Connelly said it best: “CITY OF FIRE is my kind of crime novel. Gritty, tight and assured. Riding with Detective Lena Gamble through the hills of Los Angeles is something I could get used to. She’s tough, smart, and most of all, she’s real.”

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Snow Laughing Matter By Wendy Meadows

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Will Sarah fall victim to a deadly killer set on destroying her life? Or will she force herself to use her cop instincts to outsmart the riddles of a clown who turns laughter into screams?

While Conrad is away helping a friend in New York, Sarah and Amanda go see a circus that is visiting the small town of Snow Falls. Even though Sarah is sad because her attempts to become pregnant have yet to bear fruit, she decides to enjoy the circus show. After the show, Sarah and Amanda find a pie in Sarah’s jeep, and another one waiting at Sarah’s cabin door. Suddenly the fun night turns mysterious and dangerous. A killer has left a deadly message for Sarah to find.

Events turn worse when a circus worker is murdered. The killer’s style of murder tells Sarah exactly who he is. Sarah is torn, caught between the desire to walk away from being a cop and the need to catch a killer. The hunger to become a mother blocks her skill to think clearly. But after having a talk with Pete, Sarah gets back on track and begins to track down the killer. Only the killer has a new face and a completely new identity—along with a secret trick up his sleeve.

This cozy mystery is a clean read: no graphic violence, sex, or strong language.

Read all the Alaska cozy mysteries:

1. The Snowman Killer
2. Deep in the Snow
3. Snow Happens
4. Snow is Not the Time
5. Spring into Murder
6. Chasing Shadows
7. Snowy Misery
8. Hot Springs Murder
9. Danger in the Snow
10. Snow Ordinary Family
11. Snow Mercy
12. Snow Laughing Matter

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About the Author:

Wendy Meadows is a USA Today best-selling author whose meticulously crafted stories showcase witty women sleuths and engaging plots. Her primary influences include but are not limited to mystery genre greats Joanne Fluke, Ellery Adams, and James Patterson. To date, she has published dozens of books, which include her popular Sweetfern Harbor Series, Maple Hill Series, and Alaska Cozy Series, to name a few.

In a previous life, Wendy worked as a Graphic Designer, earning her Graphic Design Certification at the prestigious New York based Sessions School of Design. With this valuable artistic background, she designs her own book covers. In fact, she began writing fiction soon after designing numerous book covers for other fiction authors.

When she isn’t writing about female detectives and their tactful crime solving, you can find Wendy either tending to her hobby farm, playing video games, relaxing on her back porch, or coloring in her growing collection of adult coloring books. She also loves spending quality time with her husband, two sons, two cats, and one adorable Labradoodle. Together, they call “The Granite State” home sweet home.

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Murder in Palm Beach By Bob Brink

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The doorbell rings in the home of a prominent Palm Beach citizen, quickly followed by a shotgun blast that shatters a window, cracking the calm of a cool January night. Rodger Kriger falls to the floor, mortally wounded, leaving a wife and six children.

Murder in Palm Beach: The Homicide That Never Died is closely based on a sensational, real murder that happened in the posh ocean-side town in 1976. In the thin guise of fiction, the book contains shocking new information never before made public. Author Bob Brink, an award-winning journalist, was a newspaper reporter in the locale where the assassination occurred. It made media headlines for 15 years.

An ambitious prosecutor pins the deed on Mitt Hecher, a hoodlum and karate expert. At Hecher’s trial, fellow jail inmates testify that he confessed. He is convicted and sentenced to the brutal and anarchic state prison at Raiford, where a stabbing a day and a killing a week are the “mean” average.

Judges repeatedly frustrate Hecher and several attorneys working without fees to get a new trial, as investigators pursue myriad scenarios. Meanwhile, his wife contracts a deadly disease.

Was Hecher innocent, and if so, who did it? Did the sons of a wealthy Cuban kill Kriger? Were the operators of a gambling enterprise out to get him? Was a love triangle the basis for the shooting? Did a vicious underworld figure do the bidding of a criminal gang? Was a prominent politician behind the slaying? Those are the questions seeking answers amid the exploration of issues of justice and power.

Murder in Palm Beach is the saga of a battle between a man whose swagger has sent him spiraling to the bottom and powerful, sinister forces determined to keep him there. It is a narrative of redemption wrapped in a mystery tale reeking with power, sex, and violence. It also contains a heart-rending love story.

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About the Author:

Bob Brink is a journalist who worked with the Palm Beach Post, The Associated Press in Chicago, Milwaukee Journal, Tampa Tribune, Joliet Herald-News, and Palm Beach Media Group (magazines). His byline has been on thousands of news stories, features, and entertainment reviews.

He has been a freelance writer for several years, and is the author of several books. To promote his current novel, MURDER IN PALM BEACH: The Homicide That Never Died, he has a website, www.bobbrinkwriter.com. From the site, he blogs on three passions: grammar, alternative health care, and socio-political issues.

Brink’s first book, A TALE OF TWO CONTINENTS: Jetting Across the Globe to Have a Baby, is a short memoir that he ghost-wrote for a woman. Almost simultaneously, he authored BREAKING OUT, a coming-of-age novel about a troubled young man. Recently, he compiled a book of short stories titled THE WAY IT WAS: Short Stories and Tall Tales.

Brink has won numerous writing accolades and several awards, including three for Palm Beach Illustrated, which won the Best Written Magazine award from the Florida Magazine Association after he became copy chief and senior writer.

He was a reporter for the Palm Beach Post when the crime that MURDER IN PALM BEACH is based on occurred. It was an enormously sensational event that was featured six years later on a national TV show, and made newspaper headlines for 15 years. A karate expert went to prison for the deed, but many doubted his guilt. A newspaper reporter spent years investigating, and made shocking discoveries about the assassination and the person behind it.

Besides dabbling in short-story writing over the years, Brink immersed himself in learning to play the clarinet and tenor saxophone. He performed many years with an estimable, 65-piece community symphonic band, and played a few professional big band gigs. He relegated music to the back seat after embarking on writing novels. He is a fairly proficient ballroom dancer and a health enthusiast.

A product of Michigan and Iowa, Brink has a bachelor’s degree in English from Drake University in Des Moines and completed graduate journalism studies at the University of Iowa.

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USA Today Bestselling Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series!

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New Book in the USA Today Bestselling Cozy Mystery Series!!

For Southern girl Verity Long, friendship means sitting down to stories and sweet tea on the front porch. For her gangster ghost housemate, it means dragging Verity out to a remote haunted asylum during a raging thunderstorm to do a favor for a long-dead mob boss.

But Verity is always ready to help out a friend, even one as eternally eccentric as Frankie. And in the case of Mint Julep Manor, the stakes are too high to refuse. The criminally insane mob boss holds a secret to Frankie’s past, one that might set Frankie free. Do the favor–survive the favor–and they might change Frankie’s afterlife for good. Fail, and they might never leave the asylum

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Book Information:

The Mint Julep Murders
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 8
By Angie Fox
Publisher: Moose Island Books
Release Date: April 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1939661586 (print) Price $14.98
ISBN: 978-1939661586 (ebook) Price $4.99
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Paranormal Cozy Mystery

Other Books in the Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries

Southern Spirits
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 1

The Skeleton in the Closet
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 2

The Haunted Heist
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 3

Deader Homes and Gardens
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 4

Sweet Tea and Spirits
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 5

Murder on the Sugarland Express
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 6

Pecan Pies and Dead Guys
Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, Book 7

About the Author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Angie Fox writes sweet, fun, action-packed mysteries. Her characters are clever and fearless, but in real life, Angie is afraid of basements, bees, and going up stairs when it is dark behind her. Let’s face it. Angie wouldn’t last five minutes in one of her books.

Angie is best known for her SOUTHERN SPIRITS™ mysteries and for her ACCIDENTAL DEMON SLAYER series.

Angie is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She lives in St. Louis with her football-addicted husband, two kids, and Moxie the dog.

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New Release – Flowers over the Inferno

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Ilaria Tuti’s debut thriller explores a remote community in Northern Italy—a place of secrets, eerie folktales, and primal instincts.

In a quiet village surrounded by ancient woods and the imposing Italian Alps, a man is found naked with his eyes gouged out. It is the first in a string of gruesome murders.

Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a detective with a background in criminal profiling, is called to investigate. Battaglia is in her mid-sixties, her rank and expertise hard-won from decades of battling for respect in a male-dominated Italian police force. While she’s not sure she trusts the young city inspector assigned to assist her, she sees right away that this is no ordinary case: buried deep in these mountains is a dark history that may endanger a group of eight-year-old children toward whom the killer seems to gravitate.

As Teresa inches closer to the truth, she must also confront the possibility that her body and mind, worn down by age and illness, may fail her before the chase is over.

Reader Reviews

“Ms. Tuti’s debut, translated from the Italian by Ekin Oklap, introduces a sympathetic heroine in Battaglia, whose gruffness masks a fear she may be losing her unique abilities.” —The Wall Street Journal

“One of the best parts of Flowers over the Inferno is the older, gruff superintendent Teresa Battaglia. She is out of shape, diabetic and busy fighting the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease—on top of handling a complex case. We sympathize with Battaglia quite naturally, and it’s nice to see a cop who isn’t slim and sexy chasing after serial killers.”
—NPR

“Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a criminal profile expert, is in her sixties, overweight, lonely, diabetic, full of the ailments of aging—and delightful. It’s rare that such a character enters crime fiction for the first time, and with such gripping impact.” —The Times (UK)

“Creepy and evocative . . . But what gives this novel particular appeal is the sixty-something central character, whose abrasive manner hides a warm heart.” —The Guardian

“Ilaria Tuti’s Flowers over the Inferno is a stunning debut; a deliciously dark and action-packed thriller that is also deeply moving, even profound. With a heroine unlike any other and a beautifully crafted sense of place, Tuti’s gorgeous prose paints a compelling portrait of a small Alpine town’s secrets and the woman tasked with uncovering them. I loved this book.”
—Karen Dionne, internationally bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter

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Book Information:

Flowers over the Inferno
A Teresa Battaglia Novel, Book 1
By Ilaria Tuti
Publisher: Soho Crime
Release Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1641290685 (hc) Price: $25.95
ISBN: 978-1641290692 (ebook) Price $14.99
ISBN: 978-1980027225 (audio book) Price $19.99
Genre: Mystery, Thriller

About the Author:

Ilaria Tuti lives in Gemona del Friuli, in the province of Udine. She has a degree in economics, has always had a passion for painting, and freelances for a small independent publisher in her spare time. She won the 2014 Gran Giallo Città di Cattolica literary prize for her short story “The Pagan Child.” Flowers over the Inferno is her debut novel.

Translation: Ekin Oklap was born in Turkey, and grew up in Italy. She translates from Turkish and Italian. She currently lives in London, where she works as a literary agent. As a translator, she was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize.

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