Lynn's Romance Enthusiasm: Police Procedurals

Showing posts with label Police Procedurals. Show all posts

Monday, May 2, 2022

Audiobookworm Presents: A Long Ways From Home by Mike Martin; #AudiobookTour, #NowAvailable, #OutNow, #TBR, #Live

Author: Mike Martin

Narrator: Francis G. Kearney

Length: 9 hours and 16 minutes

Series: Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series, Book 5

Publisher: Mike Martin

Released: Mar. 21, 2022

Genre: Modern Detective

#ModernDetective #Mystery #MustListen

#LoveAudiobooks

Loving The Book Presents: Great Summer Reads 2020; #BlogTour, #NowAvailable, #OutNow, #TBR, #Giveaway

Marni Graff writes two award-winning mystery series: The Nora Tierney English Mysteries and The Trudy Genova Manhattan Mysteries. She teaches writing workshops and mentors the Writers Read program, and is Managing Editor of Bridle Path Press.

Graff also writes the crime review blog Auntie M Writes, www.auntiemwrites.com.

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Nurse Trudy Genova is making plans to take her relationship to NYPD detective Ned O'Malley to the next level, when she lands a gig as medical consultant on a film shoot at the famed Dakota apartment building in Manhattan, which John Lennon once called home. Then star Monica Kiley goes missing, a cast member turns up dead, and it appears Trudy might be next. Meanwhile Ned tackles a mysterious murder case in which the victim is burned beyond recognition. When his investigations lead him back to the Dakota, Trudy finds herself wondering: how can she fall in love if she can't even survive?

Readers of Death Unscripted, the first book in the Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery series, will find the same pleasures in this sequel: fast pacing, engaging characters, twists and turns on the way to a satisfying close. From the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney English Mysteries, this second series is a winner. Once again M.K. Graff reveals her talents in crafting this delightful mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural.

Part procedural, part cozy, Death at the Dakota is a well-crafted and highly entertaining mystery.- Bruce Robert Coffin, #1 bestselling author of the Detective Byron mysteries.

I fell in love -- not only with co-protagonists, Trudy and Ned, the richly detailed and historic setting of The Dakota, and the unique cast of characters, but with the unusual plot of Death at the Dakota. Sherry Harris, Agatha Award nominated author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries

~ Universal Amazon Link ~

Q&A With the Author:

1. What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Read, read, and more reading! I read 3 crime novels a week for my crime review blog. And with the virus keeping us in, I'm back to doing jigsaw puzzles, which are great for thinking about plot points. My husband and I have two Aussie Doodle pups we like to walk and play catch it, too.

2. What was the hardest part of writing your book, and how did you overcome it?

The toughest part for me is always what I call the 'muddled middle.' I start with my setting and main characters and then decide who's murdered and why for the end. Then I have to go back and fill it up with subplots, more characters, red herrings, etc. Somewhere around the midpoint I always think, now what happens? I aim to keep Trudy and Ned in my mind and think of what their next steps would be if this were a real investigation, and how I would get to the ending I've devised and the reasons for it. I usually get there in the end!

3. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I've never been to Australia and New Zealand; those are on my bucket list. I've been reading a lot of books lately set in those areas (Vanda Symon; Susan Allott) and have friends who live there, so it appeals to me. I've always wanted to see Austria, for some reason, but I always am drawn back to the UK. I need to investigate Wales and Scotland better!

4. Where do you get information and ideas for your books?

I do a lot of research before starting to write, so I'm always on the lookout for anything that will spur a good juicy plot for a mystery. For Death at the Dakota, I visited the exterior when in NY and took my own photos. In reality, The Dakota does not allow filming in its interior, but I was fortunate to have been given the room layout for the apartment that Leonard Bernstein and his family once owned and that's where I've set the movie that Trudy is consulting on. I read two books on The Dakota to glean information about the interiors, and all kinds of little tidbits about living in that amazing building. For instance, if you own a flat there and want to remove an original fireplace during renovations, there is a special room set aside for that mantel and fireplace to be stored in case another owner wants to put it back! Writing two series, I alternate the books, so while I'm writing one in the English series, I'm gathering information on the next in the Manhattan series. Real-life news and magazines give ideas for motives, as do online stories. Once I've decided on a killer and his/her motive and start writing, there's nothing like good ol' Google to add to the research I've already done.

5. Tell us a bit about a future project you are working on? Do you have any little sneak peeks you can share?

I'm writing the next Nora Tierney English Mystery now and the working title is The Evening's Amethyst. My English series titles always have a color in them, which is reflected in a color wash for that cover--so you know what this one will be! It's a line taken from a Robert Louis Stevenson poem that fits the action of the book. In this one, my protagonist, American Nora Tierney, is getting her new Oxford home ready for her little family's first Christmas there. Her sister, Claire, is doing a Masters in poetry at Exeter College, part of Oxford University. This is the opening:
CHAPTER ONE

Friday, 1st December
Oxford
6:40 AM

A hissing noise outside on the second floor landing roused Claire Scott from a deep exhausted sleep.

She lay on the elderly sofa in her room at Exeter College, huddled under the quilt her mother had sent from Connecticut, Doc Martens discarded nearby, and rubbed eyes grainy with strain. She’d worked until blurry eyes forced her to abandon work for a rest, despite the unforgiving glance of Ed Sheeran from the poster blue-tacked on her wall. The lyrics from his song “Castle on the Hill” showed the kind of modern storytelling that had made Elton John and Billy Joel so popular, and appealed to her writer’s nature. And to be awarded an MBE before he was thirty? This guy was a Renaissance man, taking up painting, opening a pub, too, while she was slacking by sleeping.

She shrugged the thought off. We can’t all be Ed Sheerans. This Master’s program challenged her, while her tutor thought she was too hard on herself. She shifted and a spring poked her as if Dr. Hamilton punctuated her thought.

Most of Oxford University’s colleges with their centuries-old buildings, Exeter from 1314 right up there, were not known for creature comforts. How many students had slept on this couch? At times, living in Oxford felt like existing in a Harry Potter movie.

Claire blinked a few times, wondered at the hour. Her phone lay next to her laptop on the desk under the window, but she felt too lazy to get up. The hissing continued, now quieter. A faulty radiator?

Judging by the weak light it must be after dawn. Claire closed her eyes and prepared to doze off for another hour’s sleep. A scrabbling on the landing outside her room was swiftly followed by a shouted scream that echoed off the ancient stairwell. Claire bolted upright and rushed to her door.

She flung it open to see another graduate student had also been awoken by the scream. Leni Edi stood in her doorway, a robe thrown over her camisole and flannel pants, its belt hanging open, her elaborate braids covered by the silk turban she used for sleep. Her eyes were wide, her coffee-au-lait skin pale. Her chin quivered.“I heard a scream.”

Footsteps pounded on the stairs above as Ang Gordon from the third floor appeared on the landing in tee shirt and boxers, blinking sleep from his dark eyes. “What the hell was that?”

Patti Phillips, short platinum hair standing up away from her scalp, glared down from the top of the third-floor landing. “What’s going on?”

Claire peered over the handrail; a flicker of vertigo caused her to step back and pray she’d seen a mirage. She steeled herself to look down again at the body splayed out below, head on the cobblestoned ground, legs on the lower steps, body twisted at an unnatural angle so that one arm rested near a foot caught on the bottom stair.

“Call 999 and the Porter’s Lodge!” Claire shouted. She ran barefoot down the wooden steps, heart pounding, rounding the landing on the first floor. A blast of cool air from the exposed stairwell hit her as she kept descending to the stone steps on the ground floor, until she caught herself up to stare down at her friend, Bea Smythe-Jones.

The young woman’s long blonde hair partially covered her face. Her nearest arm lay palm up, fingers curled in supplication, as though begging for Claire’s intervention.

Claire knelt on the step above and felt for a pulse in Bea’s wrist; she took in the spreading pool of blood beneath her friend’s head. Ang’s footsteps pounded behind Claire until he pulled up short. “Holy Christ—”

Peter Hamilton, tutor to them all, arrived from the direction of the quad, sweating after an early run. He pulled himself up at the sight of the young woman lying half on and half off the staircase. “Bloody hell!”

Claire gently took Bea’s hand in hers and pressed her wrist. She shook her head in the negative.

Dr. Hamilton called to Ang. “Stay where you are and tell the others not to come down.”

Chilled to her marrow, Claire had to grit her teeth to keep them from chattering. Bea’s hand felt warm, but the lack of a pulse was echoed in the absence of life in the cornflower blue eye that stared at her.

6. Now that we've gotten to know each other, tell us a story of a favorite childhood activity you used to do during the summer. It can be long or short. Funny, sad, or somewhere in between. Just make sure it's yours. Tell us a story?

I grew up in a small town outside Manhattan on Long Island called Floral Park, where the streets were named for trees or flowers. It is a bedroom community for NYC as the Long Island Railroad was a few blocks away and commuters could be in the city offices in half an hour. In the long hot summer days, there wasn't much to do for entertainment until the cool of the evening besides reading. I did that voraciously, but at times my mother would insist me and my sister get outside in the fresh air. Out would come our bikes, or maybe our roller skates, but those never lasted long if it was too hot.

Then one day a new family moved in next door, with a teenaged daughter named Becky. Despite being a few years older then me (I was 12 to her 15) we became friends because we both loved to read. We could spend hours eating Ritz crackers with peanut butter and jelly and reading. One day Becky brought over two decks of cards. She taught me and my sister how to play canasta. After that, several afternoons a week would find the three of us sitting on my front stoop playing canasta, the two decks of cards spread out across the red bricks of the larger top step. If someone in the family wanted to go out, they had to step over our fanned out cards. If it was windy, the cards would blow and we quickly learned that was not a day to play cards, but the books would return.

I remember Becky liked Russian novels and was determined to learn Russian! She had silky chestnut hair I loved because hers was so shiny. Becky moved away and we lost touch, as teens do, but I often wonder where she is now and what she ended up doing? If you're out there, Becky Jane Lawson, contact me!

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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Loving The Book Presents: Autumn/Halloween Countdown 2019; #BookBlitz, #NowAvailable, #OutNow, #Giveaway

Graff also writes the crime review blog Auntie M Writes, www.auntiemwrites.com.

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Readers of Death Unscripted, the first book in the Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery series, will find the same pleasures in this sequel: fast pacing, engaging characters, twists and turns on the way to a satisfying close. From the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney English Mysteries, this second series is a winner. Once again M.K. Graff reveals her talents in crafting this delightful mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural.

Part procedural, part cozy, Death at the Dakota is a well-crafted and highly entertaining mystery.- Bruce Robert Coffin, #1 bestselling author of the Detective Byron mysteries.

~ Universal Amazon Link ~

Snippet:

Ned left the dining room and wandered back toward the living room, certain Trudy had said she would be here today, but he hadn’t seen her yet.

A cluster of people stood around an actress in a filmy white wedding dress standing near one of the tall windows. From Trudy’s description, he thought the man who fussed with arranging the back of the gauzy gown must be the costume designer, Rashid Something. Troy Benedict, dressed in tuxedo pants with his shirt hanging open, stood off to one side, tapping his fingers on the top of the grand piano. Meg approached him with a handful of shirt studs and a bow tie.

Afternoon sun cast muted fingers of light into the room, where three still photographers ringed around the woman, snapping away as of Phin Hill-Yorke directed. Egan and another man Ned knew to be Perry King stood on the other side of the room, hovering. Ned had seen the salt-and-pepper-haired King on his popular morning show, and was surprised by how much shorter he looked in person. But then Monica was petite, like Trudy, and King would look taller on television next to her.

The director’s assistant stood off to one side, out of camera range, holding a bouquet of flowers. Ned approached China and asked if she’d seen Trudy Genova. The woman grinned widely.

“Yes, I’ve seen her, and so have you, detective.” China gestured toward the actress.

“I suppose that fall will do,” Phin said, appraising the bride. “Turn away from the window a bit, please,” she instructed, and the bride turned slightly.

Trudy! Ned watched her move and recognized her profile. She wore a wig of blonde curls and the front of her hair had been sprayed a lighter blonde.

“Give her the flowers, China,” Phin continued, and China handed the lavish bouquet to Trudy. “And toward me a bit more, please.”

The cameras whirred and clicked once Trudy accepted the bouquet and moved into place. She noticed Ned and a bright red flush spread up her neck and into her face.

“Stop snapping! Trudy, what the hell—” Phin remonstrated, and turned to look in the direction of Trudy’s focus. When she saw Ned, the director nodded sagely. “Ah, the penny drops.”

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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

#Feature: A Merciful Promise by Kendra Elliot; #NowAvailable, #OutNow, #TBR, #Live, #Giveaway

Title: A Merciful Promise

Author: Kendra Elliot

Release Date: June 18, 2019

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Summary:

The job: infiltrate a militia amassing illegal firearms in an isolated forest community. FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick is the ideal candidate. She knows Oregon. She’s near the compound. And having been raised among survivalists, Mercy understands the mind-set of fanatics. Lay low, follow rules, do nothing to sound an alarm, and relinquish all contact with the outside world. She’s ready to blend in.

As Mercy disappears into the winter hills, something just as foreboding emerges. Mercy’s fiancé, Eagle’s Nest police chief Truman Daly, is faced with a puzzling series of murders—three men dumped in random locations after execution-style shootings.

Now, for Mercy, trapped in a culture where suspicion is second nature, and betrayal is punishable to the extreme, there is no way out. No way to call for help. And as plans for a catastrophic terrorist event escalate, there may be no way to stop them. Even if Mercy dies trying.

Buy Links:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

***

Excerpt:

“What does Jeff want?” FBI special agent Eddie Peterson asked Mercy as they simultaneously tried to pass through the conference room doorway. Eddie stepped back, a laptop under one arm and two books under the other as he precariously gripped a cup of coffee by its lid.

Mercy darted through before he lost control of the coffee. “I don’t know, but he told me to clear my afternoon.”

Eddie frowned as he set the cup on the conference table. “He didn’t tell me that. I’ve got three meetings.”

Mercy shrugged. It was part of her job to change direction on a dime, and Jeff’s vague message had perked up what had promised to be a dull day of paperwork. Mercy had been a special agent with the FBI’s Bend, Oregon, field office for nearly a year after spending five years at the big Portland office. Including her and Eddie, Bend had five agents, in contrast to the hundred agents in Portland.

But Bend was close to her heart. She’d been raised thirty minutes away in the tiny town of Eagle’s Nest, and until she arrived in Bend on a case last September, she hadn’t visited in fifteen years. After that case she left behind Portland’s hustle and bustle for the stunning vistas of the Cascade mountain range to Bend’s west and the wide-open plains to its east.

Her boss, Jeff Garrison, entered the room with two official-looking strangers close behind him. Instinct told Mercy they weren’t FBI—but something about them felt very governmental, and she noticed instantly they were discreetly armed. The woman was tall, dark, and elegant—she could have been a model twenty years earlier, and her gaze zoomed in on Mercy, studying her from head to toe. After the moment of intense scrutiny, she gave Mercy a warm smile. Whatever evaluation she had performed, Mercy had passed.

The male looked as if he could be Eddie’s brother. Young, hair too long, a bit of scruff. He wore jeans and a light jacket.

Jeff made introductions. Carleen Aguirre was the resident agent in charge from the Portland ATF office, and the man was ATF special agent Neal Gorman. As they took their seats, Neal frowned at Mercy, studying her in the same fashion that Carleen had. Mercy returned his stare as Jeff shut the door.

“Nothing said in here leaves this office,” Jeff announced, looking directly at Eddie and Mercy.

Mercy hid a small spark of irritation; she and Eddie weren’t gossips. She lifted a brow and gave Jeff her best side-eye, wondering if she should be offended or immensely curious. She decided on immensely curious and gave the ATF agents the same deep scrutiny she’d received.

Carleen grinned and leaned forward, resting her arms on the table, her dark gaze holding Mercy’s. “One of our agents is undercover in a militia-slash-conspiracy-theorists-slash-illegal-arms-buying group outside of Ukiah.”

Mercy blinked. “That’s a mouthful.”

“Where’s Ukiah?” asked Eddie.

“About thirty miles south of Pendleton. It’s a tiny town. About two hundred people,” answered Neal.

Mercy followed a road map in her head. “That’s a good four hours northeast from here.”

Neal nodded. “Just west of the Umatilla National Forest. If you’re looking for a good place to escape society, this is it. No one will bug you here.”

“But clearly something about this extensively labeled group bugged you enough to embed an agent,” Eddie stated.

“They call their compound America’s Preserve. The group has approximately forty people living in an abandoned campground,” Carleen told him. “The camp is the type of place churches rent for retreats. It has several cabins with bunk beds and a large hall with a kitchen for meetings, but it hadn’t been used in twenty years until this group took up residence about a year ago. The property is owned by a Ukiah resident who gave them permission to move in.” Carleen grimaced. “The ATF doesn’t want to reveal our interest, so no one has talked to the owner, but the general word in Ukiah is that the group is repairing the buildings in exchange for living there.”

“And you embedded an agent because of the illegal-arms-buying aspect,” said Mercy.

Both agents nodded. And didn’t expand.

Mercy waited, but neither Carleen nor Neal jumped in to fill the silence.

But Eddie did. “What do you need from us?”

Carleen took a deep breath. “We need Mercy. Tomorrow a second agent was to join our undercover agent and pose as his girlfriend, but she came down with shingles.” She turned pleading eyes on Mercy.

Sweat started under her arms, and her pulse pounded in her ears.

They want me undercover in an illegal-arms-buying militia?

Last winter she’d gotten uncomfortably close to a budding militia outside of town and nearly paid for it with her life. It wasn’t something she cared to do again.

Jeff met her gaze. He knew how dangerous her last experience had been. His eyes were sympathetic, but he sat silent, allowing the agents to ask.

“Get someone else,” Mercy forced out. “It doesn’t have to be me.”

Author Biography:

Kendra Elliot has landed on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list multiple times and is the award-winning author of the Bone Secrets and Callahan & McLane series as well as the Mercy Kilpatrick novels. Kendra is a three-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award, an International Thriller Writers finalist, and an RT Award finalist. She has always been a voracious reader, cutting her teeth on classic female heroines such as Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Laura Ingalls. She was born and raised, and still lives, in the rainy Pacific Northwest with her family, but she looks forward to the day she can live in flip-flops. Visit her at www.kendraelliot.com.

Social Media Links:

Website: https://www.kendraelliot.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KendraElliot

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6150778.Kendra_Elliot

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Loving The Book Presents: Great Summer Reads 2019; #BlogTour, #NowAvailable, #OutNow, #Giveaway

Graff also writes the crime review blog Auntie M Writes, www.auntiemwrites.com.

~ Facebook ~ Website ~
~ Twitter ~
~ Bridle Path Press ~

Readers of Death Unscripted, the first book in the Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery series, will find the same pleasures in this sequel: fast pacing, engaging characters, twists and turns on the way to a satisfying close. From the award winning author of The Nora Tierney English Mysteries, this second series is a winner. Once again M.K. Graff reveals her talents in crafting this delightful mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural.