Thursday, March 15, 2012

OMN Welcomes Mystery Author Virginia Benson

Omnimystery News: Authors on Tour

Omnimystery News is pleased to welcome Virginia Benson, whose second novel — but her first mystery — is Engineered Murder.

Today Virginia's protagonist, Bernard Knowlton, would like to introduce himself — and his first case — to our readers.

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My name is Detective Knowlton and my sergeant, Officer Arthur Corn, and I are enjoying Christmas Past. It is well into the first month of the New Year, and I have just begun a new diet. Juanita Corn, wife of Sgt. Corn, is expecting hers and Arthur's first baby and all is going well in Wichita, Kansas. That is, it was going well … until murder invades our prairie town and stakes a claim.

Virginia Benson
Photo provided courtesy of
Virginia Benson

It is blizzard conditions outside and my patrol beat has summoned me from my cozy fire and surround-sound music out into a blizzard to investigate a dead body in the library of Pollard and Thorne Engineering Company. I am fifty years old, overweight, a widower with a daughter in university, and I was planning to keep my feet propped up all evening and read a good book.

Forty minutes later, Sgt. Corn and I stand in the doorway of the firm's library and look at the body sprawled on the bloody Oriental rug. Who is it? Why is it here? The body lying on the exquisite Persian rug has been bludgeoned into an unsightly mess, but I can tell this was once a beautiful woman. The books on the shelves cannot talk or they might tell me what happened. Sgt. Maybre has given a cup of coffee to the cleaner, Sharon, who discovered the body and she waits in the kitchen of the firm for her interviewer. Maybe I'll get some answers then.

A bronze replica of Rodin's "The Thinker" is lying blood-covered at my feet. I have climbed the library ladder to the top of the stacks where it once rested. Who removed it? When I find that out, you might think I would have my killer; but it is a lot more complicated than that. As are most murders. Love, fear, money: one or all can play a part when a human being takes a life.

I have my qualms, and as I feared, another murder site soon will call to me. A former employee of this engineering company ― killed in a particularly callous, vicious manner ― will call to me from beyond the grave to find another killer. Or perhaps it is the same one who killed here tonight.

Who is this fiend? Something tells me I will have to employ all my police skills to find out who committed this murder.

[An aside from the author] Knowlton doesn't know it now, but he will have to travel to South Florida to investigate a fatal traffic accident that he will discover is tied to this murder. With good detective work he and Corn will find not only who killed but why.

— ◊ —

When not teaching computer applications at a technical school near her home in Pompano Beach, Florida, Virginia Benson reads (a lot of mysteries), enjoys the ocean nearby, dines with friends, and, of course, writes. Learn more about her and her books at VirginiaBenson.com.

And here's a special offer from Virginia: If you are one of the first two (2) people to visit her website and enter your name and address in the form which you will find there under the Contact tab, she will mail you a courtesy trade paperback edition of Engineered Murder. All she asks in return is that upon reading the mystery you post a review of it at Amazon.com.

— ◊ —

Engineered Murder by Virginia Benson

Amazon.com Print and/or Kindle Edition

About Engineered Murder:

When Sharon came to clean the offices of a Wichita, Kansas engineering firm, she didn't expect to find a dead body in the firm's library. Pollard and Thorne Engineering, Inc., is engaged in designing plans for a controversial project for the U.S. government that moves the firm into the cross-hairs of the guns of opponents. Police Detective Bernard Knowlton and Sgt. Corn must find out what would make someone take the enormous risk of killing the victim at work.

Is international intrigue the reason for the death of Caroline Moore, the young, beautiful project manager of the government project; or does the reason lie closer to home? Kevin Moore, the disingenuous husband of the victim, has the best of motives, perhaps, but his grief at her death appears genuine. Chase Pollard, wife of the senior partner, has a strong motive for killing Caroline and appears a good candidate, but she has, perhaps, extracted revenge in a more satisfyingly feminine way.

The two partners of the firm, Dr. Garrison Pollard and Baxter Thorne, both have lives that might not bear too much scrutiny, and it appears to Knowlton that they are desperate that he not open too many closets. Other employees of the firm, past and present, have reasons to dislike Caroline.

The day of Caroline's funeral there is another murder and there is a body dumped on her fresh grave. Now, Detective Knowlton must enter a race to prevent a desperate killer from striking a third time. He pulls the curtains in the book-shrouded room whereupon Caroline Moore lies murdered, pokes under the Oriental rug soaked with her blood, and sweeps out evidence that ranges from a fatal accident on Florida's I-95 to a Washington D.C. cabal, and back to the small firm. When the second murder occurs, he vows to prevent a desperate killer from striking once more.

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