Mysterious Press released two series mysteries and one short story collection by author and former actress Melodie Johnson Howe this week in ebook format.
In 1989, Melodie introduced the sleuthing team of Claire Conrad and Maggie Hill — her answer to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin — in The Mother Shadow, which was subsequently nominated in the "best first" category for several prominent mystery awards. Several years later she wrote a sequel, and most recently she published a collection of short stories featuring Diana Poole, "an actress in her early forties trying to make a comeback, especially when she discovers betrayal and murder in the world of glitz, glamour, and greed."
We're providing a list of all three books below, with a synopsis from the first in her series.
— ♦ —
The Mother Shadow
Melodie Johnson Howe
A Claire Conrad/Maggie Hill Mystery (1st in series)
After a suicide, two oddball female sleuths investigate a coin collection that is anything but small change …
Maggie Hill's life has become temporary. Her marriage was temporary, her jobs are temporary, and if work doesn't pick up, her time in California might be temporary, too. Her latest employer is Ellis Kenilworth, an aging coin expert with a first-rate collection and a tenth-rate family. One morning, he has Maggie type up a codicil to his will, changing the document so that his million-dollar rare-coin collection goes not to his kin, but to a woman named Claire Conrad. By the end of the day, the codicil has vanished, and Kenilworth has killed himself with a shotgun.
When the hyena-like family starts to circle Maggie, she reaches out to Conrad. The heiress is an eccentric private detective who wears only black and white — and whose sense of honesty is as clear-cut as her wardrobe. Together, they fight to protect an old man's final wish, battling against a family so greedy that they would steal the coins right out of the dead man's hand.
(2nd in series) Beauty Dies — Amazon | iTunes | Kobo
Shooting Hollywood: A Collection of Short Stories featuring Diana Poole — Amazon | iTunes | Kobo
0 comments:
Post a Comment