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A haunted hotel, a family curse, mysterious Cossacks, hidden treasure, murdered guests — what looked to be a routine family reunion is turning into a serious Bad Hair Day indeed, one that is trouble all the way down to the Dead Roots …
Marla Shore thought the only tricky part of the reunion at Florida's historic Sugar Crest Plantation Resort would be introducing her fiancé, Detective Dalton Vail, to her family, and vice versa. But that was before her Aunt Polly was found suffocated in her bed.
It turns out that her family has a tangle of ties to Sugar Crest, including Aunt Polly's father, who once owned the plantation — and hid a fortune in gems somewhere on the grounds. And though Sugar Crest is slated for demolition, many people would profit if it were not destroyed, and some just might go to any lengths to make sure it remains standing. To top it all off, the plantation was built on a Native-American burial mound, which Marla knows is never a good idea, and then the groundskeeper turns up dead!
Whatever is going on at Sugar Crest, someone is willing to go to great lengths to keep it hidden. But he or she has not planned on Marla, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth before the killer strikes again.
— Dead Roots by Nancy J. Cohen
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Omnimystery News is pleased to present a mystery, suspense, or thriller ebook that we recently found by sleuthing (as it were) through new or recently reissued titles from independent publishers during February 2016 and priced $4.99 or less …
Kelly O'Connell never thought real estate was a dangerous profession. But while updating early-twentieth-century Craftsman houses in an older neighborhood in Fort Worth, Texas, she stumbles over a skeleton and begins unraveling an old murder.
The police call it a cold case, but Kelly knows she must solve the murder if she is to finish the house and sell it. She and her two young daughters quickly become the target of threats and vandalism, and someone is telling her ex-husband in California what's going on. Tim Spencer arrives to protect his daughters by taking them to California with him but is soon found shot to death. Then a new client barges into Kelly's life, and she finds herself facing a gun, a deadly killer, and the solution to the mystery of the skeleton and Tim's death.
— Skeleton in a Dead Space by Judy Alter
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Last week mystery author Lauren Carr visited Omnimystery News to write about "So Many Murders, So Little Time". Afterwards, we realized it's been a while since we had a chat with Lauren and managed to snag a few minutes of her time recently. Her new mystery in the Mac Faraday series is Cancelled Vows (Acorn Book Services; January 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and that's where we started our conversation.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: We've read several books featuring Mac Faraday, but for those who haven't had the pleasure, tell us a little more about his background.
Photo provided courtesy of Lauren Carr
Lauren Carr: The Mac Faraday Mystery Series is set in the fictional town of Spencer, which rests in the corner of Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland.
In It's Murder, My Son, the sudden death of world-famous mystery writer Robin Spencer has revealed her secret that as a teenager, she had given birth to a baby who had been put up for adoption. Her baby boy had grown up to become a homicide detective named Mac Faraday. On the day that his divorce from his wife, who had left him for another man, Mac inherited Robin Spencer's vast fortune, which includes the Spencer Inn, the five-star vacation resort that rested on top of Spencer Mountain. Since Mac Faraday is not good at golf or tennis, he spends his time solving murder mysteries.
Mac Faraday is the average guy (as average as you can be owning a vast fortune) who has been plopped down into an extraordinary circumstance. He cares about his friends and family, which includes half-brother David O'Callaghan, Spencer's chief of police. As a descendent of the town's founders and the owner of the Spencer Inn, Mac has power, yet, he's not arrogant. He uses the influence he has to help those who need it.
Readers also enjoy Gnarly, the overly-intelligent German shepherd Mac had inherited from Robin Spencer. The only dog to be dishonorably discharged from the United States Army, Gnarly is a kleptomaniac. He has a mind of his own. Gnarly's role is to humanize Mac. Who would not start to feel a little full of himself with all his wealth and power. Yet, just when Mac starts to think too highly of himself, Gnarly has the ability to bring him right back down to earth.
OMN: When starting a new book in this series, which comes first: the mystery or the characters who will be part of it?
LC: The murder mystery always comes first. The majority of the time, I will come across a murder mystery. Then, I will create the characters — the victim and suspects. Once I have the case and the characters established, the storyline will come together. Some books write themselves once I have all that.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.
LC: I'm what you call a plantser. That is, I plan the book very loosely, leaving plenty of room for my characters to take over and lead me in a different direction. Then, when I sit down to start writing, I will write by the seat of my pants. However, because of the outline, my characters and I always end up where I planned for us to end.
After years, I now finally have a system. I am usually thinking about the next book while working on the current one. Usually, by the time I send the current book off to the editor, I am ready to start writing the next book.
The most important thing with every one of my books is the murder mystery — the case the characters are working on. The subplot of what goes on with the characters is secondary — surprisingly that is very often dictated by the case. For example, in Cancelled Vows, I did not start out the book intending to David to explore his relationships with women, nor did I plan for the book to end the way it did. However, because of what happens during the course of the investigation, both David and Chelsea discover things about themselves and their relationship.
But then also, I am working on books that just aren't quite there yet — simply because I don't have the plot worked out yet. I've had one Mac Faraday Mystery in mind for well over a year and just recently had a break through on the plot. That will be my November release, Murder for the Holidays.
OMN: Why did you set the series in Western Maryland?
LC: I set the Mac Faraday Mysteries in the Deep Creek Lake area in Western Maryland because it is close enough for me to visit, therefore I am familiar with it to capture the feel for my books. Actually, there is a humorous story about the setting for the Mac Faraday Mysteries. After my second Joshua Thornton Mystery was released (A Reunion to Die For), my sister-in-law asked me to set a murder mystery in the small resort town where she and her husband summer, which is Pelican Lake, Wisconsin. At the time, I did have an idea for the first Mac Faraday Mystery, It's Murder, My Son. Well, when I wrote the first draft, she was horrified that not only did I set the murder in Pelican Lake, but the murder victim was killed in her house! Married to a millionaire, she lives in a distinctive house on "the point." Therefore, anyone who knew her who read the book would know that the victim was killed in her house. This was much too close to home for her.
So, for family harmony, I had to change the setting. At that time, my family and I started vacationing in Deep Creek Lake, which proved to be the ideal setting for the Mac Faraday Mysteries. So, I just picked up her house and plopped it down in Deep Creek Lake.
Now, while Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland is real, Spencer, the small town tucked in the corner of Deep Creek Lake is not. Spencer is a fictional uptown section of Deep Creek. When I was writing the first installment of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, I contacted the sheriff of Garrett County for research. Without giving away any spoilers, the chief law enforcement officer in It's Murder, My Son was a doofus. Well, when I told the sheriff that, he refused to cooperate in any way because people would think it was him. So, after some thinking, I decided to create a fictional small town with its own police force and have that chief of police be a doofus.
OMN: We recently learned that Lauren Carr is your pen name. Why did you choose to use one?
LC: My reason for using the pen name of Lauren Carr is not really very grand or even interesting. Frankly, I don't like my real name. I never did. That's why my husband calls me Marilyn. (No, that is not my middle name. … It's a long story.) When I was growing up, I realized that since I wrote fiction, which is not real, then I was free to take on a not-real name and I could be any one I wanted.
I thought long and hard about my name. I gave as much thought to it as an expectant mother, because that was who I was going to be, even if only on the cover of a book. I chose Lauren because my sister's name is Karen. I was convinced that if my mother was thinking straight, that Lauren would have naturally followed Karen. Don't ask me why or how I came to this conclusion, I just did. Carr was my late stepfather's last name.
So, I became Lauren Carr, a pen name that I have had longer than my real name. I was Lauren Carr before I married my husband and took on his name. Little did I realize that as my career has grown, that Lauren Carr would become a whole other identity, which is also a kick.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a mystery dinner theater in the small town where we have lived for close to a quarter of a century. I hosted the event. During the performances, I would be introduced as Lauren Carr to the audience. Jaws did drop. Many people in the audience had read Lauren Carr books, written by the local author, but they didn't know Tristan's mom and Jack's wife wrote murder mysteries. She seems so normal!
All of my friends and writing/publishing colleagues know and call me Lauren. As a matter of fact, some of them don't even know my legal name. I've been using the name Lauren Carr for so long that I'll just naturally answer to it. If someone gives me something to sign, I have to stop to ask myself who I am. A couple of years ago, my husband was having some out-patient surgery done. I was in the waiting room and someone came in and called "Lauren!" I turned around and stood up.
Some people would think that's weird. I think it's fun.
— ♦ —
Lauren Carr is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This year, several books, over a variety of genre, written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services, which is currently accepting submissions. Visit the Acorn Book Services website for more information.
Lauren lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Police Chief David O'Callaghan and Chelsea Adams' wedding day is fast approaching. Unfortunately, at the last minute, David discovers that there is one small problem to be taken care of before he can walk down the aisle — divorce his first wife!
Lauren Carr takes fans of the Mac Faraday mysteries to the Big Apple in this nail biting adventure. In Cancelled Vows, David, Mac, and Gnarly, too, rush to New York City to dissolve David's marriage to an old girlfriend — and he's got five days to get it done. When murder throws up a road block, it is up to David's best man, Mac Faraday, and Gnarly, K9-in-waiting, to sort through the clues to get David to the church in time!
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she receives a text message with a video link that appears to be from her niece Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago.
As Scarpetta watches she comes to grips with frightening secrets. That first clip and others sent soon after raise dangerous implications that increasingly isolate Scarpetta, leaving her confused and not knowing whom she can tell — not her FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, or her investigative partner, Pete Marino. Not even Lucy.
Cornwell launches these unforgettable characters on a psychological odyssey that includes the mysterious death of a Hollywood mogul's daughter, aircraft wreckage on the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle, a grisly gift left in the back of a crime scene truck, and videos from the past that threaten to destroy Scarpetta's entire world. The diabolical presence and singularly "depraved heart" behind what unfolds seems obvious — but not to the FBI, which begins building a case against Lucy that could send her to prison for the rest of her life …
Mike Walton had experienced terrorism from every angle. As a covert field operations officer, he thought he'd seen it all. But that was before terrorism struck him directly at home. Suffering devastating physical injury and unthinkable personal loss, Mike had one of two choices: give up or fight back. And giving up wasn't in his constitution.
Mike and his wife Lisa — a medical doctor and fellow counter-terrorism expert — are recruited by the International Market Stabilization Institute, a privately funded organization operating outside official channels to protect North America's financial interests. The strikes that destroyed Mike and Lisa's household — the work of Sheik Al-Assad — are bringing the Western economy to its knees. And they are only the beginning. If the Sheik succeeds, the world will change forever, and the next attack is just around the corner. Mike and Lisa must lead a hastily assembled team to Europe to stop the madness before time runs out.
Former reporter Ali Reynolds finds herself working against the police to add up the clues that connect one frightened teenager, two dead bodies, and $300,000 … with the body count rising …
Hired to investigate the grisly murder of a gold-digging divorcée on behalf of the woman accused of the crime, Ali Reynolds is immediately drawn to the case of the secretive teenager who found the body. A. J. Sanders was in the Camp Verde desert to retrieve a mystery box buried by his absent father — a box that turns out to be filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of poker chips. When a second body is found in the desert, it seems the three cases are more closely related than anyone could have imagined.
Though Ali's friends in the police department grow increasingly irritated by her involvement, Ali must stop a ruthless killer from claiming another victim … before she is lost in this game of deadly stakes.
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Detective Morgan Everson has gotten pretty acquainted with death. She sees it all the time, especially working the Special Homicide division in Philadelphia. But this case is new. In this case, the victim of the murder is also a potential eye-witness. His name is Seth, and he was dead for thirty-five years before they found him wandering around a cemetery.
A detective himself in the 1980s, Seth sets about putting together the pieces of the former life he can barely remember. In his wake, however, people who knew him start dying, and in particularly violent ways that put them squarely in Morgan's lap. She must discover the connection between Seth and the murders, even as Seth works to understand the whys and wherefores of his resurrection. The connection between the two may be the bullet found among Seth's belongings. It is not jacketed in steel or made with silver, but instead has a core of cold iron. What it means, and the intent behind its creation, will change the lives of both detectives forever.
— Cold Iron by Josh Loomis
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A chilling tale of Navajo Skinwalkers, Mexico's drug cartels, and a desert that buries its secrets …
A corpse discovered in Whiskey, Arizona points to the work of an emerging drug cartel south of the border. When stolen artifacts from Whiskey's museum lead to more bodies — several of them brutally mangled — Chief of Police Rye Dawlsen fears there is more to the mysterious murders than drugs, corruption, and the Mexican Mafia. The son of a gringo father and a Navajo mother, Dawlsen knows the legend of the Navajo Skinwalkers … werewolves … but refuses to believe such creatures exists. Rumored to travel in animal form, Skinwalkers attain the highest level of pure evil when they kill a close blood relative. Dawlsen might discount such rumors except the killings seem too vicious, even for the violent members of El Águila, The Eagle.
Something evil lurks behind the cactus and sagebrush of Arizona's desert. An evil so vile it threatens to destroy the people of Whiskey.
— Whiskey Sunrise by John Turney
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When Callie tries to help a teenage child wade through the emotional trauma caused by a demented uncle, she ends up in the path of the monster herself.
Pumped full of romance and excitement, Callinda Beauvais returns to America to sell her Oregon house and cottage, so she can move to France. Ready to open a new chapter in her life, she soon learns that the illegitimate child her deceased husband kept from her for years … wasn't the only secret he left behind. Within moments of returning to her old life, she is thrust into a mystery that reaches into the dark corners of several lives, including the far reaches of her own past.
— Thorny Secrets and Pinot Noir by Patricia Steele
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Hayley Snow's life always revolved around food. But when she applies to be a food critic for a Key West style magazine, she discovers that her new boss would be Kristen Faulkner — the woman Hayley caught in bed with her boyfriend!
Hayley thinks things are as bad as they can get-until the police pull her in as a suspect in Kristen's murder. Kristen was killed by a poisoned key lime pie. Now Hayley must find out who used meringue to murder before she takes all the blame.
— An Appetite For Murder by Lucy Burdette
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Omnimystery News is pleased to present a mystery, suspense, or thriller ebook that we recently found by sleuthing (as it were) through new or recently reissued titles from independent publishers during February 2016 and priced $4.99 or less …
Life imitates art when murder rears its ugly head at the Delphine Opera House …
When Elise Beckett signed on to help with the renovation of Delphine's Opera House, she was excited at the prospect of restoring the historic landmark to its former glory. With the Beckett family vineyard providing the libations for the opening night gala, the three-act play featuring a country murder mystery promises a tasty vintage for everyone. But the performance takes a deadly turn when an actor is murdered on stage in front of a sold out crowd.
Now Elise and Deputy Jackson Landry must sift through a mystery that's as elaborate as any award-winning stage production — where the script is layered with secrets and lies, blackmail and murder.
— Performance of a Deadly Vintage by Joni Folger
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Take two British expats, transplant them to upstate New York where the local HOA is worshipped and neighbors spy on each other for fun, and you have the makings of murder gone amok …
Caro Layton-Browning, an accomplished writer of mysteries, never imagined she would unwittingly stumble into a series of real-life murders good enough to be in her own books. But when the Cat Lady next door, who Caro is convinced is out to make life miserable for her, is found dead among her feline collection, Caro finds herself in trouble far more dangerous than her neighborhood HOA has ever dished out before. Suddenly she and her professor hubby, Gregory, find themselves on the trail of a murderer far more sinister than Caro's imagination could conjure up.
As the bodies begin to pile up in picturesque Seneca Meadows, Caro sees the possibility of a plot for her newest book, and the killer sees someone who needs to be moved out of the way … permanently.
— A Bird in the Hand by Dane McCaslin
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Omnimystery News is pleased to present a mystery, suspense, or thriller ebook that we recently found by sleuthing (as it were) through new or recently reissued titles from independent publishers during February 2016 and priced $4.99 or less …
A mansion, a title and marriage to a wealthy Lord — Lady Eveline Cartwright has it all. Unfortunately, it's not enough to prevent her being bludgeoned to death one night in the study of Merisham Lodge, the family's country estate in Derbyshire.
Suspicion quickly falls on her ne'er-do-well son, Peter, but not everyone in the household is convinced of his guilt. Head kitchen maid Joan Hart and lady's maid, Verity Hunter, know that when it comes to a crime, all is not always as it seems.
With suspicions and motives thick on the ground, Joan and Verity must use all the wit and courage they possess to expose a deadly murderer who will stop at nothing to achieve their aim …
— Murder at Merisham Lodge by Celina Grace
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A beautiful young woman's corpse is found dumped in a garbage-strewn alley. Now laid out in the office of medical examiner Kat Novak is an unidentified body that betrays no secrets — except for a matchbook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the streets, using a deadly drug to do his dirty work. The police are skeptical. The mayor won't listen. One of the town's most prominent citizens, with a missing daughter of his own, is also Kat's chief suspect.
As the death toll rises, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is close enough to touch her.
— Girl Missing by Tess Gerritsen
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Having left the Faroes as a child, Jan Reyna is now a British police detective, and the islands are foreign to him. But he is drawn back when his estranged father is found unconscious with a shotgun by his side and someone else's blood at the scene. Then a man's body is washed up on an isolated beach. Is Reyna's father responsible?
Looking for answers, Reyna falls in with local detective Hjalti Hentze. But as the stakes get higher and Reyna learns more about his family and the truth behind his mother's flight from the Faroes, he must decide whether to stay, or to forsake the strange, windswept islands for good.
Ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney brings his analytical brilliance to a shocking murder that couldn't have been committed the way the police say it was …
The daunting task that confronts Gurney, once the NYPD's top homicide cop: determining the guilt or innocence of a woman already convicted of shooting her charismatic politician husband — who was felled by a rifle bullet to the brain while delivering the eulogy at his own mother's funeral.
Peeling back the layers, Gurney quickly finds himself waging a dangerous battle of wits with a thoroughly corrupt investigator, a disturbingly cordial mob boss, a gorgeous young temptress, and a bizarre assassin whose child-like appearance has earned him the nickname Peter Pan.
Startling twists and turns occur in rapid-fire sequence, and soon Gurney is locked inside one of the darkest cases of his career — one in which multiple murders are merely the deceptive surface under which rests a scaffolding of pure evil. Beneath the tangle of poisonous lies, Gurney discovers that the truth is more shocking than anyone had imagined.
And the identity of the villain at the mystery's center turns out to be the biggest shock of all.
— Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon
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