Champagne for Buzzards

Spunky, smart-mouthed, Sherri Travis just blew into town in her Big Red shiny pickup truck with a trail of black, ugly buzzards in hot pursuit. So, who put the dead body in the back of Big Red? Sherri really doesn't want to know since she is focused on giving her boyfriend, Clay Adams, a surprise birthday party at his Riverwood Ranch. Guess what? Sherri winds up right in the middle of another kind of surprise - the unpleasant kind.

Champagne for Buzzards is the fourth book in the Sherri Travis series written by Phyllis Smallman. It's no wonder that Smallman was placed in the top six mystery authors, for summer reads 2010, by Good Morning America. Her 'trailer-trash' character is bigger than life even when she tries to clean up her act and put on a veneer of respectability.

In the company of her father, Tully, Uncle Ziggy and best friend Marley, Sherri takes up temporary residence at Clay's ranch. She encounters a diabolical horse, a seven foot snake and a mongrel dog but that isn't the worst of her troubles. Something strange is going on in the woods that surround the ranch house. Four-wheelers are roaring through the peaceful landscape, loaded rifles laying across their handle bars. Psychotic next door neighbor, Boomer Breslau, has taken a perverted fancy to her. Sherri's mouth and actions inflame his obsession until he vows to not only kill her - but everything on Riverwood. His cousin is the sheriff so when things turn nasty there is no place for Sherri to run.

High tension, wonderful descriptions of the Florida countryside, and a very real, heartbreaking theme of man's inhumanity toward man makes this book a must read.  

No Rest for the Wicked

Are you under the impression that working in a book store is boring? Then you have never visited Thornton's Books in Juniper, Oregon and met Jane Serrano. Forty-three, widowed, the mother of a beautiful daughter, Jane does more than shift dusty tomes from shelf to shelf - she solves murders.

Elizabeth C. Main has created an unorthodox cast of characters in her No Rest for the Wicked.  Jane's daughter, Bianca, the brightest star of the aging group, Alix, a cynical multi-married owner of an upscale wedding boutique, Bible quoting, cake baking, Minnie, young Tyler and his crusty grandfather, shy, retiring Velda and long-suffering love interest Nick; just to name a few. Oh, and lest I should forget, there's Wendell the Wedding Dog.  His services are a bit pricy but he looks great in a tux. He'll do almost anything you ask at your nuptials unless an uninvited porcupine crashes the party.

Main writes a true 'cozy' mystery drawing her story and characters from real life, skillfully putting them on the page for mystery readers to follow with delight. But don't let their playfulness fool you - there's a good mystery here. A charming, womanizing, con-man who targets the elderly is the current corpse. Jane Serrano, from the first book in this series, Murder of the Month, has been established as the amateur sleuth of choice and when the body is discovered she and her crew gear up to go after the murderer, especially since one of their own has been hauled off to jail as prime suspect. Their investigation leads Jane and Minnie straight into a locked cellar with an armed killer on the other side. Taunt and dramatic, funny and warm, Main is an author who entertains.

Fallen From Grace

Arahpot, Pennsylvania, the setting for J. R. Lindermuth's book, Fallen From Grace, is a peaceful town in the early 1900's. Far removed from the wild, wild west Arahpot is civilized and up to date in all the newfangled  amenities like a telegraph office. Sheriff Sylvester Tilghman has little to occupy his time except drive around in his spanking new Sears and Roebuck buggy and wonder if his lovely Lydia will finally accept his proposal of marriage or, more importantly, if she will invite him to supper. That is - until a teamster delivers a badly wounded man to Doc Mariner's door. It turns out to be murder. 

Who was this man and what connection, if any, did he have with the newly arrived Delbert family? During the course of the investigation the suspicious Valentine Delbert drops dead of - natural causes? That remains to be seen. Did the beautiful new wife poison her obese husband? And what was going on with the girls that worked at Matilda's boarding house? Were they just house maids, with the occasional entertainment assignment, or innocent bystanders?

'Rubbing salt in a raw wound' as Sheriff Tilghman would no doubt say was the appearance of the lovely Lydia's charming cousin, Cyrus Gutshall. Lydia is determined that he will make the ideal deputy for the sheriff and Tilghman is just as determined to stay far away from the obnoxious interloper. But when Tilghman's life is on the line will Gutshall help or hinder?

Fallen from Grace is a delightfully easy read with fascinating characters and a true sense of place. It is also a good mystery with plenty of suspects and enough twists in the plot to offset its leisurely pace. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Learn more about J. R. Lindermuth at Village of Mystery

An Uncertain Refuge

 Carolyn J. Rose is a brilliant author. In her latest book, An Uncertain Refuge, she strums tension as taunt as a tight-rope walker's wire, leaving the reader ready to gasp at every misstep.

   An Uncertain Refuge  is not your traditional mystery, it is more a statement on the horrific and tragic lineage of domestic violence. It is, at times, a painful book to read. Kate Dalton, her own childhood marred by a different sort of trauma, is caught in a web of incontrovertible revenge as she strives to shield the child, Way-Ray, from the raw abuse and terror his mother endured. It is a story of courageous love and bitter hatred. The characters clearly crafted from the handicapped, alcoholic handyman, the compassionate motel maid, to the strange old woman who cares for wounded animals.

It is a book hard to put down, especially when dreaded events occur and the human master of violence unleashes its wrath.  It is also a book that will, for a long time, haunt your memory. 

    

Village of Mystery

Old Loves Die Hard

 

On the day of his divorce retired homicide detective, Mac  Faraday, learned  he had inherited a multi-million dollar estate from his famous birth mother.  He was just settling into his new lifestyle when his ex-wife knocked on the door of the mansion begging him to take her back.   Faraday soon discovered that Old Loves Die Hard when Christine, the ex, and her lover, were both found brutally murdered in Faraday’s private penthouse suite.The main suspect?  Mac Faraday. 

 

In this second book of the series, continuing from, It’s Murder My Son, Lauren Carr weaves a tight and challenging tale of Washington DC politics, less than scrupulous attorneys, court judges, and an intrigue of justice served that has the reader engaged in guessing games.  Murderers had escaped punishment, only to become victims. Who killed them – and why was Christine involved?  Or was she? Who was Nita, the mysterious Spanish speaking maid?  No one is above suspicion.  It takes everyone, Mac, his secretary Archie, his half-brother David and even Gnarly the kleptomaniac German shepherd to fit together the pieces of this puzzle.  

Under the Gun - Again!

This wasn't the post I intended to write this morning. I put some more mystery writers and their new releases on Village of Mystery yesterday and was going to tell you about that.  However, my heart is heavy, my mind not functioning on the business of the day. I am still searching for friends and relatives that lived in the Joplin Missouri area. There has been, so far, no word from them. If you missed the news 25 percent of Joplin was destroyed by a massive tornado about 5 p.m. yesterday. 

To make matters worse this part of the state is under severe weather alerts for the next two days. Right now black clouds are hovering overhead and the weather radio indicated our county is in the path of a thunderstorm that may, or may not, produce a tornado. On that note I'll let you go - until next time.

Dying for a Date

'If I’d known my clothes would be covered in blood by the end of the evening, I probably wouldn’t have agonized over my wardrobe selection.' 

This is the opening sentence for the book, 

Dying for a Date, by Cindy Sample. The main character, Laurel McKay, thirty something, divorced, mother of two is talked into joining the Love Club. Her first date is a handsome CPA who, in self-defense, she slugs with a cell phone only to find out the next morning that the man was found dead in his car. Can you kill someone with a cell phone? That's the question asked by Detective Tom Hunter as he tries to ascertain if Laurel is a serial killer, or just a victim of poor judgement and ridiculous circumstances. 

Disastrous dating is the overall theme of this very funny, highly entertaining novel. I found myself saying, "Yeah, that would be what would happen to me." There are many laugh-out-loud lines but there is also some jaw-dropping action. Lots of suspects, including the ex-husband, and a triage of plot complications. A delightful read.  Oh, and you will learn a new acronym; PTDMSS.  No, I'm not going to tell you what it means - you'll have to read the book!