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Justice Denied
J. P. Beaumont Novel
Author: J. A. Jance
Price: $ 1.99
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The murder of an ex-drug dealer ex-con—gunned down on his mother's doorstep—seems just another turf war fatality. Why then has Seattle homicide investigator J.P. Beaumont been instructed to keep this assignment hush-hush? Meanwhile, Beau's lover and fellow cop, Mel Soames, is involved in her own confidential investigation. Registered sex offenders from all over Washington State are dying at an alarming rate—and not all due to natural causes. A metropolis the size of Seattle holds its fair share of brutal crime, corruption, and dirty little secrets. But when the separate trails they're following begin to shockingly intertwine, Beau and Mel realize that they have stumbled onto something bigger and more frightening than they anticipated—a deadly conspiracy that's leading them to lofty places they should not enter . . . and may not be allowed to leave alive.
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: J.A. Jance
Author's Blog: J.A. Jance - NYT Bestselling Author
Twitter: @JAJance
E-Mail: jajance@jance.com
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Author Description:
J.A. Jance is the top 10 New York Times bestselling author of the Joanna Brady series; the J. P. Beaumont series; four interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family; and eight books featuring Ali Reynolds.
As a second-grader in Mrs. Spangler’s Greenway School class, I was introduced to Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series. I read the first one and was hooked and knew, from that moment on, that I wanted to be a writer.
The third child in a large family, I was four years younger than my next older sister and four years older than the next younger sibling. Being both too young and too old left me alone in a crowd and helped turn me into an introspective reader and a top student. When I graduated from Bisbee High School in 1962, I received an academic scholarship that made me the first person in my family to attend a four year college. I graduated in 1966 with a degree in English and Secondary Education. In 1970 I received my M. Ed. In Library Science. I taught high school English at Tucson’s Pueblo High School for two years and was a K-12 librarian at Indian Oasis School District in Sells, Arizona for five years.
My ambitions to become a writer were frustrated in college and later, first because the professor who taught creative writing at the University of Arizona in those days thought girls "ought to be teachers or nurses" rather than writers. After he refused me admission to the program, I did the next best thing: I married a man who was allowed in the program that was closed to me. My first husband imitated Faulkner and Hemingway primarily by drinking too much and writing too little. Despite the fact that he was allowed in the creative writing program, he never had anything published either prior to or after his death from chronic alcoholism at age forty-two. That didn’t keep him from telling me, however, that there would be only one writer in our family, and he was it.
My husband made that statement in 1968 after I had received a favorable letter from an editor in New York who was interested in publishing a children’s story I had written. Because I was a newly wed wife who was interested in staying married, I put my writing ambitions on hold. Other than writing poetry in the dark of night when my husband was asleep (see After the Fire), I did nothing more about writing fiction until eleven years later when I was a single, divorced mother with two children and no child support as well as a full time job selling life insurance. My first three books were written between four a.m. and seven a.m.. At seven, I would wake my children and send them off to school. After that, I would get myself ready to go sell life insurance.
I started writing in the middle of March of 1982. The first book I wrote, a slightly fictionalized version of a series of murders that happened in Tucson in 1970, was never published. For one thing, it was twelve hundred pages long. Since I was never allowed in the creative writing classes, no one had ever told me there were some things I needed to leave out. For another, the editors who turned it down said that the parts that were real were totally unbelievable, and the parts that were fiction were fine. My agent finally sat me down and told me that she thought I was a better writer of fiction than I was of non-fiction. Why, she suggested, didn’t I try my hand at a novel?
The result of that conversation was the first Detective Beaumont book, Until Proven Guilty. Since 1985 when that was published, there have been 21 more Beau books. My work also includes 14 Joanna Brady books set in southeastern Arizona where I grew up, and seven Ali Reynolds books, set in Sedona, AZ. In addition there are four thrillers, starting with Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees, that reflect what I learned during the years when I was teaching on the Tohono O’Odham reservation west of Tucson, Arizona.
The week before Until Proven Guilty was published, I did a poetry reading of After the Fire at a widowed retreat sponsored by a group called WICS (Widowed Information Consultation Services) of King County. By June of 1985, it was five years after my divorce in 1980 and two years after my former husband’s death. I went to the retreat feeling as though I hadn’t quite had my ticket punched and didn’t deserve to be there. After all, the other people there were all still married when their spouses died. I was divorced. At the retreat I met a man whose wife had died of breast cancer two years to the day and within a matter of minutes of the time my husband died. We struck up a conversation based on that coincidence. Six months later, to the dismay of our five children, we told the kids they weren’t the Brady Bunch, but they'd do, and we got married. We now have four new in-laws as well as six grandchildren.
When my second husband and I first married, he supported all of us–his kids and mine as well as the two of us. It was a long time before my income from writing was anything more than fun money–the Improbable Cause trip to Walt Disney World; the Minor in Possession memorial powder room; the Payment in Kind memorial hot tub. Eventually, however, the worm turned. My husband was able to retire at age 54 and took up golf and oil painting.
One of the wonderful things about being a writer is that everything–even the bad stuff–is usable. The eighteen years I spent while married to an alcoholic have helped shape the experience and character of Detective J. P. Beaumont. My experiences as a single parent have gone into the background for Joanna Brady–including her first tentative steps toward a new life after the devastation of losing her husband in Desert Heat. And then there’s the evil creative writing professor in Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees, but that’s another story.
Another wonderful part of being a writer is hearing from fans. I learned on the reservation that the ancient, sacred charge of the storyteller is to beguile the time. I’m thrilled when I hear that someone has used my books to get through some particularly difficult illness either as a patient or as they sit on the sidelines while someone they love is terribly ill. It gratifies me to know that by immersing themselves in my stories, people are able to set their own lives aside and live and walk in someone else’s shoes. It tells me I’m doing a good job at the best job in the world.
Dark City Blue
Author: Luke Preston
Price: FREE
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If there's one thing worse than a crooked cop on your heels then it's a whole unit of them.
A fistful of people are murdered, fifteen million dollars is stolen and detective Tom Bishop is stuck in the middle. When he hits the street, every clue points in the same direction - his colleagues in a police department demoralised by cutbacks and scandals. Hunted, alone and with no place left to turn, Bishop embarks on a hellish journey down into the gutters where right and wrong quickly become twisted and problems are solved with gunfire and bloodshed.
Over the next two days, Tom Bishop will be cornered. He will be beaten. He will bust into prison. He will shoot at police. He will team up with violent criminals. He will become one of them. He will break every rule in the book, chasing a lead nobody else will go near down a rabbit hole of corruption, murder and buried secrets.
Will Bishop become the very monster he set out to destroy?
A modern hard-boiled tale that unfolds at a relentless pace, Dark City Blue is Serpico, if Serpico snorted a fistful of cocaine and hung out with Lee Marvin.
Author Genre: Mystery
Website: Luke Preston
Twitter: @LukePrestonInk
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Author Description:
Luke spent most of his twenties as a freelance writer, a private investigator and listening to rock ‘n roll. He drinks heavily on occasion, is a half decent musician and his idea of a good time involves a jukebox designed to bleed ears.
Luke’s work has been recognised by The Inside Film Awards, MTV and The ATOM Awards. He writes in cafes, bars and in parking lots on the back of old fuel receipts and cigarette packets. He doesn’t believe in writers block or in the magic bullet theory and his favourite album is Exile on Main Street.
Luke’s writing is as much influenced by AC/DC and Johnny Cash as it is by Richard Stark and Raymond Chandler. He is undertaking a Master of Screenwriting at the Victorian College of the Arts and has absolutely no intention of moving to a shack in the middle of nowhere. He likes bad traffic, noisy neighbours, cheap beer, loud bars and has been occasionally known to howl at the moon.
Luke spent most of his twenties as a freelance writer and listening to rock 'n roll. He drinks heavily on occasion, is a half decent musician and his idea of a good time involves a jukebox designed to bleed ears.
Luke's work has been recognised by The Inside Film Awards, MTV and The ATOM Awards. He writes in cafes, bars and in parking lots on the back of old fuel receipts and cigarette packets. He doesn't believe in writers block or in the magic bullet theory and his favourite album is Exile on Main Street.
Luke's writing is as much influenced by AC/DC and Johnny Cash as it is by Richard Stark and Raymond Chandler. He has absolutely no intention of moving to a shack in the middle of nowhere. He likes bad traffic, noisy neighbours, cheap beer, loud bars and has been occasionally known to howl at the moon.
"Dark City Blue is a freight train of a thriller crashing through some madhouse city night while a bomb's ticking down to zero. It's the cage fighting equivalent of a police procedural: violent, gaudy, and packing heat." - Trent Jamieson, author of the Death Works trilogy " … noir on No-Doz … " - Fair Dinkum Crime
"Dark City Blue is an adrenaline-fuelled, action-crammed, wild and crazy page turner… To call it a roller coaster ride is too tame. And as far as hard-boiled goes this is a hard-boiled, deep-frozen, sharpened implement." Jon Page, Bite the Book
Boxes for Beds
Author: Maryann Miller
Price: FREE
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In this historical mystery, set in Arkansas in 1961 when the mob still ruled Hot Springs, babies are being kidnapped, and the local sheriff has to put this case to bed before the bosses come down from Chicago. They don't need the heat, and they have the leverage with the sheriff to make him do whatever they want. It seems like a good move to arrest Leslie Richards, the new woman in town, even though there is only thin circumstantial evidence against her. Better for it to be a stranger taking those babies and not one of their own.
Leslie has left New York with her ten-year-old daughter, Mandy, hoping to escape from her past and the ruins of a relationship, only to discover that there is little peace for her in Pine Hollow, Arkansas.
Author Genre: Literature & Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult
Website: Official Site forMaryann Miller
Author's Blog: Maryann Miller - It's Not All Gravy
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Twitter: @maryannwrites
E-Mail: maryann@maryannwrites.com
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Author Description:
Maryann has been in love with story-telling since she was a child and used to scare her sister with stories of the monsters in the cellar. Those tales were never written down. They were always whispered in the dark, and when Maryann started writing stories, they were different types entirely.
As a young child, she didn't consider that she would grow up to be a writer. She fancied herself quite the singer and thought she would someday sing in front of crowds of thousands. Alas, that proved to be more dream than reality.
At another point in her childhood, she dreamed of being an actress, but it took many years before she was brave enough to give it a try. She is the Theatre Directer at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts where she has directed shows for a number of years, and finally decided to try playing a role. It appears she was more suited to acting than singing, and she has since starred in several productions at various theatres in East Texas.
A diverse writer of columns, feature stores, short fiction, novels, screenplays and stage plays, Maryann Miller has won numerous awards including being a semi-finalist at the Sundance Institute for her screenplay, A Question Of Honor. She has also received the Page Edwards Short Story Award, among others.
Miller lives on some acreage in the beautiful Piney Woods of East Texas with her husband, one horse, two goats, two dogs, and four cats. She has been writing all her life and plans to die at her computer.
Obitchuary
Author: Stephanie Hayes
Price: $ 0.99
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Penny Perkins, journalist, upstanding citizen, dutiful bridesmaid, just killed her date. Smashed him on the head with a bottle of Misty Mangoberry Merlot.
She is tipsy and panicked. She is wearing a heinous pink bridesmaid dress that makes her irrational. Penny knows she should call the cops and explain her date's grabby hands, his crazy eyes. She should cry self-defense. She should do a lot of things she doesn't do.
Things are about to get real complicated for Penny, as her dead date's life unravels into a mystery the deeper she investigates. Death just happens to be her job.
She's the newspaper's obituary writer.
Author Genre: Fiction, Chick Lit, Mystery
Website: Stephanie Hayes
Twitter: @stephhayes
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Author Description:
I started writing when I was 6, launching my career with an action-packed poem about a girl who plays with clay and uses the phone to call her aunt. I placed second in the Lorain County Spelling Bee in Ohio when I was 11, eliminated on the word "seizure." Or is it "siezure"? I accepted my runner-up trophy wearing a Reality Bites patchwork dress with a sunflower pin. Somewhere, Mayim Bialik wept.
I wrote plays in high school and spent a lot of time alone in my room putting on gross amounts of makeup. I thought I'd be a screenwriter. In real life I was going to community college and selling Mario Lanza CDs to retirees during Monday morning walkercise at the mall.
In a stunning stroke of luck, I got a job at the Tampa Bay Times (formerly St. Petersburg Times) when I was 19. I learned everything I know about writing in the next decade-plus at the newspaper. I've covered all kinds of stuff, like tampon shortages and Pajama Jeans and people with ponytails. I'm also a fashion blogger for Deal Divas.
I spent a while writing obituaries, which inspired me to write Obitchuary, which you can find out more about here. I'm working on the sequel now.
I live in Dunedin, Florida with my guy and a dog named Stuart who looks like a crusty English professor with shadowy secrets. He is only missing a tweed jacket with elbow patches.
A Rendezvous to Die For
Author: Betty McMahon
Price: FREE
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Exciting action on the Rez! A brand new sleuth sorts out clues from an 1830s world! All photographer Cassandra Cassidy wanted to do was settle into the peaceful Minnesota countryside and lick her New York-inflicted emotional wounds. But a photo gig she couldn't pass up has her up to her f-stops trying to get to the bottom of a gruesome hatchet job that left her nemesis dead and left her near the top of the suspect list. Smoking out the real killer will lead the mystery world's new reluctant sleuth deep into the colorful re-enactor culture and into dangerous political intrigue at the Indian reservation. See what develops as Cassandra uses her non-existent detecting skills - and short list of acquaintances - to track down the real killer before she becomes more valuable to him dead or alive.
Author Genre: Mystery
Website: Betty McMahon
Author's Blog: Betty McMahon
Twitter: @bettymcm
E-Mail: bettymcm@gmail.com
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Author Description:
I've worn many hats in my 30-year career as a writer -- newspaper reporter, newspaper editor, magazine editor, copywriter, marketing communications specialist -- and now, finally, author.
Here's what made such a career possible: a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of Minnesota in 1982, and then lots of persistence to make that degree work for me. It had to work because I love writing and couldn't imagine doing anything else.
A RENDEZVOUS TO DIE FOR grew out of the intersection of my wide-ranging interests and my writing experience. Before spinning this mystery novel, I was an award-winning short story writer, and also won numerous awards in the field of journalism. A RENDEZVOUS TO DIE FOR actually became a finalist in mystery-writing contests.
I love the idea that A RENDEZVOUS TO DIE FOR takes place in a small Minnesota town and centers around the fictional Prairie River Trappers' Rendezvous, a weekend reenactment festival involving local citizens and Indians from the nearby reservation. It was a great setup, just asking for a mystery story.
I'm still writing (do writers ever stop writing?) and have some scenes sketched out for Cassandra's next adventure.
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