by J. Landon

This week we have a review of the latest Fog Ladies mystery by Susan McCormick, Date with Death. We also have an interesting interview with Susan. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win audiobook copies of the first 3 books in the series (digital) and a link to purchase the the new book from Amazon.

The Fog Ladies:Date with Death by Susan McCormick

Six women of varying ages, Enid, Harriet, Alma, Olivia, France, and Sarah, make up the Fog Ladies, a moniker they adopted in honor of their hometown of San Francisco. The Ladies are retirement age, with the exception of Sarah, who is in her thirties and about to embark on a GI residency. Sarah is part of the Fog Ladies, as she lives in the same high-rise old apartment building. It has just as much personality as the Ladies.

Olivia Honeycut joins a senior dating group where she meets up with an old heartthrob from high school. On their second outing, a walk along the sea, a body drops from a cliff. Olivia, dependent on a walker, sees something glittering in the dead man’s hand and is convinced foul play is involved. When she reports to the Fog Ladies, they are off on their adventurous date with death.

As the Fog Ladies investigate, they hone in on the different personalities of the dating group. From the organizer of the singles, who imbibes too much, to the woman who had her face tucked and body shaped, to the little man with a Napoleon complex who claims to be a business partner of the dead man, suspects abound. While the police have dismissed the death as an accident, the Fog Ladies continue to meet to suss out the murderer. The culprit is elusive, but the intricately woven details of the singles group become a tangled web of deception. There are a limited number of singles in their age bracket, so if you date someone and it doesn’t work out, you return to the same choices as before. The organizer dated the victim, the tucked/lifted woman dated Malcolm, who is now dating Olivia. However, they’re all still “friends”.

At first, it seems like six main characters are too many to keep straight, but each woman has her own style and personality, which sets them apart, not to mention Enid’s red hair. Two of the Fog Ladies have a dog, one large and one small, and two have a man in their life who can still drive after dark. This is a problem for the other three, who are forced to take the bus, which is not ideal for investigating. Two of them decide to take driving lessons. After all, they can’t expect Sarah to drive them everywhere, she has her own life.

This book has dead bodies, larceny, romance, and a low-speed car chase (beginning drivers). There is booze, the promise of hanky-panky, and numerous scrumptious baked goods. This read is guaranteed to bring a smile at their antics, as well as a tense moment when the murderer is revealed with his hands around one of the Ladies’ necks.

You’ll want to go back and read the first three Fog Ladies books. They are goodhearted ladies who mean no harm, don’t intend to cause chaos, and still manage to help the police solve a crime or two. Being retired, and a newlywed myself, I especially enjoyed a Date with Death.

J. Landon is retired and blissfully at work on the ‘great American novel.’ She’s worn many hats through her career including: wife, mother, piano teacher, middle school teacher, university professor, painter, jewelry maker, and dragon tamer. She has eight published short stories.

Interview with Susan McCormick:

KRL: How long have you been writing?

Susan: My entire life, if you count Death in the Cemetery in elementary school, the submission that got me to a local Young Authors’ Conference and opened my eyes. As a kid, I wanted to be a doctor, a writer, and a ballerina. But my ballet career ended with my first recital, when I curtsied and my bottom hit the backdrop and crashed it to the floor. So I became a doctor and put writing on hold until the past decade or so.

KRL: When did your first novel come out, what was it called, and would you tell us a little about it?

Susan: The Fog Ladies (Book 1 in a series currently of four books) was published in 2019. The Fog Ladies are spunky senior sleuths and one overtired young doctor-in-training solving murders from their elegant apartment building in San Francisco. In the first book, old ladies start to die. Mrs. Bridge falls off a stool cleaning bugs out of her kitchen light. Mrs. Talwin slips on bubbles in the bath and drowns. Are these the accidents of growing old or murder?
In Book 4, just out, The Fog Ladies: Date with Death, the ladies join a senior dating group, and romantic intrigue soon turns to murder. Did a disgruntled date pitch the man off the cliff, or is Olivia Honeycut’s new beau to blame?

Susan McCormick

KRL: Have you always written mysteries/suspense and if not, what else have you written?

Susan: My first book was Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. I also wrote The Antidote, a middle-grade to adult urban fantasy about a boy who can see disease and battles an ancient evil and creator of disease.

KRL: What brought you to choose the setting and characters in your latest book/series?

Susan: When I did my medical training in San Francisco, I lived in an elegant apartment building much like the one in the book. I realized it was the perfect enclosed-type setting for a cozy murder mystery, with tenants who have lived there forever and know everyone’s secrets, and a killer afoot who may live among them. The Fog Ladies themselves encompass all the wise and witty older women I have known and revered throughout my life and give voice to their wisdom and strength but also their fears and frailties. They are called the Fog Ladies because they can count on each other like they can count on early morning San Francisco fog burning off by midday.

KRL: Do you write to entertain, or is there something more you want the readers to experience from your work?

Susan: I definitely write to entertain and to spread joy through the antics and friendship of the Fog Ladies. Also, because I am a doctor, I try to impart hidden medical pearls in each book. In The Antidote, for instance, I slip in how and when to use an AED, an automated external defibrillator, and how to do the Heimlich maneuver. In the Fog Ladies series, I have covered “get your colonoscopy;” “don’t cut a bagel in your hand,” due to all the important tendons there; “don’t get a jailhouse tattoo,” due to Hepatitis C; and a special caution in Book 3 that I won’t give away.

KRL: Do you have a schedule for your writing or just work whenever you can?

Susan: When I was practicing medicine, up to two years ago when I retired, I wrote on the weekends I wasn’t working from 4:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. when my family woke up. This was easy in the summer, because in Seattle, the sun shines in my bedroom window at 4:30. In the winter, it was much harder, and I’d have to set an alarm. Thank goodness for my beloved Newfoundland dog, who dutifully padded downstairs with me. Now that I can write whenever I want, it is actually harder to find time. Go figure.

KRL: What is your ideal time to write?

Susan: Definitely the early morning. My brain doesn’t work after 9 p.m.

KRL: Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Susan: I did not outline my first Fog Ladies mystery, and when I finished, I had too few suspects and had to turn perfectly lovely characters into potential killers. Each book since has had an outline, but with enough wiggle room to allow for the magic of writing, that elusive wonderfulness that comes when fingers are typing but the characters take over. In Book 1, Mrs. Carmichael becomes addicted to Starbucks lattes, the bitterness, the froth. I wrote that. But to feed her addiction, she starts to steal coupons from her neighbors’ newspapers. She did that, not me.

KRL: Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Susan: When I first pitched to agents and editors, they said, “We love cozies, but we can’t publish them. People want noir and goth and unreliable narrators and vampires and edgy.” Then the world turned edgy, and my same story had two small presses vying for it.

KRL: Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?

Susan: In the first version of Book 1, I killed off Enid Carmichael, a feisty 80-year-old who has no filter and constantly irritates the other ladies. An early editor who ultimately chose not to publish the book told me I absolutely could not kill her off, and that editor was absolutely right. Enid Carmichael, irritating as she is, lives on, and she is many fans’ favorite Fog Lady.

KRL: Most interesting book signing story-in a bookstore or other venue?

Susan: I love book clubs and do them in person and virtually. At one, during the question period, a woman said, “I’m enjoying the book, but I’m 50 pages in, and where are the ladies?” Turns out she bought the wrong book, she’d bought The Antidote, and she was reading about a twelve-year-old boy and an ancient evil named ILL.

KRL: What are your future writing goals?

Susan: I have so many stories in my head, I wish I had time to get them all down. I have a completed suspense novel set in a hospital about an estranged mother and son up against a killer, and that book is looking for a publishing home. I have two more Fog Ladies stories plotted in my mind. I have another suspense outlined and ready for pen to paper. So many ideas.

KRL: Who are your writing heroes?

Susan: Alexander McCall Smith with his gentle No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. I love his style of writing, and I love how prolific he is.

KRL: What kind of research do you do?

Susan: I occasionally look up a medical fact, but for the most part, little research is needed.

KRL: What do you like to read?

Susan: I love cozy mysteries and I love books with older characters. I would count The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series in both categories. I’m enjoying The Thursday Murder Club books, and I also love Anthony Horowitz.

KRL: I love Anthony Horowitz! What are your favorite TV shows or movies?

Susan: My favorite movie is an old one, Harold and Maude, with beautiful music and an interesting, unusual story.

KRL: Have you any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

Susan: Sit in the chair and write. This is the part that took me all my life until I did it, 4:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends. I wanted to be a writer all those years, and I had scraps of paper everywhere with ideas for stories, but until I sat in the chair and wrote, they were just scraps of paper.

KRL: What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

Susan: I love giant dogs, the bigger and slobberier the better. And I was in the US Army for nine years.

KRL: Do you currently have any pets?

Susan: Sadly, we lost our Newfoundland, Albert, a few years ago. We love giant dogs, and have loved an English Mastiff, Earl, and two Newfoundlands, Edward and Albert. None now. Sniff.

KRL: Is there anything you would like to add?

Susan: I really do enjoy book clubs, so I’d be honored to be a guest in one.

KRL: Website? Twitter? Facebook? Instagram?

Susan: susanmccormickbooks.com
facebook.com/susanmccormickauthor
instagram.com/susanmccormickbooks

To enter to win digital audiobook copies of the first 3 Fog Ladies mysteries, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “fog ladies” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen November 18, 2023. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. A new episode went up this week.

You can use this link to purchase the book. If you have ad blocker on you may not see the Amazon link. You can also click here to purchase the book.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.