by Sunny Frazier

Details at the end of this post on how to win copies of Staged To Death by Karen Rose Smith and Murder By Gravity by Barbara Graham.

While the East coast suffered with storm after storm, the Valley started heating up in mid-February. I took my reading out by the pool. Here’s a few titles roaring your way:

Just what we need on a frosty day: Ladle To the Grave, the latest Soup Lover’s Mystery. Lucky Jamieson is the owner of By the Spoonful in Snowflake, VT. The local ladies are organizing a pagan celebration for spring when one is poisoned with an herbal concoction by Lucky’s grandfather. And then her friend finds a corpse in the creek. How to get out of hot water before it all boils over? Connie Archer heats things up!

Simon Wood takes on a road trip to Las Vegas with grad students Holli and Zoe. On the way home, a sadistic killer grabs Hollli and Zoe flees for her life. A year later, a similar abduction occurs and Zoe helps detectives by retracing her steps in the desert. But the “Tally Man” is waiting for her–The One That Got Away.

Detective Gabriel McRay is on his 3rd outing in Laurie Stevens’ The Mask of Midnight. At a trial McRay faces a killer who blames him for ruining his life. The man’s theatrical skills and criminal genius forces McRay to face psychological demons. Who will win this deadly cat & mouse game?

When four women are murdered and posed on a park bench in Montreal, it’s a PR disaster. In the mayor’s office, Martine LeDuc has the task of acting as liaison between her boss and the police. Teamed up with Detective Julian Fletcher, they discover a secret dating back to the ’50s when orphanages were converted to asylums and children used for experiments. So, who’s bearing a grudge now? Asylum is the 1st in a series by Jeanette de Beauvoir.

Gay couple Landon Weir does animal rehab, and Brock Summers works with the Colorado parks and Wildlife. Poachers are killing bears and skinning them. Brock is attacked by a black bear he’s trying to release into the wild but there are predators more deadly coming from an unexpected corner. Read Grizzly Discovery by A.J. Marcus while safe at home in front of the fireplace!

Matty Cruz is on her 5th adventure, The Couper Vendetta by R. Marquez. Her relationship with Sam Bester has its problems, but how do you disconnect with someone who’s saved your life several times? Now he’s disappeared on another one of his “vacations” and Matty’s instincts tell her he might not come back intact.

Clea Simon is back with her pet noir mystery #5, Kittens Can Kill. Animal psychic Pru Marlowe gets called when a kitten is found by the corpse of a prominent lawyer. His three daughters blame feline allergies, drug interaction and each other. Along with catty observations by Pru’s cat Wallis and the grudging compliance of her cop boyfriend, Pru pushes on.

I nearly missed these titles that came out in February:

Marja McGraw asks How Now Purple Cow in Bogey Man Mystery #5. When young Mikey Cross finds ceramic cows, a ring and notes left by a mystery writer popular in the ’50’s, his parents’ and grandparents’ lives are turned topsy-turvy. It’s pure vintage with an elderly assassin on the prowl.

Elizabethan London is the setting for The Hog Lane Murders. This is the 4th in the series by John Yeoman featuring “cunning man” Hippo Yeoman, part saint, part charlatan.

Meanwhile, in Victorian San Francisco, businesswoman Annie Fuller is helping lawyer and beau with a case. The client, a female typesetter, is accused of murdering her boss but refuses to help with her defense. Adding to the mix is Annie’s future sister-in-law who wants to help and a Civil War vet how is a witness for the prosecution. Deadly Proof is the 4th in the series by M. Louisa Locke.

Writing team Karen Wiesner & Chris Spindler came out with Falcon’s Bend #5, As Patient As Death. Lisa and Det. Pete Shasta’s neighbor has cancer. She was swept off her feet in a whirlwind romance by a man who has seen two terminally ill wives to the grave. Now she’s in remission and that might be the death of her by this serial marrying man.

To enter to win copies of Staged To Death by Karen Rose Smith and Murder By Gravity by Barbara Graham, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “Lion” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen after March 7, 2015. U.S. residents only.

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Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.