A California Online Magazine with Local Focus and Global Appeal
Historical home renovator and building contractor Shannon Hammer couldn’t be more excited about her latest project. Hammer Construction has been hired by Shannon’s best friend Jane Hennessey to renovate the historic 1870 Gables into a planned hotel and spa resort. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the name was changed to the Northern California Asylum for the Insane, but the purpose always remained the same.
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This week we have another fun catch up group of mysteries published over the last few months-Absence of Alice: A Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery by Sherry Harris, Murder Comes to Call: A Beryl & Edwina Mystery by Jessica Ellicott, Murder is in the Air by Frances Brody, and Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman Next Door by Barbara Ross (Barnes and Noble exclusive).
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Visalia actor Kelly Ventura has voiced several episodes of Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, and earlier this year directed an audio production of War of the Worlds for Enchanted Playhouse in Visalia. Now he has set out to do even more fun audio adventures that are available on his website and as a podcast, so KRL chatted with him to learn more.
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Arlo and her friend, Chloe, have opened a bookstore and coffee shop. Arlo is in charge of books, while Chloe takes care of the coffee drinks. Anyone who’s tasted Arlo’s coffee, appreciates Chloe all the more.
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The opposing lead attorney is absurdly attractive. The second chair is improbably gorgeous. The witness fakes a heart attack, and is caught out by another attorney grabbing his wrist. These improbable occurrences are all the clues one needs to know that this is a legal television show, one that has former New Jersey assistant prosecutor Sandra Moss wanting to throw her remote. Needing a change of pace – and having misguidedly dated her boss – made moving to Los Angeles to accept a job as a divorce attorney seem like a good idea. It only takes her first day at the law firm of Seaton, Taylor, Evans and Bach to show her how bad a decision it may have been.
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Here is your weekly reminder that there are also new articles up on our other website KRL News & Reviews! Every week there will be book reviews and giveaways, plus sometimes pet articles, theatre articles, and more! And listen to our new podcast!
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Does Bigfoot really exist? Many people think so. Over one thousand sightings have been reported in Washington and California alone, and like accounts have been made from lonely, mountain areas throughout the world. In Wyoming, where our High Country Mystery series takes place, Bigfoot has been spotted many times, mostly near Yellowstone and in the Big Horn Mountains.
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I visited Greenway with a Road Scholar group on their educational program “Literary England.” Yes, there is an aura about the place, and yes, Agatha Christie’s spirit was hovering around. There was no way I couldn’t write mystery stories set there. In the four stories that comprise my new book, Greenway, a scriptwriter with an American crew is filming documentaries on the Agatha Christie’s property.
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With over twenty installments of the charming Flower Shop mysteries under her belt, Kate Collins steers back into the adventures of Athena Spencer, first introduced in Statue of Limitations, in a mystery that earned her the nickname Goddess of Greene Street. The former Chicago newspaper reporter is unexpectedly relishing her return home to Sequoia, Michigan, where she joins her many Greek relatives who run their family-owned business.
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Former teen celebrity and current secret-spy Poppy Fields may have risked life and limb on missions through Paris, New Orleans, and Egypt, but it’s her current one that may finally push her over the edge. Poppy’s uber-famous, narcissistic mother Chariss Carlton is getting married (again), and she is demanding that her Maid-of-Honor daughter fulfill her assigned duties by finding the perfect site for her wedding shower.
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In the Beautiful Bird Over-55 RV Park, known to the trailer park residents as the B-Bird, the seniors of this Florida closed community are very aware of one another’s going ons and quickly take notice of anything unusual. The conclusions they make may often be a little questionable, but their innate nosiness has very recently even enabled them to solve a murder.
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“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is a well-worn adage that seems better suited to illustrate cultural and generational differences than an older generation incapable of learning something new. However, maybe it is a better and more successful strategy to combine the old with the new rather than scrapping one for the other. My new find, New Tricks, has a contemporary, yet seasoned, female detective superintendent being placed in charge of three older, retired, male detectives.
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The best reads for many of us continue to be mysteries. For me, the mystery genre offers the challenge to discover a problem on the page then a solution that sets the world to rights again, something hard to accomplish in the world. I love the ones set in a time or place unfamiliar to me and for so long in the beginning, Golden Age Mysteries did the trick. Having read so many of those classics, after a while I looked for mystery in other times, in other genres. I’m still making discoveries and among them are the series of short novels (and one full length one) of Martha Wells, called the Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red (2017), Artificial Condition (2018), Rogue Protocol (2018), Exit Strategy (2018), and Network Effect (2020).
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The 22 tales in this anthology, although inspired by the songs of the ’60s, don’t all take place in that decade. Some will step you back in time, others contemporary, all evoking the sense of the song or its meaning in tales of theft, robbery, kidnapping, dating, family, and other relationships. From the UK to Canada and the US, these authors crafted stories that range from nostalgic to humorous, but all deadly and inspired by songs whose opening riffs are mostly familiar. If not, pull out your old LPs or CDs or log onto YouTube and have a listen as you read Peace, Love, and Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the ’60s.
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