MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND SPECIAL-HALF-PRICE SALE

For the Holidays, my two short novels in the Roger and Suzanne mystery series are available from Amazon KDP for $0.99 (normal price $1.99), and for £0.65 in the UK.  This is less than half their normal price, so is a very good deal.  Click on the links indicated or on the book covers to the right to go directly to the Amazon home page for either Kindle book.

 

 "The Body in the Parking Structure" is a hard-boiled mystery that features characters from the author's popular South American mystery novel series working on a murder case at home in Los Angeles. The clues are all there: Can you figure out whodunit before Roger does? 4 Stars based upon 9 reviews.
     US LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Body-Parking-Structure-ebook/dp/B008PDV9WC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343432381&sr=1-1&keywords=the+body+in+the+parking+structure
    UK LINK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Body-Parking-Structure-ebook/dp/B008PDV9WC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1343488846&sr=1-1

"The Body in the Bed", a suspenseful 4.4-star whodunit novella (7 reviews), brings Roger and Suzanne back to Montevideo, Uruguay where another bloody murder needs to be solved. 

     US: http://www.amazon.com/South-American-Mystery-Series-ebook/dp/B00A1PZZ86/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352084384&sr=1-6&keywords=the+body+in+the+bed

     UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/South-American-Mystery-Series-ebook/dp/B00A1PZZ86/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352084384&sr=1-6&keywords=the+body+in+the+bed

MURDER AT A DOG SHOW

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My current WIP novel “The Deadly Dog Show” is just about ready for publication.  The penultimate version is being proofread, edited, and tweaked before being sent next week to a short list of would-be reviewers to critique on Amazon and/or Goodreads.   Please add a comment here after this post or e-mail me directly if you’d like to request a review copy (PDF format) before publication of the book on Amazon KDP.   Reviews improve the author's writing and sell his or her books, so are an essential component of the overall publishing process.   I’ll do one more round of edits and tweaks while that’s occurring and the book should be on Amazon and available for readers to enjoy.  

The new novel features Roger doing an undercover investigation of alleged improprieties at several California dog shows, ably assisted by Robert’s nanny Bruce and by Suzanne.  Bruce is a nanny of many talents, including his abilities as a dog trainer and handler in the show ring.  Vincent Romero, the former CIA agent from Chile who we first met in “The Surreal Killer”, rounds out Roger’s investigative team in this entry in the popular series.  In between finding bodies at dog shows and discovering the identity of Suzanne’s mysterious stalker, Roger and Bruce have time to pick up a purebred Champion hunting dog named Juliet to lend credibility to their undercover identities as an owner/sponsor and a professional handler at several shows and for Bruce to train in tracking and scent work just in time to find a key clue as to who killed the murder victims.

LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN

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With a B.S. degree in Chemistry and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemistry it’s a pretty good guess that I’m predominantly left brained.  My wife Elaine is excellent at all kinds of crafts and is an accomplished weaver.  It’s a pretty good guess that she’s predominantly right brained.   We can see the ‘he’s from Mars and she’s from Venus’ stuff when she edits my manuscripts.  I tend to plot and write linearly while she craves visual scenes and better realized minor characters.  We had several excellent examples of this dichotomy in the current WIP, “The Deadly Dog Show”.  For example I originally wrote a scene in Chapter 2 with Roger introducing Suzanne to hot pastrami sandwiches in a stereotypical New York City Delicatessen as follows.

SENIOR HUNTERS: A GRANDMOTHER-MOTHER-DAUGHTER THING

A few weeks ago Jolie and her daughter Schoene finished their senior hunter certification about two braces apart during a local AKC hunt test.  Grandma Vinia has had her Senior Hunter certification for several years, so we now have three generations of Senior Hunters to hunt pheasant, quail, and chukar with.  Vinia functions at the Master Hunter level, but refuses to honor any dog she doesn’t respect so only has a few legs on her MH degree and is now a spectator when the younger generations of the family compete in hunt tests.  Interestingly, Vinia has no difficulty honoring any of her family members (including all of the brothers and sisters of her pack mates) while hunting in the field so hunts at the MH level in real life as opposed to hunt tests.  A couple of months ago we were hunting five dogs at once---Vinia, Jolie, Schoene, Sarah (another granddaughter), and Tiger (a Jolie brother)---on a large field.  Somebody (either Jolie or Schoene) found a pheasant and pointed it.  Four other dogs stopped where they were and honored the point.  They’re trained to hold the point (and the honor) until someone human does something about the bird.  That’s a pretty spectacular sight!  It makes finding the bird pretty easy.

THE BODY IN THE PARKING STRUCTURE

The 11,600-word novelette, "The Body in the Parking Structure", was my first book written in a shorter format than the traditional novel.  This very fast-paced mystery story features characters from the author's popular South American mystery series working on a murder case at home in Los Angeles.  The book can be purchased from Amazon for $1.99, and is free to borrow by Prime members.  Just click on the appropriate link below or the book cover image on the right.  Can you figure out whodunit before Roger does?  

  

 Amazon Book page

Amazon UK Book Page

Here’s an excerpt (950 words—8% of the story) from the beginning of the book to get you hooked:        

                                                Chapter 1. Suzanne finds the body

            For the first time since we had met, Suzanne discovered a dead body without me being there.  She was collecting her car at twilight from the UCLA parking structure after a quick trip to the laboratory to change the samples on a DNA sequencer.  The structure seemed to be deserted except for her and a large lump lying lifeless between her car and the garage wall.  She called 911 to report the body then called me.