Monday Mystery-Caroline Clemmons, Digging for Death

Sorry this is late. Between my busy week and spotty internet I had to call upon a friend to send me information about her latest mystery release. Thank you Caroline for coming to my rescue! 

About Caroline:

Caroline Clemmons writes mystery, romance, and adventures—although her earliest made up adventures featured her saving the West with Roy Rogers. Her career has included stay-at-home mom (her favorite job), newspaper reporter and featured columnist, assistant to the managing editor of a psychology journal, and bookkeeper. She and her husband live in rural North Central Texas with a menagerie of rescued pets. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with family, reading, travel, browsing antique malls and estate sales, and genealogy/family history.

DIGGING FOR DEATH Blurb

            Garden center manager Heather Cameron is DIGGING FOR DEATH to prove her old family friend, mentor, and employee, Walter Sims, is innocent of murdering the meanest man in town. Heather can’t trust the police to find the real killer when all clues point to poor Walter. The dead man was beaten to death with Walter’s shovel several hours after they were overheard arguing, and the two men had a long history of enmity. Walter definitely looks guilty, but Heather is sure—well, almost positive—okay, she certainly hopes her friend and mentor is innocent.

            Heather is compelled to scour the fictional North Central Texas town of Gamble Grove to exonerate her old friend. She’s encouraged when the new police detective in town, Kurt Steele, shows interest in helping her look for clues.  

            The deeper Heather digs into the dead man’s life, the more she justifies his ruthless reputation. Walter is indicted, but police begin to suspect the victim’s stepson as murderer. Heather is convinced the stepson couldn’t have murdered anyone either—although it’s clear no love was lost between the two men. The attempted murder of the victim’s real son creates a new twist. Can Heather solve the murder without becoming the killer’s next victim? 

Excerpt

Lining the Rockwell’s drive nearest the new garden plot were a fire engine, an ambulance, a van, what was probably an unmarked police car, two black and whites and—dang, wouldn't you know it?—the Gillentine Gardens truck. The muscles in my stomach were like vise grips clenched on my insides as I drove past the other vehicles and parked. Sickly dread overwhelmed me at what I might find.

I wanted to turn my car around and drive home and run up to my bed and pull the covers over my head. No such luxury for me. I climbed out of my car and strode quickly toward the crowd, swallowing down fear’s metallic taste in my mouth.

Container rose bushes destined for Bootsy Rockwell's garden almost filled the garden center’s staked-bed truck. Miguel Diaz sat on the truck’s bed with his feet dangling off the end. Steve Harris sat beside him. Bad vibes shot through me. A uniformed policeman and another man stood talking to Miguel. Miguel looked ashen and ill, but he nodded to me. Steve said nothing, merely hung his head. 

"Hello, Heather." Miguel shook his head, despair evident in his sad brown eyes. "It's really bad."

"What's happened?"

The officer turned to me. "You know the whereabouts of Walter Sims?"

"He's supposed to be at the garden center. What's happened?" I repeated my question.

Steve looked up, but said nothing.

Miguel looked as if he were trying to send me some sort of signal. "Heather, it's—“

The man in plainclothes quieted Miguel with a glance as he stepped forward. Good heavens, what a giant. Must be six-four with shoulders broad as our truck. Even a long, tall Texas gal like myself had to look up to meet his gaze.

Whoa. What a gaze it was. Worried and puzzled as I was, I couldn’t fail to notice his eyes were delphinium blue and his dark hair the color of moist peat moss was cut short. He wasn’t GQ handsome, but definitely attractive.

"I take it you're Miss Cameron? I'm Detective Kurt Steele and this officer is Sergeant Jack Winston. We need to ask you a few questions."

"Not until I know what's happened. Why are you questioning Mr. Diaz and Mr. Harris?" Darn, stress must have fried my mind. I couldn’t believe I refused a detective.

"Vance Rockwell was murdered early this morning. We want to speak with Walter Sims. No one here seems to know where Mr. Sims is.” He paused. “Do you?"

Rockwell dead and Walter missing? Panic rose with the bile in my throat.

No, please don’t let Walter be the killer.

At that moment, paramedics wheeled a gurney bearing a black body bag past the truck and loaded it into the ambulance. Oh Lord, Rockwell dead from Walter’s shovel? And Walter hated him.

Carole King was in my head, and the earth really did move. Dropping away from my feet, leaving me drifting. The sky tumbled down. Swirling, everything was swirling. Spiraling around me. I thought I might throw up or pass out—or both.

The detective stepped forward and grabbed my arm, anchoring me in the mixed up universe. "Miss Cameron? Maybe you should sit on the truck by Diaz and Harris."

But the sky still tumbled, the earth spiraled around me. I was a kid spinning until I was drunk with dizziness.  Sky flipped places with earth. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.

"Yes...Yes, I’d better." With Detective Steele's help, I staggered to the truck. I shrugged off his hand intent on levering myself onto the bed. But I stood there as if in a trance.

The detective hoisted me up onto the truck s if I were a kid. I sat there wondering if I were going to pass out.

I felt Miguel’s hand at my neck. “Your head, put it between your knees.”

I did as he instructed, closing my eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths. When I straightened, my head was throbbing but the earth and sky had resumed their correct positions.  Sky above, earth below.

Willing my eyes to focus on the detective, I insisted, "Walter wouldn't bash in anyone's head." I prayed I spoke the truth.

Detective Steele referred to his notes. "It appears he and Mr. Rockwell had a heated argument yesterday about a quarter of five. Mr. Sims stalked to the truck—“he pointed at Steve”—where Harris waited, and peeled off."

Drat Walter, coming here when I’d ordered him to stay at the garden center. "If you consider anyone who argued with Rockwell a suspect, you'll be interviewing half the state." I almost included myself but thought better of it. "Besides, you said Walter left."

Sergeant Winston said, "Maybe he returned."

"Phffft." I peered at Detective Steele. "Sounds like you’re grasping at straws. What kind of detective work is that?"

Steele's clenched jaw displayed a small tic.

Oops, I shouldn’t have said that.

He stood directly in front of me and glared. "We just started the investigation. If we had some cooperation, maybe we could wrap this up in time to buy donuts before we take our lunch break."

Way to go, Heather. Not a good idea to annoy the police.

I took another deep breath. At this rate, I’d soon hyperventilate. “There’s no need for sarcasm. I don't know where Walter is, but I know he wouldn't kill anyone, not even Vance Rockwell."

He raised his eyebrows, making his nice blue eyes more noticeable, darn him. "Not even? What does that mean?"

"Rockwell was not a popular man. I imagine you'll find a long, long list of people with motives, detective. Leave Walter alone." I glanced at Miguel slumped beside me and patted his shoulder. "Leave all my employees alone. None of them would have done such a thing."

Detective Steele poised his pen over his notebook. "Where were you just after midnight, Miss Cameron?"

I thought again about his nice blue eyes, but pushed those thoughts aside because of his nasty question. "In my apartment. Asleep."

He raised one eyebrow. 

I shot him a glare. "Alone."

"So, you have no alibi?"

"People who live alone never have an alibi. That doesn't mean they're guilty of anything more serious than drinking juice from the carton."

He pulled out a business card and handed it over. "We'll be in touch. Call me if you hear from Mr. Sims."

"Can Mr. Diaz and Mr. Harris go?"

Detective Steele nodded. Miguel and Steve slid off the truck bed to the ground, and Miguel helped me down. While they walked to the truck's cab, the detective speared me with another no-nonsense glare.

"If you hear from Walter Sims, you'll be doing him a favor if you convince him to call us. We need to talk to him, and the sooner the better."

I turned and walked back to my Jetta. My heartbeat fluttered and my throat threatened to close so I couldn’t breathe. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it to the car, but I climbed in and turned the ignition.

 ###

Excerpts from some of her exceptional reviews can be found on her website at www.carolineclemmons.com. View her blog posts Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at http://carolineclemmons.blogspot.com and find book reviews, giveaways, interview, and miscellany.

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http://www.amazon.com/Digging-Death-Caroline-Clemmons/dp/1478159421/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343054990&sr=1-9&keywords=caroline+clemmons

Wednesday Promo- Betty Webb

I'm honored today to have mystery writer Betty Webb here today.


Romance Is Iffy in Mystery Novels

by Betty Webb

The ability to love comes easily for the heroines of contemporary romances. Not so for the
female protagonists of mystery novels; love can get them killed.

Take my Lena Jones, for example (Desert Lost, Desert Wives, Desert Noir, etc.). Found
lying beside a Phoenix street at the age of four and comatose from a bullet in her head, Lena was
raised in a series of foster homes where she was beaten, starved, and raped. Now a private
investigator who hunts down criminals at the same time she’s trying to find her unknown birth
parents, she approaches romantic relationships with a jaundiced eye. The only person she
completely trusts is Jimmy Sisiwan, her Pima Indian partner. However, Lena sees Jimmy as her
“almost brother,” not as a prospective lover.

Still, Lena does take her chances. In Desert Noir, the first book in the Desert series, she
was romanced by Dusty, a cowboy working on a nearby dude ranch. Two books later, in Desert
Run, she’d fallen for Warren Quinn, an Oscar-winning documentary director. But in Desert Lost,
released in December 2009, Lena and Warren appear to have come to the parting of the ways.
The reason for their split finds Lena emotionally bruised -- if not broken.

The Lena Jones books are noirs -- dark mysteries -- and in noirs, no protagonist has an
uncomplicated personal life. Noir detectives are angst-ridden, both in their workaday worlds and
in their personal lives. Life has usually treated these detectives badly, and they tend to respond in
kind. To give Lena her due, she is attempting to get out from under the loveless cloud hanging
over her head.

Theodora “Teddy” Esmeralda Iona Bentley, the sleuth in my Gunn Zoo mystery series (The
Anteater of Death, and The Koala of Death, to be released August 2010), is a different case
entirely. A California zoo keeper who lives on a houseboat in Gunn Landing Harbor, Teddy’s
weakness is that she loves too easily. She loves her houseboat, the Merilee; she loves the animals
she cares for at the zoo; she loves her many-times-married ex-beauty queen mother; she loves her
swindler father, now on the run from the FBI; and she loves Sheriff Joe Rejas, a handsome
widower who spends much of his time keeping Teddy from getting killed by some murderer
she’s tracked down.

Given that both women -- Lena and Teddy -- have been created by the same writer, why are
there such strong differences between them? The answer is easy.

Characters must suit the tone of their books. The Desert novels tackle concrete issues, such
as polygamy, crimes against children, and battered women. Since the Desert books are noirs, they
call for a damaged, conflicted protagonist with dark-end-of-the-street instincts. Above all, noirs
must be realistic. Given Lena’s childhood in foster homes, her personality definitely suits her
books.

Teddy inhabits the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. She grew up loved and her
non-issue books are filled with light and laughter. Her parents were -- and remain -- rascals, but
both dearly love their daughter. This surfeit of love has made Teddy more emotionally secure
than Lena, and much more able to give love -- especially when handsome Sheriff Joe comes a-
visiting. Besides, how could Teddy look at life on the dark side when that Central Coast
California sun is shining down while she tends to anteaters, koalas, Mexican gray wolves, and
jaguars. No sturm und drang for Teddy. She’d rather dance with the wallabies than cry with
the crocodiles.

I’m frequently asked how I could create such differing protagonists. No problem, I always
answer. Both Lena and Teddy mirror opposing sides of my own personality. As a former
investigative journalist, I’ve seen the dark side of human behavior, and in my Desert mysteries
I’m still writing about it. But as a freckled, red-headed kid raised on a big cotton farm teeming
with animals, temperamentally I’m as sunny as my zoo keeper.

So I am Lena. And I am Teddy.

Which is why I became a novelist -- to find an outlet for the tears and the smiles that are
warring within me.

Bio-

Before writing mysteries full time, Betty Webb worked as an investigative journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, and Nobel Prize-winners, as well as the homeless, the dying, and polygamy runaways. The dark Lena Jones mysteries, which are based on stories she covered as a reporter, include "Desert Lost", “Desert Noir,” “Desert Wives,” “Desert Shadows,” “Desert Run,” and “Desert Cut." The New York Times has called them "Eye-popping" and Publishers Weekly called them "Mysteries with a social conscience." Library Journal called "Desert Lost" one of the Top Five Mysteries of 2009." Betty's much softer Gunn Zoo series debuted in late 2008 with the humorous “The Anteater of Death.” A long-time book reviewer at Mystery Scene Magazine, Betty is a member of National Federation of Press Women and Mystery Writers of America. She also volunteers at the Phoenix Zoo.

BETTY WEBB: author of DESERT LOST, judged "One of the Top Five Mystery Novels of 2009," by Library Journal. "Eye-popping," The New York Times. "Socially conscious mysteries," Publishers Weekly. www.bettywebb-mystery.com