Guest: MARIS SOULE #NewRelease SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT #mystery

 Please welcome my friend Maris Soule to the blog today. She has a new release, the 4th book in her P.J. Benson Mystery series, Something to Crow About. I enjoyed the other books in this series, so I've anxiously awaited this one. 

Here's Maris to tell you about her latest book.

Thanks, Diane, for the opportunity to tell you and others about my new book, SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT.

 

I actually decided to write this book while riding in your car back from a book event we’d attended. During the event, one woman had stopped at my table and asked when I was going to write the next P.J. Benson mystery. She wanted to know if P.J. had her baby and if P.J. and Wade did get married. Those two questions initiated the fourth book in my P.J. Benson Mystery series.

 

SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT takes place less than a year after the first book, THE CROWS. P.J. is now in her ninth month of pregnancy, is married to Wade Kingsley, the homicide detective she met in the first book, has become Wade’s son’s stepmother, and her Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy is now full-grown and continues to play a part in keeping her alive.

 

Basically, in this book, P.J. Benson is at it again. She has clients’ taxes to finish and her baby is due in two weeks. This definitely is not the right time to get involved in solving a murder.

 

Prior to her scheduled Mothers-to-Be meeting, P.J. Benson enters a church bathroom and overhears Brenda Cox, a friend and former co-worker, tell someone on the phone that she was caught getting the information they wanted and barely got away. P.J. tells Brenda to call 9-1-1, but Brenda says she’ll be fine and will see P.J. soon. When P.J. and the other women attending the Mothers-to-Be session hear police cars and an ambulance out front, they know it’s a serious accident, but it isn’t until the next day that P.J. discovers the victim was Brenda. The police consider the hit-and-run an accident, but P.J. is certain Brenda was murdered. P.J.’s husband, Sheriff’s Deputy Wade Kingsley, warns her not to get involved, and P.J. knows he’s right, but soon it’s clear the killer thinks Brenda gave P.J. something. As P.J. tries to understand what Brenda took and why, she discovers curiosity can put a person’s life in danger. Not a good thing when all she wants to do is celebrate the arrival of her baby.

Excerpt:

I pointed toward the notepad. “Brenda is the woman I talked to.”

As I summarized what I’d heard, Wade sat near me, and made notes. Occasionally he asked a question: Was I sure that was what she said? Did she mention a name?

“No name,” I told him. “Just that she’d been at her computer looking at pictures she’d taken when her boss came up behind her and saw what she was doing.” Saying that triggered a thought. “Hey, you can find out where she works, and that will tell us—”

“Us, P.J.?” Wade sat back and looked at me. “There is no us. We are not getting involved,” he said firmly. “You are not getting involved.”

“I know, I know,” I said, “I’m not going to, but Detective Ferrell needs to know what Brenda said. Right?”

“Did she tell you what the pictures showed?”

“Not exactly. Just that they showed hidden compartments and origins of shipments. That information must have been important because she said her boss threatened her and came after her.”

“You said she was going to meet the person she was talking to at the brewery, that this person had promised to take care of her. Did she say how?”

I shook my head. “No, but she said she didn’t have any family.” I knew that. “And she wanted to be put somewhere where they—whoever ‘they’ were—couldn’t find her.”

“You’re thinking witness protection?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. What I do know is Brenda sounded scared. She said, ‘These people don’t play around.’ She was afraid for her life.”

Wade said nothing for a second, then asked, “Did she ask you for help?”

“No.” I sighed. “But I don’t think she realized her life was in immediate danger. I think she thought this person she was talking to would take care of her.”

“You do know that this sounds like something out of a spy movie.”

“Maybe so, but this is real. Brenda’s dead.”

 

Something to Crow About is available as an e-book and a paperback.

 On Amazon at: https://rb.gy/16ftbx

Or ask your favorite bookstore to order the paperback from Ingram

 

The e-book is on sale right now for .99c

 

Maris Soule is the award-winning author of 25 romances, 6 mysteries, and 2 short stories. Besides writing, she has also taught high school art, paints when she finds time, and for several years raised and showed Rhodesian Ridgebacks (the dog in her P.J. Benson Mystery series). Originally from California, she met and married her husband when she was studying for a Masters degree in art history. They moved to a small, rural community in southwest Michigan. It was that area that gave her the inspiration for the P.J. Benson Mysteries. She and her husband have two married children and two granddaughters. They now divide their year between Michigan and Florida.

 

Find Maris online at:

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