Annette Dashofy--When Sidekicks Take Over

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  We have a "favorite author" bonus for you here on Jungle Red today! Just back in October Annette Dashofy was on the blog, sharing the third novel in her Detective Matthias Honeywell series, THE DEVIL COMES CALLING.

And now there is fourth Detective Honeywell, NO STONE LEFT UNTURNED! How lucky are we to have another book in this terrific series! This one has a super premise, too, as Annette will explain!

When Sidekicks Take Over

 Annette Dashofy

Fictional sidekicks come in all forms, shapes, and sizes from Snoopy to Robin to Chewbacca to Dr. Watson. If you think about it, what would our favorite heroes be without them. Charlie Brown without his beagle? Batman with no Robin? Who besides Chewy would put up with Han Solo? And Sherlock would be intolerable without Dr. Watson.

I think it’s safe to say, as readers and viewers, we love our sidekicks. As writers, we love them, too.

Generally, when we’re creating our cast for a new book or series, each character tends to have their own specific “purpose” within the story. Protagonist AKA hero, love interest, mentor, villain, and the previously mentioned sidekick. Often one character takes on dual roles. A sidekick might also become the hero’s love interest. Think Pepper Potts in the Iron Man movies. Lois Lane might fit the category as well. A sidekick might also be a mentor. Or as in the Star Wars example above, they can provide comic relief.

And sometimes, the sidekicks or other secondary characters outgrow their small roles to become fan favorites. It’s almost as though they don’t realize they’re only sidekicks.

For instance, Pete’s father Harry in my Zoe Chambers mysteries was never meant to appear beyond the end of Lost Legacy, which was the second in the thirteen-book series. Readers, though, kept hounding me. When’s Harry coming back? How’s Harry doing? We want more Harry!

It took a while, but I did find several more stories for dear Harry.

Something similar has been happening with my Detective Honeywell mysteries. In this case, Detective Sergeant Cassie Malone is Matthias Honeywell’s partner. She’s older, taller, and carries a higher rank, all of which she never lets him forget. From the very beginning, I’ve described her as part Amazon warrior, part mother hen. She’s also better with people than he is. But Matthias knows Cassie has his back no matter what.

She’s been a great counterpoint to him in so many ways. Matthias dates frequently, but rarely (until he meets Emma Anderson, that is) gets to a second date. Cassie has been happily married to a veterinarian for decades and is raising her 8-year-old granddaughter whose mother (Cassie’s military daughter) is deployed overseas.  

It’s been a blast writing her as the Wise One of the pair.

While it was never my intention, it became a natural progression to give her a featured role in No Stone Left Unturned, my fourth Detective Honeywell Mystery. Instead of simply being a smart, savvy cop, we get to see her deal with tragedy in her own family. She’s still tough, but she’s also vulnerable. Forced to sit on the sidelines in an investigation into her husband’s shooting, she must rely on Matthias and the rest of the police force to do what she’s used to doing—tracking down the bad guy. And we get to meet the rest of the Malone family, who up until now have only been mentioned in passing.

And ultimately, we get to see Cassie as a victim. Will she be tough enough to save herself?

You’ll have to wait to find out!

I’ve had a lot of fun shifting much of the focus and storyline to a secondary character and getting to flesh her out. How about you, Reds? When have you brought a sidekick or minor recurring character to the forefront of the action? And, readers, do you enjoy getting to know more about the peripheral members of the cast? Are there sidekicks you would like to see more of?

DEBS: I have certainly had my sidekicks decide they want to be major characters! Looking at you, Melody Talbot and Doug Cullen!

Here's more about NO STONE LEFT UNTURNED:

When a local Erie vet is shot during a robbery, Erie City Police Detective Matthias Honeywell and his partner Cassie Malone are tasked with pursuing the perpetrators. But as they close in on the truth, a mysterious sniper targets those involved in the case.

Emma Anderson has seen more than her share of cases since becoming a journalist in Lake Erie, and with news of the shooting becoming local interest, her instincts kick in. What she didn’t expect to uncover was a secret that could cause an ethical dilemma between Matthias and Cassie.

As the search for the sniper continues and the investigation taking a dark turn, Cassie and Emma find themselves caught up in a kidnapping plot. As the women are forced to draw on their resourcefulness to survive, will they manage to escape or is time against them?

I can't wait to find out!

 

Annette Dashofy--Secrets and Villains

DEBORAH CROMBIE: There's nothing we love more here on Jungle Red than hosting one of our regular readers,commenters, and fellow authors, so we're very excited today to bring you Annette Dashofy, author of the Zoe Chambers Mysteries and of the Detective Honeywell Mysteries. She's giving us a sneak peek at the third novel featuring Erie City's Detective Matthias Honeywell and free lance photographer Emma Anderson, THE DEVIL COMES CALLING.

Wow, what a great cover! Annette, tell us more!

Secrets and Villains by Annette Dashofy

Confession time. When I started writing the first Zoe Chambers mystery nearly twenty years ago, I had no clue how to write a series. I only had an inkling of a clue about writing anything, to be honest. Back then, I had ideas for two books. When I was offered a contract for three, of course, I told them I absolutely had plans for that third book. (It was a lie. Fake it til you make it, right?) I had used all my ideas for these characters in those first two mysteries. I had delved into all their secrets. Now I had to come up with more. I didn’t figure out the story arc thing until the fourth book.

Fast forward a decade or so to when I was noodling with a premise for another series. One of my regrets with Zoe and Pete was having them already well acquainted as Circle of Influence started. This time, I wanted to open the first book before Matthias Honeywell and Emma Andersen met in order to develop the relationship in full view of the reader. And I knew I needed to create deeper backstories for the two main characters. Secrets beyond one or two books.

Here I am with less than a month until the release of The Devil Comes Calling, and I’m happy to say, this third installment is jam-packed with secrets being spilled and past wounds being reopened. Seeds that I planted in the first two novels sprout like crazy in this one.

Including one particularly nasty villain.

I love villains. I love to create villains the reader loves to hate. Sometimes my bad guys are forced into circumstances in which they make bad choices. Had they changed one little decision, they might have been redeemable. Others see the error of their ways too late to be redeemed.

My working title for The Devil Comes Calling was Beyond Redemption. My publisher obviously chose not to use it, as I knew they wouldn’t. But I clung to it as the underlying theme, one that echoed throughout several story threads and characters, not merely the villain. I even had the beyond redemption theme in mind for Matthias this time around. While the first two Honeywell mysteries leaned heavily into Emma’s family history, in this book, it’s Matthias’s turn. We get to learn about his late mother’s tragic end. We discover his father is in prison. Or was. (Okay, that’s a small spoiler, but the reader finds it out in the first chapter, and I think there are plenty more twists and surprises, so I’m willing to divulge that one.)

Reds, how deeply do you delve into the hearts and souls of your bad guys? And readers, do you enjoy a memorable villain? Who are a few that have stuck with you over time?

 

Annette Dashofy is the USA Today bestselling author of over sixteen novels of mystery and suspense, including seven Agatha Award finalists and a Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award winner. She has two Detective Honeywell Mysteries coming in November and December of this year including The Devil Comes Calling and No Stone Left Unturned. Additionally, she has been a Derringer Award finalist for her short fiction. Annette and her husband live on ten acres of what was her grandfather’s dairy farm in Washington County, Pennsylvania with their very spoiled cat, Kensi. You’re invited to check out her website at http://annettedashofy.com

 

“Two bodies. One male, approximately fifty years old. One female, mid-twenties. Both shot execution-style, with one bullet to the back of the head.”

When a murderous ghost from Erie City Police Detective Matthias Honeywell’s past appears unexpectedly, his investigation into a double homicide in a quiet residential neighborhood gets increasingly complicated, and puts everything and everyone he cares about at risk – including photographer Emma Anderson.

Emma’s first day as the crime beat photographer for ErieLIVE wasn’t meant to see her photographing the scene of her predecessor’s murder, and with ties to the victim as well as a deadly fire that follows in the wake of the crime, she fears she may also be in the killer’s sightlines.

To solve the case and catch the killer, Matthias and Emma will have to face their own demons. But what happens when the devil himself comes calling?

DEBS: What a great premise, Annette! And I have to say that as much as I understand how attached we can get to our working titles (by "we" I mean "I"...) in this case I have to agree with your publisher. It's a great title and one that really sticks.   

As for villians, I've written a few that were perhaps a tiny bit sympathetic, or at least relatable, and a few that still give me nightmares. It will be very interesting to see what the other Reds and our readers have to say on the matter!

P.S. THE DEVIL COMES CALLING is out on November 7th, so do pre-order!

Annette Dashofy--A Thriller by Any Other Name

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are always tickled to host one of our regular back bloggers and special Reds friend, Annette Dashofy, and especially when she's here to talk about a new Zoe Chambers mystery, WHAT COMES AROUND! 

And what a great cover! Today, Annette poses an interesting question of identity, with some fascinating criteria... 

A Mystery By Any Other Name…

By AnnetteDashofy

 

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself double booked. I was scheduled to appear at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books (which is wonderful, by the way; go if you ever get the chance) at 10:30 a.m. on the Thriller Panel. I joined Nick Petrie and Joseph Reid AKA Parker Adams, two fabulous authors, who fit the thriller definition perfectly. Me? I wasn’t so sure, but what the heck.

Then I was scheduled to join Liz Milliron and Joyce Tremel at a library event at 2:00 p.m. The library was less than an hour away, so I wasn’t stressed. The ironic part is that panel was dubbed a Cozy Panel. Joyce is one of the best cozy authors I know. But cozy? Liz and I weren’t so sure we fit.

During the Thriller Panel, Nick explained that a mystery was a whodunit. A thriller was more about why something was happening and could it be stopped? He commented that he wrote thrillers with a mystery in the middle. This made me think. Later during the panel, I mentioned that I write mysteries with a thriller at the end.

Honestly, I hadn’t given it a lot of thought until that moment, but in the majority of my novels, there’s a whodunit for the first three quarters or so of the book, but once the killer is unmasked, he (or she) becomes desperate, and a thrill ride ensues.

As for cozy mysteries, the key prerequisite seems to be an amateur sleuth. I think.

In my Zoe Chambers series, both Zoe and Pete work the front lines as law enforcement, EMS, or with the coroner’s office, depending how far into the series you are. In my Detective Honeywell series, Matthias is a police detective, so no amateurs there either. Still, I find my books labeled as cozies, and if that’s what my readers want, who am I to argue?

Which is the point I’m trying to get at. Does it matter? I know, I know, booksellers want to know where to shelve the novels, and therefore, publishers want to use the right category when listing a title. But my question to the Reds and the other writers reading this is: do you think about what specific genre you’re creating when you’re planning or writing your novel? And readers, how much does it affect your buying choice whether a book is a cozy, a traditional mystery, a suspense novel, or a thriller? 

DEBS: Such an interesting definition from Nick! By those parameters, I definitely write whodunits, and my books are usually categorized as either "traditional" mysteries, or "police procedurals," and either one of those can cover an incredibly broad range. As for reading, I'm game for anything if the story sounds interesting and I like the writing.  Can't wait to hear what our readers think about Annette's question!

Just as Monongahela County Coroner Zoe Chambers-Adams decides to fire her abrasive chief deputy, Dr. Charles Davis, and put an end to his constant undermining of her position, a suspicious car crash severely injures the county’s only other forensic pathologist. To keep the office operational, Zoe has little choice but to keep Davis on staff.

When Zoe and her husband—Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams—respond to a brutal homicide, they quickly learn the victim had come to town for the sole purpose of sharing vital information with Zoe. And the decedent’s ex-husband is none other than Zoe’s deputy coroner.

As Zoe and Pete dig deeper into the victim’s past, more questions arise along with a tangle of connections between multiple cases, including a very cold one that leads Zoe and those she cares about directly into the crosshairs of a crazed killer.

Annette Dashofy is the USA Today bestselling author of the Zoe Chambers mystery series and the Detective Honeywell series. She won the 2021 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for excellence in Thoroughbred racing literature for her standalone, Death By Equine, and has garnered seven Agatha Award nominations. Her short fiction includes a Derringer finalist. Annette and her husband live on ten acres of what was her grandfather’s dairy farm in southwestern Pennsylvania with their very spoiled cat, Kensi.

USA Today Best Selling Author of the Zoe Chambers Mysteries

What Comes Around: Zoe Chambers #13 Now Available!

Keep Your Family Close: Detective Honeywell Mystery #2 Available in digital!

Death By Equine: A Dr. Jessie Cameron Mystery, WINNER of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award

www.annettedashofy.com

https://www.facebook.com/annette.dashofy/

Annette Dashofy--Suspense versus Mystery

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Welcome to one of our frequent and favorite guests here on JRW, Annette Dashofy! It seems like we've been with Annette's protagonist Zoe Chambers every step of the way, and I have such admiration for Annette stepping off in a slightly different direction with her new Zoe book--the 12th!

Suspense versus Mystery by Annette Dashofy

When I started working on the twelfth Zoe Chambers Mystery, as always, I had a seed of an idea. Honestly, I had several seeds. A flood. A trapped and critically injured father. His kidnapped daughter. They all sounded viable until I started plotting Helpless. That’s when I made a few realizations.

 

1.      The story had to take place within a very compressed timeline.

2.      This wasn’t going to be a traditional whodunit.

3.      Writing suspense is way out of my wheelhouse.

 

I based the flooding on a couple of tropical storms, remnants of hurricanes, that made their way to southwestern Pennsylvania over the last 20 years. Around here, the water rises, coming closer and closer over a matter of hours, and then recedes quickly. Combined with the critically injured father in the story, I knew I needed this book to take place in under 24 hours.

What the heck was I thinking?

Let me tell you about outlining a story that only lasts 24 hours. Getting the timelines to work from both Zoe Chambers-Adams’s and Pete Adams’s points of view was maddening. I used a spreadsheet. I used postcards. I had to calculate how long it took to get from Point A to Point B and then tack on time for traveling through floodwaters and downed trees. Then I had to coordinate what was happening with Zoe and Pete, who were in different locations, but who were in communication with each other. I’d write a scene, calculate how much time had passed, figure out where that fell on the other character’s timeline, and find out it didn’t match.

I lost count of how many times I told my husband, “This book is going to kill me.”

It also soon became apparent this poor man, who couldn’t be moved, had seen the person who kidnapped his daughter. He didn’t know who the guy was, but he’d recognize him if he saw him again. Hence, this wasn’t going to be a traditional whodunit with the usual red herrings and suspects, all of whom might be the killer. The reader would also have an inkling of why this madman had taken the girl.

The narrative questions don’t involve “who is the killer?” Instead, the reader asks, “Where is the child?” “Is she even alive?” And “Will the girl’s father survive?” And the big one. “Will The Bad Guy outsmart Chief Pete Adams and escape with or without the little girl?”

I pondered giving The Bad Guy a point of view in the book, but quickly abandoned that idea.

So, I found myself writing suspense, a race against time in the truest sense. Thanks to modern technology, Zoe Chambers-Adams keeps an eye on her weather app’s radar to follow the progress of the advancing storm. The Bad Guy’s identity eventually becomes known, but it takes a while for Pete to recognize how cunning he is. Call it a chess match or a cat-and-mouse game, the fact is both Zoe and Pete are battling man and the elements against the ticking clock of Mother Nature’s wrath.

DEBS: Okay, the suspense is killing me just from reading this! Here's more about HELPLESS:

As a massive weather system barrels toward them, Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams and his wife, County Coroner Zoe Chambers-Adams, soon learn how unprepared they really are. A 911 call reports a dead young mother, her critically injured husband, and their missing seven-year-old daughter. Pete and Zoe realize that as the storm moved north from Louisiana, a mysterious killer came with it.  

The wounded and trapped father is Zoe’s friend and blacksmith, and he asks her to stay with him during the rescue efforts. Pete encourages her to oblige, hoping she can uncover clues that might help the investigation. But as attempts to free the victim fail and his condition worsens, Zoe’s questions reveal he doesn’t know why his family was targeted and child kidnapped. Yet he stays alive, hoping for one last glimpse of his little girl.

Pursuing the murderer and the kidnapped child, Pete and his officers battle downed trees, massive flooding, and a widespread loss of communications. They’re isolated with no backup, while facing rising water and impassable roads. The killer faces the same problems, yet somehow stays one step ahead of law enforcement. But he is becoming desperate, and more people are dying because of it. 

As two lives hang in the balance, can Pete win the race against time and weather to stop a savage and cunning predator? And will he and Zoe be able to reunite a family before it’s too late? 

USA Today bestseller Annette Dashofy is the author of over a dozen novels including the five-time Agatha Award nominated Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic-turned-coroner in rural Pennsylvania as well as the Detective Honeywell series set along Lake Erie. Her standalone novel, Death By Equine is the 2021 winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for excellence in thoroughbred racing literature. In addition, she is an active member of Sisters in Crime and Pennwriters. Annette and her husband live on ten acres of what was her grandfather’s dairy farm with one very spoiled cat.

DEBS: How about it, dear Reds and readers--what's your favorite book with a ticking clock?

 

What If and If Only--Annette Dashofy

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What a treat we have for you today! One of our favorite authors here at JRW has not only a new book, but a new series out next week. We know Annette Dashofy for her wonderful Zoe Chambers novels as well as her terrific standalone, Death by Equine. Now, with WHERE THE GUILTY HIDE, she brings us the first novel featuring fascinating new characters Emma Anderson and Matthias Honeywell.

But what sparks the first little flame of inspiration for a new series? Here's Annette to fill us in!

ANNETTE DASHOFY:  It took me several years to develop the characters for this new series. I had a setting and some basic ideas, but I needed more. I needed a theme or concept to motivate both the main characters and the story. I needed to figure out what drove Detective Matthias Honeywell and Emma Anderson, not only in book #1, but hopefully throughout books two, three, four, and so on.

The answer came from an unexpected source.

 In November of 2019, I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial. Shanksville, PA, is only an hour or so from where I live, but I’d never been there until my FBI Citizen’s Academy Alumni group set up a tour. I expected to be moved, but nothing prepared me for the experience of walking those sacred grounds and wandering through the museum.

 Note: if you ever go there, take tissues.

As I read the sequence of events that transpired on 9/11, listened to the recordings of the phone calls made by passengers to loved ones, viewed the personal items retrieved from the wreckage, emotions overwhelmed me. Especially when I thought of those who lost family and friends.

 I carried the heaviness of the day in my heart for weeks. And as so often happens to us writers, I began to work my way through my feelings by funneling them into the characters I was creating. For about thirty seconds I thought, what if my character had lost a loved one on that plane. Wisely, I dismissed the idea out of respect for all who did lose someone that terrible day. I didn’t want to minimalize what they went through. I can’t even fathom their level of grief.

But what if…

Those two words are the cornerstone of most of what I write.

What if Emma and her sister lost their parents, not in a plane crash, but in a traffic collision? What if Emma and Nell had refused to go on that car trip with their parents? What if they blamed themselves for not going along to share the driving chores which led to their father falling asleep at the wheel?

 If only…

 Two more words I embraced for these characters especially Matthias Honeywell. If only he’d taken the lead on the night his police partner entered the house first and made a tragic mistake, taking an innocent life, maybe—just maybe—the victim would still be alive. Maybe the guilt wouldn’t have driven Matthias’s partner to take his own life months later. If only.

As I fleshed out these two scenarios, I realized Emma, her sister, and Matthias were all victims of survivor’s guilt. Had they made different choices, those they cared about would still be alive.

Each dealt with it in different ways. Nell began numbing her pain with alcohol and drugs. Emma sought refuge in the arms of a man who turned out not to be the charming knight in shining armor she originally believed.

Matthias buries his guilt, compartmentalizing it along with other personal traumas from his past. Only his current partner in Major Crimes is aware of his unease around home invasions and heroes.

And even she isn’t privy to the deeper, darker survivor’s guilt he carries.

Alas, we don’t get to explore those secrets until the third book.

Readers and Reds, do you enjoy delving into the psychology of series characters?

DEBS: So interesting, Annette. My insights into my characters' psychology and backstories have tended to develop as I write, so I'm wondering if your ideas changed or developed differently as the characters came alive on the page. And I can't wait to meet Emma and Matthias!

USA Today bestseller Annette Dashofy is the author of over a dozen novels including the five-time Agatha Award nominated Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic-turned-coroner in rural Pennsylvania. Her standalone novel, Death By Equine is the 2021 winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for excellence in thoroughbred racing literature. Where the Guilty Hide (One More Chapter/HarperCollins UK, January 20, 2023) is the first in her new Detective Honeywell series set on the shores of Lake Erie.

Here's more about WHERE THE GUILTY HIDE.

On the shore of Lake Erie, Pennsylvania, a body lays half hidden, the waves slowly moving it with the rising tide…

In the early morning mist, freelance photographer Emma Anderson takes pictures of the rocky coastline. She moved to Erie to escape a past that haunts her but the last thing she expects to capture is a dead body.

Erie City Police Detective Matthias Honeywell has been investigating a spate of home invasions but when one of the robbery victims turns up dead, his case evolves into homicide. Emma’s first encounter with Detective Honeywell leaves her shaken when he reminds her of her ex-fiancé-turned-stalker. Matthias misinterprets Emma’s anxiety and suspects she knows more than she’s letting on.

With the threat of another murder and no obvious leads, will Emma and Matthias overcome their mutual distrust and work together to capture a killer?

 

Annette Dashofy on Total Immersion Research

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's such a treat to have Annette Dashofy, one of our favorite Jungle Red guests (and commenter!) here today to talk about two of my very favorite things, research and horse racing. You know this book went on my must-get list as soon as I read about it!  Here's Annette to tell us more about DEATH BY EQUINE! (And so many fun photos, too!)

ANNETTE DASHOFY: Early in my writing career, research intimidated me. I would look up stuff online. Read books. Occasionally, I’d search out a phone number for a public relations connection and ask timid questions with a painfully anxious voice. I was really lousy at the phone call thing. To be honest, I still am.

 However, while writing Death by Equine over ten years ago (yes, it’s been a long time coming), I discovered a different kind of research. Full immersion. Not merely asking questions but jumping in and experiencing the world I was writing about.

 

A friend, who was a trainer at a racetrack about 45 minutes from my home, got me onto the backside with a visitor’s pass a few times. When I proved that I wasn’t going to do stupid stuff around the horses and get someone injured, she arranged for me to obtain a groom’s license. It was like an all-access pass to a different universe. 

I did have some “street cred.” I’d been a horse-crazy kid, who loved horseracing. I’d owned and ridden horses of my own (although no Thoroughbreds) for 25 years, so I knew enough to avoid getting kicked or bitten. I could wield a brush, curry comb, and hoof pick with the best of them. But hotwalking a high-strung Thoroughbred is totally different than leading a lazy Quarter Horse around the fairgrounds. (Walking a Thoroughbred is always a question of who’s walking whom, while walking a lazy Quarter Horse is like taking my cat for a “drag” on the end of her leash.)

 My time as a groom taught me that while I knew a lot, I had no idea how much I didn’t know.

 My main character in Death by Equine is a veterinarian. I may have assisted my own vet with procedures on my horses and cats, but once again, the track is something entirely different. I spent time hovering over the track vet’s shoulder as he treated the horses. I was able to be hands-on, feeling injured horses’ legs for heat and swelling. I learned various treatments for assorted lamenesses and injuries.

I asked questions and took pages and pages of notes.

Something else I learned: I’m horrible at picking winners at the races. Owners and trainers started begging me to not bet on their horses. In a business that is notorious for its superstitions, being dubbed a jinx is not a good thing.

Side note: I had three favorites for the Kentucky Derby this year. None of them finished in the money.

So while the story, the characters, and the setting (and the homicide!) in Death by Equine is all fiction, it is based very much in fact.

Reds, did any of you watch the Kentucky Derby? Or ever been to one? Readers, do you enjoy being totally immersed into a new and different world when you pick up a book? Or do you prefer something more familiar?

Annette Dashofy is the USA Today best-selling author of the multi–Agatha Award nominated Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania’s tight-knit Vance Township. Her latest release, a standalone, is Death by Equine, about a veterinarian at a second-rate thoroughbred racetrack seeking the truth about her mentor’s mysterious death. She and her husband live on ten acres of what was her grandfather’s dairy farm in southwestern Pennsylvania with their very spoiled cat, Kensi.

 DEBS:Here's more about DEATH BY EQUINE, which you can order here.

Veterinarian Jessie Cameron agrees to fill in for her mentor, Doc Lewis, at Riverview Racetrack so he can take a long-overdue vacation. When he’s tragically killed by one of his equine patients the night before he’s supposed to leave, Jessie quickly suspects the death is anything but accidental. Her search for the truth is thwarted by everyone from well-meaning friends to the police, including her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Undaunted, she discovers layers of illegal activities and deceit being perpetrated by the man she thought of as a father figure, creating a growing list of suspects with reason to want Doc dead. Too late, she realizes that her dogged quest for the truth has put her in the crosshairs of a devious killer desperate to silence her. Permanently. 

DEBS: I've done some fun research but Annette's takes the cake. You can tell this book was a real labor of love. And I, for one, love being totally immersed in a new world when I'm reading. (I bombed out on the Derby, too, Annette!)

Readers, any winning Derby bets? 

 

 

 

The Wedding Planner: a guest blog by Annette Dashofy

Dress No. 1

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If you've reached a certain age, you've had some sort of hand in a wedding. You planned you own, or your child's. You stuffed almonds in netting for your sister, or arranged your brother's stag party. You drove to pick up the tuxedos, or the out-of-town guests, or the last minute replacement for a bridesmaid's broken shoe.

The point is, weddings are complicated. And people care a lot about how things are done. Now imagine having to organize a wedding for a couple everyone's been waiting seven years to tie the knot... with hundreds of friends and family members giving their opinion every step of the way. Annette Dashofy doesn't have to imagine it - while writing her brand new, just-out Zoe Chambers mystery, Til Death, she lived it.

I have no children, unless you count my cat, so for me, planning a wedding was limited to my own ceremony many, many, many years ago. And then came the impending nuptials for my two main characters, Zoe Chambers and Pete Adams.

I write murder mysteries, not romances, so in Til Death, I thought I could get away with solving the crime and sending the happy couple off to the church with the ceremony happening off the page. My critique partners disagreed. So did my readers when I polled them. They’d been along for this ride through ten books and five short stories and wanted payoff for their loyalty.

Since I’d been on the other end of the question when one of my critique partners married off his two main characters, I couldn’t argue. It would be like having a wedding and not inviting your closest friends and family.

Dress No. 2

Hence, while plotting out murder and mayhem, I also had to plan Zoe’s wedding. What made it fun was thinking about Zoe’s mother. Kimberly. The mother-of-the-bride-from-hell. She would voice her opinion about every aspect of the day, disapproving of Zoe and Pete’s desire to keep it simple. Insisting they wed on Valentine’s Day because of the decorating and photo ops.

I decided on the venue based on my own wedding. Kimberly had already put her foot down about throwing a much grander reception in St. Petersburg, Florida, following the small, intimate gathering Zoe preferred. 

Dress No. 3

Kimberly also disapproved of every dress Zoe tried on, even though Zoe was in Pennsylvania and Kimberly was in Florida. Video conferencing has its downside. Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to do a little virtual “shopping” with Zoe, imagining her trying on gowns and Kimberly’s reactions to them.

Just for the heck of it, I started posting some of the wedding dress photos on my Facebook fan group, Zoe Chambers Mysteries & Friends. I couldn’t believe the variety of opinions posted in the comments. “Love this one!” “Not for Zoe.” “Zoe would hate this!” “This looks just like Zoe.” And those were all from the same picture! I love how invested my readers have become in Zoe’s life, but one of them commented it was like having dozens of Kimberlys judging Zoe’s choices. So true! 

Dress No. 4

All the make-believe wedding planning was a hoot. Until I got to the vows. I fell into the deep hole of writer’s block where the actual ceremony was concerned. There’s a reason I don’t write romance. I didn’t want to have the straight-up traditional wedding service that everyone knows by heart. BORING. Maybe not when it’s your child’s or grandchild’s wedding, but in a mystery novel? BORING. So I let Pete and Zoe write their own vows. I borrowed from a very simple ceremony I found online, and I (hopefully) provided a look into their hearts and souls while offering a smile or laugh for my readers.

You’ll have to read Til Death to decide if I succeeded.

In the meantime, which dress do you think Zoe selected for her big day? 

JULIA: I like all of them, because none of them are a boring strapless tube! Annette's books are available in all the usual locations, but you can support an indy bookstore and get a signed, personalized copy if you order from Mystery Lover's Bookshop!

 

When one of Chief Pete Adams’ first murder convictions is overturned, he and County Detective Wayne Baronick are assigned to reinvestigate the case. As new theories about the murder surface, Pete begins to question not only the original suspect’s guilt, but his own investigative skills from the days when he first took over the Vance Township Police Department.

Did Pete put his personal feelings ahead of his quest for justice and lock up an innocent man? Or is the defendant as devious as Pete first believed?

Meanwhile, Zoe Chambers, Monongahela County’s new chief deputy coroner, struggles with the turmoil of two mysterious deaths—including someone close to her heart—as she tries to master her new job and plan her upcoming wedding.

But her investigation soon links to Pete’s case, making Zoe the target of a killer determined to keep the truth from getting out. Can Zoe see the danger in time, and get to the church for her wedding…alive?

USA Today bestselling author Annette Dashofy has spent her entire life in rural Pennsylvania surrounded by cattle and horses. When she wasn’t roaming the family’s farm or playing in the barn, she could be found reading or writing. After high school, she spent five years as an EMT on the local ambulance service, dealing with everything from drunks passing out on the sidewalk to mangled bodies in car accidents. These days, she, her husband, and their spoiled cat, Kensi, live on property that was once part of her grandfather’s dairy. Her 5-time Agatha-nominated Zoe Chambers mystery series includes Circle of Influence (also nominated for the David Award for Best Mystery), Lost Legacy, Bridges Burned, With A Vengeance, No Way Home, Uneasy Prey, Cry Wolf, Fair Game, Under the Radar, as well as Til Death.