Cozy Monday

Death in Dark Blue (Writer's Apprentice #2) by Julia Buckley (Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, 2 May 2017).


Lena London has been Camilla Graham's assistant long enough that their first collaborative book, The Salzburg Train,  has been published.  They're both pretty excited, and Lena wants to share her excitement with her new beau, Sam West.  But when she goes next door to to give him a copy, she (almost literally) stumbles upon the body of a woman.

Lena recognizes the woman: Taylor Brand was the best friend of Sam's late wife Victoria, who was determined to prove that Sam had murdered Victoria, even though Sam had been exonerated when proof surfaced that Victoria was still alive. Lena is, of course, stunned.  She's also certain that Sam wouldn't be foolish enough to commit a murder on his own property, and local police chief Doug Heller agrees with her.

Still, the media presence, which had just begun to dissipate, increases, and Lena and Sam are once again in the national spotlight.

Lena and Sam are desperate to determine the identity of Taylor's killer.  They'd like to find Victoria, too, but that has been taken over by federal agencies, who seem to have given the case very low priority. 

There are some fictional characters whose jobs I'd love to have.  Lena London is one of them.  Camilla Graham is a romantic suspense author reminiscent of Mary Stewart, the grande dame of romantic suspense. 

Julia Buckley has been so thorough in the conception of her characters that there is a list of all of Camilla Graham's novels (from 1972 through 2016!) at the front of the book.  And, each chapter begins with an epigraph from Camilla and Lena's work in progress, Death on Danube.  

Although not absolutely necessary, it's probably a good idea to read the first book in the series, A Dark and Stormy Murder, to fully understand what's going on in this book, but it won't be a hardship!



The publisher has generously offered a copy of Death in Dark Blue to one of my readers.  Please comment below before 12:01 a.m. on Monday, May 8th.  Entries from the US only, please.  
Please don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win!

FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this book.

When I Discovered Mary Stewart

By special guest Julia Buckley.

Julia Buckley is a Chicago mystery author whose career started in 2006 with the publication of THE DARK BACKWARD. Since then her work has appeared on Kindle in the Madeline Mann series and the novel THE GHOSTS OF LOVELY WOMEN.  She is currently writing two series for Berkley Prime Crime, the first of which launched with THE BIG CHILI. 

She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Romance Writers of America, along with the Chicago Writer's Association. In addition, she has worked with the same writer's group since 2000. 

Julia has taught high school English for twenty-seven years; she lives near Chicago with her husband, two sons, three cats, and a mischievous Lab puppy named Digby. 

(Bio from Juia's website)

I remember when I first fell in love with Mary Stewart. It was somewhere between the late seventies and the early eighties; my mother, a volunteer librarian at my school and eventually at our local library, was always bringing home interesting books. We were huge library supporters: my dad was on the board, and we invited the local librarian, a bachelor, to our house for dinner and games of Password.

My mother had long been a Mary Stewart fan, and I can’t recall if she pressed one into my hand, assuring me that I’d like it, or if I picked one up on my own. Stewart’s covers and titles were compelling, with a Gothic flair and a sense of menace.

In any case, I read the first book. In those days we children who were still in school tended to come home in the afternoon and lie on the furniture like giant sloths, reading the books we had been forced to leave behind. I remember hearing a lot of “Why don’t you go get some fresh air?” while I lay there, devouring chapter after chapter.

The first way that Stewart lured her reader was with an Epigraph at the beginning of each chapter, always literary, referring the reader to a passage from Shakespeare, or Milton, or Bronte. This carefully-selected quotation always had relevance to the story she was telling. After this came the one-two punch of a fascinating setting and a gripping plot, introduced by an irresistible first line.

In her first suspense novel, Madam, Will You Talk?, Stewart begins by setting the tone:

The whole affair began so very quietly. When I wrote, that summer, and asked my
friend Louise if she would come with me on a car trip to Provence, I had no idea that I
might be issuing an invitation to danger.*

Every Mary Stewart fan knows the quiet satisfaction of this sort of beginning. One can be assured of an exciting ride with a highly literate driver.

In my own book, A Dark and Stormy Murder, Camilla Graham is a Mary Stewart-type suspense novelist, and Lena London is as star-struck as I would be, had I ever been given the chance to meet Lady Stewart in person. I suppose the book is a kind of wish fulfillment. In an homage to Stewart’s books, I begin each chapter with an epigraph, but I am quoting Camilla Graham’s book, The Salzburg Train.

After that the resemblance to a Stewart novel ends, but it is still my love letter to the best writer of romantic suspense.

(My other favorite Mary Stewart titles include Nine Coaches Waiting, My Brother Michael, The Moonspinners, Airs Above the Ground, This Rough Magic, Thunder on the Right, and The Ivy Tree.

A Dark and Stormy murder (Berkley Prime Crime) was released  July 5, and is available for order on Amazon.

*Stewart, Mary. Madam, Will You Talk? London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954.

Cozy Monday

A Dark and Stormy Murder (Writer's Apprentice Mystery #1) by Julia Buckley (Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, 5 July 2016).  

As soon as I read the epigraph to the first chapter, an excerpt from fictional novelist Camilla Graham's novel The Salzburg Train, I knew I would love this book.  The tone of the passage evoked for me the Mary Stewart romantic suspense novels that I read and reread when I was a teen.  

Protagonist, aspiring author Lena London feels the same way about Camilla Graham's work.  She has her favorites of the many books Graham wrote (almost one a year from 1972 to 2010!) which have become her comfort reads.

So when her friend Allison calls and tells Lena that Camilla belongs to her knitting group, Lena at first thinks Allison is joking.  Allison assures Lena that she is absolutely serious, and then informs Lena that she has told Camilla about her.  In fact, Allison even sent Camilla a copy of Lena's graduate thesis, a novel inspired by Camilla's work. AND, Camilla liked it so much she told Allison that she'd like to meet Lena, and offer her a job.

Thus, Lena serendipitously becomes her idol's assistant/ghostwriter, moving lock, stock and feline into Camilla Graham's house, which the author believes will make working cooperatively much easier.  

On her first day in the small town of Blue Lake, Indiana, Lena discovers the body of a local waiter named Martin Jonas on the beach below Camilla's house.  

Just like that, Lena is involved in the same type of mystery as the heroines of Camilla's novels.  This gives her a great background to investigate a crime that the local law enforcement would like to pin on the recluse who lives next door, who has become a friend of Lena's.

The clever Julia Buckley has managed to create snippets from some of Camilla's books, which Lena often mentally compares to events in her own life, and reacts accordingly.  Not only that, each chapter is preceded by an epigraph from The Salzburg Train, the novel that Lena is assisting with.

Fans of Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney and Helen MacInnes will devour this book, and will probably (like me) be anxious for the next!



The publisher has generously offered a copy of A Dark and Stormy Murder  to one of my readers.  Please comment below before 12:01 a.m. on Friday, July 22, 2016.  Entries from the US only, please.  
Please don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win!


FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this book.