#SampleSunday The Witness Wore Blood Bay

In Talented Horsewoman, the first book of the Leigh McRae horse mystery series, main character Leigh McRae discovers a body. She also ends up solving a murder. Along the way she helps her cousin Sammi, who is dating a burglar, and she manages to get out from under the control of her overbearing ex-husband.

Now Leigh's friend Candy, a fellow horsewoman, finds herself accused of murder. Who else would she turn to for help except Leigh? After all, everyone in small town Del Canto knows Leigh has body-discovering experience. Never mind that Leigh is busy finding out who's poisoning dogs in Sammi's neighborhood and she's trying to renovate her home without going broke. Or that her ex-husband Kenneth and former ranchhand Doug Reilly have become roommates in Leigh's guest house.

There's a murder to solve. And her friend won't take no for an answer.

The Witness Wore Blood Bay

Short excerpt from Chapter Two:

Sammi stifled a yelp and I jumped to my feet, almost spilling what was left of my tea. Francine Swale stood in the doorway between the living room and the dining room, her hands on her curvy hips.

I couldn't help staring at what I judged to be a surgically enhanced chest. The woman could have modeled for Playboy if she were fifteen years younger, and if her face weren’t all blotchy from rage. Or from crying—I couldn’t tell which.

“Ladies, this is Francine Swale. She works with me selling cars.” Mark cleared his throat a couple of times.

Yeah, and she was also the murder victim's widow. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he’d much rather we hadn't found out she was in the house and had obviously been there the whole time, lurking out of sight and probably listening.

“Francine, ah, didn’t feel well enough to go home, so she’s been resting in the guest room. Francine, Leigh McRae and her cousin, Sammi Hollister.”

“Hello, Francine.” I didn’t bother to remind her I’d met her before and I’d seen her last night at the horse club meeting—arguing with her husband, who was now dead. “Sorry for your loss.”

Francine’s dark eyes snapped. “So am I. But the police know Candy did it and she’s going to pay one way or the other. I hope she fries like breakfast bacon.” She strode across the room and dropped onto the couch next to Mark, crossing her long legs and not bothering to tug her micro skirt down over her shapely thighs.

I pasted on the stupidest of smiles for lack of anything useful to say or do. I mean, how do you agree with a remark like that without coming across like a vigilante?

There, there, Francine. If the justice system doesn’t do its job, we’ll bring the firewood and some lighter fluid and help you take care of the problem.

And if I didn’t agree, I might send this woman into orbit. Judging by the way she’d spoken and the look in her eyes, I definitely didn’t want to be on Francine Swale’s “People Not to Like List.”

And what was up with Mark? Shock or no shock, you would have thought he'd want to defend his wife. I couldn’t help noticing that Francine’s skirt, as well as her blouse, were splotched with what I took to be blood. Brenda had said Mark had to pull her away from trying to give her husband CPR, but you would have thought she would have wanted to change into something a little less gory.

Rib nudge from Sammi. My sides were really getting a workout today and I made a mental note to look into buying a flak jacket. I nudged back to show we were on the same page—wondering if Francine really cared about her husband or if she was putting on an act. Funny how murder can bring out cynical thoughts, even in people who normally are pretty tame. But if Francine was as in love with Richard as her comments about wanting revenge would indicate, why was she sitting so close to Mark they could have been conjoined twins? If their body language meant what it said, those two had something going on. 

There Is No Such Thing As An Amateur Sleuth

Cozy mysteries are a subgenre of mysteries in which there is little or no sex or violence, the crime is usually solved by an amateur sleuth, and quite often the books are humorous. I read cozy mysteries. I talk about cozy mysteries. I write cozy mysteries. And that's absurd because there's really no such thing as an amateur sleuth.

Think about it. How many amateur sleuths have you met in your lifetime? Probably as many as I've met, which is none. I'm saying if they existed, you'd have seen one by now. Seems to me they're as scarce as unicorns.

Seriously, do you know people who would deliberately meddle in a police investigation? Or put themselves or the families in the sights of a killer? Because that's what amateur sleuths do.

That's one thing that makes them so much fun. I can read a cozy, and no matter how many victims fall to a killer, I can rest easy, knowing the book isn't even close to reality and there's going to be a happy ending. Cozies are pure escape fiction and the funnier and more over the top, the better I like them.

Sometimes I read the other kind of mystery, the ones where all the gory details are spelled out in the goriest of detail and the suspense ratchets up until people would have to resuscitate me if the phone rang. Too much of that kind of reading and I can't relax enough to go to sleep. Time to switch back to reading a good cozy.

Now we're talking. The main character is an ordinary person, usually someone with a strong sense of justice and who's nosy. The cast of supporting characters can be as real or as quirky as the author wants them to be and the same goes for the plot, which is often over the top.

I like to laugh, I like light reading, and I love cozies. In my book, amateur sleuths rule.

My amateur sleuth is Leigh McRae, a horsewoman who lives in a small Florida town with her daughter and her fiancé. She's nosy, she likes to help people, and she can't stand it when a wrong goes un-righted. Leigh and her sidekick, her wacky cousin Sammi, get themselves in a lot of trouble. Leigh is the first to admit she's a terrible detective. But somehow she manages to bumble her way to the truth.

I've just published the second of my Leigh McRae horse mystery books, The Witness Wore Blood Bay.  For now it's available at the introductory price of just $ .99. Draumr Publishing, publisher of Talented Horsewoman, has temporarily lowered the price of Talented Horsewoman from $6.99 to $2.99 to help  promote the series. If you want to read both of these, now is the time to buy. 

Very short excerpt from a scene where Leigh and Sammi are watching a movie while they discuss criminal activity in their town:

Sammi was too busy oohing and aahing at the vision in front of her to notice anything such as popcorn. The first scene featured one of her favorite actors stepping into the shower. They showed him from the back only, but it was enough to keep Sammi’s eyes glued to the set.

“Can you believe it? Isn’t that the most gorgeous rear end you ever saw in your life?” She leaned forward to get a better look, and I knew she was wishing I had a sixty-inch high def instead of my plain old nineteen inch, circa 1980, hand-me-down from Aunt Dorothy.

I snorted. “Drag your eyes back into their sockets, woman. That is soooo a stunt butt.”

“Is not.” She snatched the remote off the coffee table and hit pause. The picture froze and the well-tanned butt in question took up so much of the screen it looked like a ripe peach.

Talented Horsewoman                                     The Witness Wore Blood Bay

#Sample Sunday: Talented Horsewoman

As I announced yesterday, my publisher for Talented Horsewoman the first in my Leigh McRae horse mystery series has put it on sale to help me promote the upcoming indie publication of the second in the series. Talented Horsewoman is reduced from $6.99 to $2.99 for a short time only. If you love horse mysteries, now is the time to get the first book.

Here's a sample from Chapter One:

Chapter One

If only. Those two little words were to haunt me for weeks. If only I hadn’t put off getting my hair trimmed, I wouldn’t have had to spend so much time forcing the flyaway blond strands into a single neat braid. If only I hadn’t paused to answer the phone, I wouldn’t have wasted ten minutes, too polite to hang up on a telemarketer who said my name—Leigh McRae—in reverent tones that could have indicated she’d mistaken me for a movie star.

I finally cut her off and, still feeling no sense of urgency, sauntered out to my truck.  Later I would wonder why I’d given in to a demon sweet tooth that had made me stop for coffee at Bo’s Diner and then linger stuffing my face with a chocolate donut.

It wasn’t until I’d licked the last bit of sugar from my fingers that I finally considered I’d be late if I didn’t hurry. I drove a few miles over the limit until I came to a construction zone where I lost all the minutes I’d gained.

Cursing under my breath, I inched my way past a mile of traffic cones and then sped the rest of the way down Brick House Road to whip the truck into Rita’s driveway. I bounced through a pothole, rounded a bend, and instantly registered a horse barreling toward me. In a microsecond I hit the brakes and jammed the shift lever into park, barely avoiding a nasty collision.

A sorrel filly raced free as a mustang back down the driveway. She’d streaked toward the truck at dazzling speed before sliding to a stop that left grooves in the dirt. Without pause she rolled on her hocks and reversed direction. After a quick circuit of the corral, she finally slowed from a gallop to a prance, flying her flame-red tail like a banner and holding her head high as the prow of a sailing ship. 

My breath whooshed out. The one horse stampede was over. Another second or two and the filly I knew as Sandstone Tinker Star would likely head for the patch of Bermuda grass near the hay barn and settle down to grazing—easy for me to catch her. But before I could act, a screaming woman brandishing a flimsy pine branch flashed into view from the left, and Tinker turned on the afterburners.

I leaped out of the truck and hit the ground running, my arms whirling like plane propellers. "Stop screaming and waving that stick around. You’re scaring her."

The branch-wielding woman showed no signs of having heard and, as Tinker raced past, she planted her legs wide apart and landed a solid blow on the filly’s rump. Without missing a beat, Tinker fired with both hind legs, just missing the woman’s shoulder. The filly’s tail swished and she swerved toward the training arena.

By then I’d had time to conclude that the horse-chasing woman was Millie Destin, Rita’s neighbor from across the road. If she wasn’t careful she was going to end up with getting kicked or worse.

I turned to follow Tinker’s movement, hoping she wouldn’t head back to Millie. As I tracked the galloping form past the barn, a bundle of rags on the ground barely merited my attention—until an instant later when I realized the bundle wasn’t rags. With a jolt somewhere in the center of my chest I stumbled forward.

"Oh, my God, it's Rita," Millie sang out, echoing my thoughts. She scurried over to grab my arm, her fingers digging in like pincers until I peeled her loose. I glanced sideways and noted her complexion was the color of an undercooked biscuit. Mine probably matched.

We moved closer and I saw that the figure was indeed Rita Cameron. Holding on to each other for support, Millie and I stared down at Rita. She lay on her stomach, her face pressed against the concrete that formed a parking pad in front of the hay barn. Blood had pooled around her head.

I dropped to my knees and felt for a pulse in her neck. Nothing. I knew it might be dangerous to move her if she were still alive, but she wasn’t breathing. CPR might be her only chance, so with Millie’s help I rolled her over. Then I wished I hadn’t. Rita’s blue eyes were wide open and had taken on the blankness of dolls’ eyes. Her blood-caked face was tinged purple.

“She's dead, ain't she?" Millie stuck her hands in the pockets of her baggy overalls. She screwed up her mouth in an attempt at a smile as if we were simply discussing last night’s rain, but I couldn’t miss the wobble in her voice.

I nodded. I’d never seen a dead person up close, but there wasn’t a shade of doubt. Living people have light in their eyes.

"Must of fell out of the hay loft." Millie bobbed her head to reinforce her conclusion.

I swallowed hard, barely able to take in that Rita was gone. “Looks that way.”

A soft whicker drew my attention back to Rita’s filly. After ending her race at the edge of the woods, she'd ambled back as far as the training arena gate where she stopped and watched us, her head lowered and her ears flicking back and forth. For the first time I saw the bright smear of crimson on her right shoulder.




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Leigh McRae Has Body-Discovering Experience

Leigh McRae Has Body-Discovering Experience

In Talented Horsewoman, the first book of my horse mystery series, main character Leigh McRae discovers a body. She also ends up solving a murder. Along the way she helps her cousin Sammi, who is dating a burglar, and she manages to get out from under the control of her overbearing ex-husband.

Now Leigh's friend Candy, a fellow horsewoman, finds herself accused of murder. Who else would she turn to for help except Leigh? After all, everyone in small town Del Canto knows Leigh has body-discovering experience. Never mind that Leigh is busy finding out who's poisoning dogs in Sammi's neighborhood and she's trying to renovate her home without going broke. Or that her ex-husband Kenneth and former ranchhand Doug Reilly have become roommates in Leigh's guest house.

There's a murder to solve. And her friend won't take no for an answer.

Coming soon, the second in the Leigh McRae horse mystery series: The Witness Wore Palomino.