ExcerpTuesday: Carolyn J. Rose

Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton share an excerpt of their latest Sometimes a Great Commotion.


“Thank you,” Elspeth Hunsaker said as Shelley Perkins set the plate in front of her and topped off her coffee. It was important to display good manners, even if Shelley was performing a paid-for service and not, in the strictest sense, doing a favor.


“You’re welcome.” Shelley totaled Elspeth’s lunch bill. Coffee and the crab cake special: $4.69. Elspeth had already done the math and planned to leave a thirty-one cent tip. Fifteen percent, she rationalized, was merely a guideline, not a law. Besides, the crab cake looked a little scorched.

Shelley set the check beside the salt and pepper shakers. “Can I do anything else for you?”

Elspeth couldn’t pass up that invitation. “You could stop consorting and cohabiting with the boy who sells that blasphemous ice cream.”

Shelley rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” Elspeth said, well aware that she felt not a scrap of remorse. The girl needed to know. . . “I have it on good authority that you two even shower together.” Good authority being a strong pair of binoculars and the gauzy curtain in Ichabod Ferris’s bathroom window.

A slow smile lifted Shelley’s full lips. “But Miz Hunsaker, you voted for water conservation, didn’t you?”

“I most certainly did.” Elspeth sat up straighter, proud of having done her civic duty. “Before I cast that vote I asked myself ‘What would Jesus do about the water situation?’”

Shelley tugged at one crystal earring. “Walk on it?”

“No! Not waste it,” Elspeth snapped.

Shelley nodded. “Showering with a friend means less waste.”

Elspeth felt blood throbbing in her temples, but before she could retort, Shelley sashayed off. . . She eyed the jumbo-sized crab cake that sprawled across her plate next to a mound of French fries, a scoop of coleslaw, a paper cup of tartar sauce, and a sprig of parsley. . . Her breath caught in her throat. Jaw dropping in disbelief, she stared at the grill marks on the crab cake’s golden breading, rotated the plate a quarter turn, leaned closer and stared some more. Yes, there was his hair, his nose, his chin. As she gazed upon it, the crab cake seemed to glow with an inner light and Elspeth was certain that, faint and far in the distance, she heard a celestial choir.

Who would have thought a sign from above would appear in the Devil’s Food Café?

Again she leaned close, cocking her head to better hear any utterance emanating from the scorch marks between chin and nose, the scorch marks that—if she squinted—looked almost like lips. She listened with every fiber of her being, holding her breath until she felt her eyes bug out. And then she was certain she heard a wisp of a whisper. “Go forth.”

“I will,” she breathed. “I’ll go forth. But what shall I go forth and do?”

“Go forth and—”

Crash. Clatter.

“Oh, hell,” Shelley yelled from the kitchen. “I dropped the damn silverware tray.”

Suppressing a murderous urge, Elspeth calmed herself, cleared her mind, and listened once again. Alas, the crab cake spoke no more.

ExcerpTuesdeay Carolyn J. Rose

Bio:

Carolyn J. Rose grew up in New York’s Catskill Mountains, graduated from the University of Arizona, logged two years in Arkansas with Volunteers in Service to America and spent 25 years as a television news researcher, writer, producer, and assignment editor in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. She has published a number of mysteries and lives in Vancouver, Washington, with her husband, radio air personality Mike Phillips, and a motley collection of pets. Surf to www.deadlyduomysteries.com for more information.

Blurb:

For generations only a few families held title to land in the isolated Catskill Mountain community of Hemlock Lake. But with the turning of the century one man, lured by easy money, sells his inheritance to a developer of luxury homes. As the contractor bulldozes farmland and forest, neighbors cry environmental rape, and someone threatens to burn what is built.

Hoping to stop the arsonist, but tormented by personal demons, Sergeant Dan Stone reluctantly returns to his family home on the shores of the lake. The previous autumn his wife died in its dark waters and his brother put a bullet in his brain. That tragedy sent Dan’s father drifting toward death.

Isolated by his pain, Dan is thrust into the no man’s land between newcomers and long-time residents who stonewall his investigation into threats, graffiti, theft, and a blaze that nearly kills the construction foreman. Townspeople blame outsiders, eco-terrorists, a ragged tramp haunting the woods and the mysterious creator of rock cairns that often mark the sites of crimes to come. But as summer sizzles on, the arsonist turns killer, and Dan suspects it’s someone he knows well: a firefighter, a long-time friend, or a woman with a killing in her past.

Excerpt:

The SUV rocked onto two wheels as I took a sharp curve below Bobcat Hollow at fifty miles an hour. As I fought the wheel, I saw something shift beneath the jacket I’d flung across the passenger seat. Unconsciously I reached for it. One edge of the jacket rose. I jerked my hand back. An ugly triangular head appeared. Two eyes glittered in the green light from the dashboard. A muffled buzzing swirled around me.

Rattler!

I jerked my right hand from the wheel, wedged my body tight against the door. The SUV heeled out of the turn and onto a straightaway. The snake’s head bobbed. Its tongue flicked out, sampling the air. The roof of my mouth grew hot with the taste of nickel.

Get out! My mind screamed instructions to my body. Take your foot off the gas. Release the seatbelt. Flip back the door latch. Roll free.

I raised my foot from the gas pedal. I drew my right hand toward the seatbelt release.

The snake buzzed and shrugged off the jacket. Its head swayed inches from my hand.

I froze. Seconds drifted by like snowflakes. If I moved suddenly, the snake would strike. And then what? What would I do once the venom was in my bloodstream? My mind tobogganed through my options.

Call for help. But what if the cell phone didn’t work? Drive to the nearest house. But that house was a mile away. Too far to walk if the snake hit me close to the heart. I needed wheels, couldn’t take a chance on leaping out and letting my rig crash.

I shuddered. The snake drew its thick body into a tight coil. I checked the speedometer. Thirty-five and dropping. The road started downhill soon, took another sharp turn at Silver Leaf Hollow. I’d pick up speed, have to downshift or brake to make that turn.

If I reached for the stick shift the snake would strike for sure.

Recipe Wednesday - Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton

Welcome to Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton.

Mixing Marriage and Mystery

Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton

Attempting to meld two distinct writing styles and a host of different ideas can be a recipe for both literary and marital disaster. But somehow we’ve kept it together through 21 years and cooked up five co-authored projects as well as a number of individual efforts.

Last year we mixed greed, lust, political aspirations, and secrecy to create The Big Grabowski (Krill Press), a cozy set in fictional Devil’s Harbor, Oregon.



In the sequel, Sometimes a Great Commotion, due out this summer, the ingredients for chaos are: a sewage treatment system about to crash, a tree-sitting scam artist blocking the timber sale that could keep the town flush (pardon the pun), and an image scorched into a grilled crab cake. Thousands flock to see it, prompting the mayor to plant a portable toilet on every lawn. Then someone cuts down the tree-sitter’s perch with him aboard and murder gets tossed into the mix.

Sometimes a Great Commotion Crab Cakes

1 c. seasoned breadcrumbs (Italian)

2 eggs, beaten

½ c. finely chopped green onion

¼ c. finely chopped celery

2 t. Dijon-style mustard

Big dash of Worcestershire sauce

1 16-oz can of refrigerated pasteurized crabmeat, drained

(or freshly cooked Dungeness crab if it’s available)

2 t. Creole seasoning or dash of Tabasco sauce

(optional and depending on how hot you like your food)



Combine all ingredients and let stand in the refrigerator for about half an hour. Check consistency and add a few more crumbs or a few drops of water if necessary.



Form patties. Coat with more breadcrumbs if you want.



Fry in oil or butter until nicely browned. (Note: we can’t guarantee an image of anyone—real or fictional—will appear.) Serve with lemon and tarter sauce.

Carolyn J. Rose grew up in New York’s Catskill Mountains, graduated from the University of Arizona, logged two years in Arkansas with Volunteers in Service to America, and spent 25 years as a television news researcher, writer, producer, and assignment editor in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. She teaches novel-writing in Vancouver, Washington, and founded the Vancouver Writers’ Mixers. Her hobbies are reading, gardening, and not cooking.



Mike Nettleton grew up in Bandon and Grants Pass, Oregon. A stint at a college station in Ashland led to a multi-state radio odyssey with on-air gigs in Oregon, California, and New Mexico under the air name Mike Phillips. He’s been with KEX in Portland since 1994. His hobbies are golf, pool, Texas held-em poker, and book collecting.



Surf to www.deadlyduomysteries.com for more information.