ExcerpTuesday: Marilyn Meredith

Excerpt from No Bells.

GORDON BUTLER AWOKE to the blues’ riff that signaled a call coming in
from his girlfriend, Benay Weiss. He squinted at his digital clock. 5:15 a.m.

Tuesday, his day off.

Yawning, he flipped open the phone. Before he could say anything, Benay
sobbed, “Geri is missing.”

He sat up. “What?”

“My best friend, Geri Rowe. She disappeared.”

“How do you know?”

Benay sounded near hysterics. “Her husband just called to find out if she
might be here with me. She isn’t.”

“Did they have a fight?”

“He just said she didn’t come home last night.”

Gordon switched into police mode. “You two are so close. Did she say
anything about marital problems?”

“Nothing new. Gordon, I’m so scared for her.”

“Has her husband reported her missing?”

“I don’t think so. He was going to call her relatives next to see if they’d heard
from her.”

“He should make a report. Nothing will be done until she’s gone for 24
hours. They’ll want to make sure she didn’t just leave on her own.”

“She wouldn’t have done that without telling me. Gordon, we share
everything. We’ve been friends since high school. I was her maid-of-honor at
her wedding.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

She didn’t answer for a long while. “No. Philip said he’d call me back in a
little while.”

“I’ve got the day off. I could spend it with you.”

“No. I have to work. I’m so worried about Geri, she’s all I can think about.
I’ll call you if I hear anything from her.”

Gordon knew if something bad had happened to Benay’s friend, he’d hear
about it first. “Chances are she’s okay.”

“I hope so.” She hung up.

* * *
Saturday morning, Officer Gordon Butler approached the scene of his first
call of the day, a body found by teens in the nearly dry stream bed running
along the rocky bluff that gave the beach town its name

Parking his blue-and-white police car, Gordon climbed out. He surveyed
the area, trying to find the young people who’d called in their gruesome find.
A forest of native oaks, junipers as well as tall eucalyptus and clusters of
evergreen shrubs blocked the view of the place where the body reportedly
had been discovered. The strong scent of the eucalyptus overpowered the
saltiness of the ocean drifting in on a slight breeze. He inhaled deeply and
detected the sweet, sickening odor of decaying flesh.

No Bells Blurb:

Officer Gordon Butler has finally found the love he’s been seeking for a long time, but there’s one big problem, she’s the major suspect in a murder case.

Bio:

F.M. Meredith, also known as Marilyn Meredith, is the author of over thirty published novels—and a few that will never see print. Her latest in the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, from Oak Tree Press, is No Bells. F. M. (Marilyn) is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and serves as the program chair for the Public Safety Writers of America’s writing conference. She’s been an instructor at many writing conferences.

Website: http://fictionforyou.com/
Blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

CONTEST: The person who comments on the most blogs on my tour will win three books in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series: No Sanctuary, An Axe to Grind, and Angel Lost. Be sure to leave your email too, so I can contact you if you’re the winner.

Jenny Hilborne

Isabelle Kingsley didn’t think her husband would ever cheat. Her husband didn’t think she would ever find out. Now he is missing, and his mistress is dead. Suspected of killing her, Isabelle turns to her best friend, only to discover another betrayal. Is there no one she can trust?

Homicide cop, John Doucette, is on the case. Something about Isabelle unnerves him. Could she be innocent? If she is, how did the murder weapon come to be in her possession? Someone from her past connects them; someone that Doucette does not want to face.

Doucette must set aside his personal feelings and fears to work through the tangled web of deceit before the case goes cold and a killer goes free.

Recipe Wednesday - Donna Fletcher Crow's Proper English Tea

A Proper Tea Party

Since I’m celebrating the UK release of A Very Private Grave set in England, let’s do the family thing and celebrate with them by having a proper English tea party. And then we can spend the rest of the afternoon reading a ripping good murder mystery.

English Scones


3 2/3 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ cup cold butter

1 ¼ cups milk (+ 2 tablespoons if needed to make soft dough)

1/3 cup currants or golden raisins

1 egg, beaten (for topping)

Sugar to sprinkle
Place flour, sugar and baking powder in blender, pulse to mix. With blender running, add butter in chunks until mixture resembles coarse meal. Pour in milk and blend until dough forms a ball. Add raisins or currants if desired.
Turn out on floured surface and knead a few times. Pat into a thick disc, about 1 ½ inches thick. Cut into circles with biscuit cutter. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 400 degrees for approximately 15 minutes. Scones should be just light gold, not brown. They need to be still a bit moist in the center.
To serve, split in half with fork, butter, spread with strawberry jam or orange marmalade or lemon curd. Pile clotted cream or unsweetened whipped cream as high as possible.
Serve with properly brewed hot tea: Warm teapot. Pour boiling water over tea leaves (1 teaspoon leaves per person). Allow to steep 3-5 minutes. Pour into china cups through a strainer. Offer sugar and cold milk. Use a good black tea such as Twinings English Breakfast. Typhoo or Yorkshire Gold if you can get it. No fruity flavors. No bags. Who me? Fanatical? Never.

Felicity Howard, a young American woman studying for the Anglican priesthood at the College of the Transfiguration in Yorkshire, is devastated when she finds her beloved Fr. Dominic brutally murdered and Fr. Antony, her church history lecturer, soaked in his blood.


A Very Private Grave is a contemporary novel with a thoroughly modern heroine who must learn some ancient truths in order to solve the mystery and save her own life as she and Fr. Antony flee a murderer and follow clues that take them to out-of-the way sites in northern England and southern Scotland. The narrative skillfully mixes detection, intellectual puzzles, spiritual aspiration, romance, and the solving of clues ancient and modern.

“With a bludgeoned body in Chapter 1, and a pair of intrepid amateur sleuths, A Very Private Grave qualifies as a traditional mystery. But this is no mere formulaic whodunit: it is a Knickerbocker Glory of a thriller. At its centre is a sweeping, page-turning quest – in the steps of St Cuthbert – through the atmospherically-depicted North of England, served up with dollops of Church history and lashings of romance. In this novel, Donna Fletcher Crow has created her own niche within the genre of clerical mysteries.” – Kate Charles, author of Deep Waters

Author Bio

Donna Fletcher Crow is the author of 35 books, mostly novels dealing with British history. The award-winning GLASTONBURY, The Novel of Christian England is her best-known work, an Arthurian grail search epic covering 15 centuries of English history. A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE, book 1 in the Monastery Murders series is her reentry into publishing after a 10 year hiatus. THE SHADOW OF REALITY, a romantic intrigue will be published later this summer.

Donna and her husband have 4 adult children and 10 grandchildren. She is an enthusiastic gardener and you can see pictures of her garden, watch the trailer for A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE, and read her international blog at www.DonnaFletcherCrow.com