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An Education in Murder with Kelly Brackenhoff

09/21/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:08 — 13.8MB) | Embed

Would you trade Hawai’i for Nebraska?

Kelly Brakenhoff’s amateur sleuth, Cassandra Sato, is ambitious: she wants to be a university president one day. So leaving Hawai’i and landing in Nebraska makes sense to her because it will further her career.

Kelly reads to us from the first book in the Cassandra Sato series, Death by Dissertation, and we talk about how creating a character who is a fish out of water can lend itself to interesting plot points and situations.

In the interview, I ask Kelly about her picture book for children called Never Mind. She shares what motivated her to write that book and the important issue the next book in the series addresses. (Hint: it has to do with farts.) 🙂 Below is the video she mentions where she reads Never Mind and Amy Willman does the signs for it.

This week’s mystery author

Kelly Brakenhoff writes the Cassandra Sato Mystery series including Death by Dissertation, a 2020 RONE Award Mystery Finalist, and Dead Week, “a diverting whodunit,” (Publishers Weekly).

Kelly is an American Sign Language Interpreter whose motivation for learning ASL began in high school when she wanted to converse with her deaf friends. She also writes a popular children’s picture book series featuring Duke the Deaf Dog.

To learn more about Kelly and all her books visit KellyBrackenhoff.com

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Murder on the Menu with Debra H. Goldstein

09/14/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:22 — 14.2MB) | Embed

Debra Goldstein is a judge AND she’s been on the TV show Jeopardy!

How’s that for a line item on a CV?

My guest today reads from her brand new book, Three Treats Too Many, and we talk about her long-held desire to write, how publishing proved easy in the beginning and then got a little harder, and what it’s like to blank out when trying to answer the final question on Jeopardy.

In the introduction I mention staying up far too late watching the Disney Plus behind-the-scenes documentary about making the animated film Frozen 2 and how I am a sucker for any kind of show or book about what goes on during the making of a creative project.

This week’s mystery author

Judge Debra H. Goldstein writes Kensington Books’ Sarah Blair mystery series, including recently published Three Treats Too Many, 2020’s Silver Falchion finalist Two Bites Too Many and January 2019’s Woman’s World book of the week, One Taste Too Many.

Debra’s short stories have been named as Agatha, Anthony and Derringer finalists. Debra serves on the national board of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and is the President of SEMWA and is past president of SinC’s Guppy chapter.

To learn more about Debra and all her books visit DebraHGoldstein.com.

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Cold Cases, Hollywood and Homicide with Kellye Garrett

09/07/2020 By Alexandra Amor 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:29 — 11.8MB) | Embed

This is a first for It’s a Mystery podcast!

Award-winning mystery author Kellye Garrett reads to us from a work-in-progress, which is a first for this show.

When the publisher of her first two mysteries shuttered their doors, Kellye pivoted and began working on this domestic thriller. You’ll hear her read from that book and then we discuss her two Detective By Day books and how they are still impacting readers, the #ownvoices movement, and how writing for the TV show Cold Case helped Kellye when it came to writing fiction.

This week’s mystery author

Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide, about a semi-famous, mega-broke black actress, won the Anthony, Agatha and Lefty for best first novel. It’s also one of BookBub’s “Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.” The second, Hollywood Ending, was featured on the TODAY show’s Best Summer Reads of 2019 and was nominated for both Anthony and Lefty awards. She serves on Sisters in Crime’s national board and is a co-founder of Crime Writers of Color.

To learn more about Kellye and her books visit KellyeGarrett.com

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A Sleuth and a Dog Walk Into a Small Town with ACF Bookens

08/31/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:37 — 11.6MB) | Embed

Attention dog lovers who also love mysteries. (Or mystery lovers who also love dogs.)

A few years ago, a dear friend read my romantic mystery and said she liked it, although she got tired of hearing about the dog in the story, which made me laugh. I LOVE DOGS! In fact, I’ve even got a series of children’s middle grade novels where the main character is a dog. So it should be fairly obvious that I’m crazy for dogs and they’re going to crop up in my writing. 😉

ACF Bookens and I are cut from the same cloth that way. She loves dogs too, has one of her own, and in the excerpt from Publishable by Death, the first book in the St. Marin’s cozy series that she reads to us, there are no less than four dogs mentioned. A writer after my own heart.

In the intro I also mention another podcast you might like called Mysteryrat’s Maze. Episodes consist of mystery short stories, and first chapters of mystery novels, read by local actors. To listen to the episodes, and subscribe to the podcast, you can go to mysteryratsmaze.podbean.com, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and more.

This week’s mystery author

ACF Bookens lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with her dog Meander (the fictional Mayhem’s inspiration) and her young son. She loves books almost more than people, and when she’s not chasing a toddler or writing, she appreciates a good cross-stitch pattern and a British murder mystery on TV.

To learn more about ACF Bookens and all her books, visit her website.

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Mysteries in Frontier Canada with Alexandra Amor

08/24/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:34 — 10.1MB) | Embed

100 podcast episodes. Nearly 100 amazing mystery authors.

Mysteries in Frontier Canada with Alexandra Amor

Welcome to episode 100 of It’s a Mystery Podcast. I’m thrilled that we’ve made it to this milestone. 🙂

To celebrate, this week I’m reading from one of my own books, Horse With No Name, a historical mystery set in 1890 in British Columbia. In the intro I discuss what it is about this era that draws me to write about it and where the idea for amateur sleuth and schooleacher Julia Thom came from.

It is a thrill and an honour for me each week to host this show and I plan to continue for a long as I can. I have loved meeting all the authors who have been on the show and it is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to some books you might not have otherwise heard of.

I personally am so grateful to every author who takes the risk of putting their heart and ideas on the page and sharing those things with the world.

Here’s to another 100 episodes!

This week’s mystery author

Alexandra Amor writes mystery novels about love, friendship and the search for truth.

At the moment, she is working on the next book in her Freddie Lark mystery series.

Alexandra began her writing career with an Amazon best-selling, award-winning memoir about ten years she spent in a cult in the 1990s. She has written four animal adventures for middle-grade readers, set on a fictional island in the Salish Sea, several historical mysteries set in 1890 in frontier British Columbia, and a cozy romantic mystery.

To learn more about Alexandra and all her books, visit AlexandraAmor.com

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Fly Fishing, Montana Wilderness, and Murder with Keith McCafferty

08/17/2020 By Alexandra Amor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:59 — 13.9MB) | Embed

The brand new Sean Stranahan mystery is here!

I have been a fan of Keith McCafferty’s since his first book, The Royal Wulff Murders (each mystery in the series is named after a fly fishing tie), so it is a huge thrill for me to have him on the show. We had a great chat about Montana, six-toed cats, mountain lions, book research and more.

If you haven’t read Keith’s Sean Stranahan books, you’re in for a treat! The Bangtail Ghost is book eight in the series and is released on 18 August 2020. The books are all beautifully written, with rich, compelling characters, interesting settings and mysteries.

In the interview, Keith and I mention his son Tom who is a painter and who inspired Sean Stranahan’s work as an artist. You can see Tom’s incredible paintings here on his website and also here at the Cole Gallery in Seattle.

This week’s mystery author

Keith McCafferty is the Survival and Outdoor Skills editor of Field & Stream and the author of eight novels in the Sean Stranahan mystery series, published by Viking/Penguin Books. He is the recipient of the Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Novel, among many other awards. Two of his novels were chosen as Best Reads by Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine.

Keith is a two-time National Magazine Award finalist and the recipient of the Robert Traver Award for angling literature. For years he made a living with his flyrod, writing stories for Field & Stream. A wild bird rescue volunteer, Keith lives with his wife and family, and various feathered friends, in Montana.

To learn more about Keith and all his books visit KeithMcCafferty.com

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