There are plenty of twists and turns in this cozy mystery and judging from the cover–cute shoes! Lesley A. Diehl is visiting us today to answer some questions about her latest mystery, Killer Tied. 

How did you come with the idea for Killer Tied?

Killer Tied is the sixth book in the Eve Appel mysteries from Camel Press. The idea for the book came from asking myself the question, what if a young woman approaches Eve and tells her she is Eve’s sister? But Eve doesn’t have a sister and her parents died in a boating accident when Eve was nine years old. This woman looks like Eve, but her age is such that she would have been born after the parent’s death. If what the woman says is true, then someone had lied to Eve, and it appeared the person who told Eve the lie is her own grandmother, the woman who raised her.

What scene do you hope your readers enjoy the most?

In the scene between Eve and her old friend from college, the reader learns how Eve met her former husband, Jerry and reveals that Eve’s friends old grudge against her continues until today. The friend reveals that she knows more about Eve’s mother than Eve does, and Eve struggles with how she can mend the past and get the friend to allow Eve access to records that might tell Eve if her mother still lives. It is a scene where two sassy women do battle with each other, one trying to hurt the other by hiding the truth and the other, Eve, tries to control her usual bold and snarky approach to unearth the truth. But as Eve says, patience is not something she had yet mastered. The reader hopes Eve will finally discover what she must know about her mother, but college friend is more interested in righting a past injustice than helping Eve uncover her past.

What other things have you written or what projects might we see in the future?

There will be three more Eve Apple mysteries, and I hope to make them a little different from the ones that have gone before. In the seventh book which will be released by Camel Press sometime in the autumn or winter of this year, I bring Eve’s best friend Madeleine’s uncle from Scotland to visit Madeleine and her family. He brings his son, daughter-in-law and grandson with him. The visit should be fun for everyone, but trouble begins when the daughter-in-law runs off the road in the rental car and almost drowns herself in one of the many canals crisscrossing the area. An accident? Perhaps, someone shoots at Madeleine’s uncle and wounds him. Is someone trying to kill him or his family? Eve takes on the case to along with another one and finds herself up to her designer blouse in trouble.

The third book in the Big Lake Murder mysteries will be released this year. Cry Muddy Murder finds Emily Rhodes, retired preschool teacher and present-day bartender at the local country club, participating as a volunteer in a re-enactment of the Battle of Okeechobee. As usual, she stumbles onto a dead body, this one the local principal’s. Set in the Lake Okeechobee, Florida area, Emily and cohorts discover the principal’s past indiscretions may have led to his murder, but the truth is as likely to reside closer to home.

I also write a microbrewing series set in a picturesque river valley in Upstate New York. Hera Knightsbridge owns and operates a microbrewery threatened by drought, hydraulic fracturing, and murder. The other cozy mystery series I write features a college professor as a protagonist. Dr. Laura Murphy finds trouble on her campus with the president’s murder, the pollution of the lake she lives on and the killer antics of a college fraternity. College life is anything but ivory tower academics for Laura.

I also have written a number of short stories featuring Aunt Nozzie and the grandmothers, a family trio of geriatric misfits who just happen to help their niece and granddaughter solve murders. These stories are Thanksgiving themed and appear in Untreed Reads Thanksgiving anthology, The Killer Wore Cranberry, Vols 1-5.

If you could write any other genre what would that be?

My protagonists are more romantic than I, so I know I would be terrible at romance, and without a background in law or criminal justice, I don’t have the expertise to write mystery with a lawyer or cop as protagonist. I might try women’s fiction because I could use a lifetime of experience to create my characters. My background as a psychologist might help.

Is there a giveaway or promotion for this book?

There are several giveaways on this tour.

Where can readers leave reviews of your book?

Please leave them on Amazon with each book there.

 

About the Book

Killer Tied (Eve Appel Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series

You Can Find This Book On Amazon

Eve Appel Egret is adjusting to married life with Sammy and their three adopted sons in Sabal Bay, Florida. While still running her consignment stores, she is going pro with her sleuthing by becoming an apprentice to a private detective.

Until her marriage, Eve’s only “family” was her grandmother Grandy, who raised her after her parents died in a boating accident. Now, in addition to her husband and sons, she has a father-in-law who clearly dislikes her. Sammy’s father, a full-blooded Miccosukee Indian long presumed dead, has emerged from the swamps where he’s been living like a hermit, and he isn’t happy about Eve’s marriage to his half-Miccosukee, half-white son.

As for Eve’s family, are her parents really dead? A woman named Eleanor claims to be Eve’s half-sister, born after her mother faked a boating accident to escape her abusive husband, Eve’s father. Then Eleanor’s father turns up dead in the swamps, stabbed by a Bowie knife belonging to Sammy’s father, Lionel. Strange as Lionel Egret is, Eve knows he had no motive to kill this stranger. In order to clear him, Eve must investigate Eleanor’s claims, and she might not like what digging around in her family’s past uncovers.

About the Author

 

Lesley is a country gal through and through, from her childhood on a dairy farm in Illinois to college in a cornfield in Iowa, Lesley creates sassy, snoopy protagonists who embrace chasing killers in country settings. Lesley writes several series: the Big Lake Murder mysteries and the Eve Appel mysteries both set in rural Florida; the Laura Murphy mysteries located on a lake in upstate New York; and short stories, some featuring a few of Lesley’s unique relatives from back on the farm (Aunt Nozzie and the Grandmothers). She is inspired by an odd set of literary muses: a ghost named Fred and a coyote as yet unnamed. Killer Tied is the sixth mystery in the Eve Appel Mysteries. To read more about Lesley’s unusual and humorous cozy mysteries, go to www.lesleyadiehl.com.

Author Links

Visit her on her website: www.lesleyadiehl.com

Blog: www.lesleyadiehl.com/blog

Twitter: @lesleydiehl

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesley.diehl.1

Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lesley-A-Diehl/522270901254754?fref=ts