Jairus Twombly's familial intuition is faltering and his new personal assistant seems to be trying to replace his wife, Amy.
On the Twombly College campus, someone is breaking into the dorm rooms of female students leaving things instead of taking things: red colored objects including a red golf ball, a red ribbon and a tiny red stuffed dog.
When a recipient of some of the red objects goes missing and is returned after being told, "You're not her", and the personal assistant turns up dead with Amy Twombly's elegant Bloodwood crochet hook in her eye, things heat up for Emory Crawford and her chemist and forensic scientist husband, Dr. Jebbin Crawford.
Emory, along with the Twombly's Nancy Drew-like daughter, Madison, once more turns to her amateur detective skills and intuition to solve the mysteries.
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Excerpt
“Get it out! Get it out! Get it out!”
Amy was screaming the words over and over, hands held to either side of her face like Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.”
There was a body on the floor at the far end of the table on my side. I heard doors sliding. I swung my head to look at the doors into the main hall.
“What on earth is . . .”
“Iga,” I yelled to be heard above Amy’s hysterics. “Get Amy and Madison out of here, now!”
I heard her rounding up the two Twomblys and taking them somewhere else. My attention was on the body on the floor.
A couple of steps closer and I could see what Amy was screaming about. There lay the display pedestal surrounded by mangled flowers and a porcelain vase in shards, some of which were resting in the blood on the floor as it bled into the water the flowers had been in. Despite knowing there had been an argument in here a short while before, despite the overturned furniture and broken vase that could have been knocked over for a very different reason than the one Amy gave us, even though Amy’s bloodwood crochet hook was protruding from Resie’s left eye, I knew with every shiver running through my soul that Amy hadn’t done this. And, since Resie wasn’t writhing in agony, I also knew she was dead.
Pearl R. Meaker Trivia
1) My current relationship is: Married - to the same great guy for 40 years in Feb. 2016
(Yes, I’m an older type person. ;-) )
2) Where I’d like to be in 10 years. Alive and in relatively good health. Hehehe Where I
live now will be just fine location wise. Have a new Emory Crawford book out each
year.
3) My zodiac sign is Virgo, but sorta Libra too. I’m on the cusp between the two and have
qualities of both.
4) First 10 songs that came up when I put my iPod on shuffle:
You Can Have Her - River Ramblers (bluegrass) My fave regional bluegrass band.
Give Me More - Apartment 26
Then I Met You - The Proclaimers
Way Down South - Hamilton County Bluegrass Band (from New Zealand)
Frosty The Snowman - Spike Jones
Hold On - Tim O’Brien (folk music)
Past Three O’clock - James Galway (and a chorus)
Drifting With the Tide - River Ramblers
Winter Wonder - The Florin Street Band (instrumental version)
Bus Stop - The Hollies
5) I take my camera with me most of the time, always when I take a walk outside. I love to
take photos. I used to be in a camera club and entered photos into competitions.
I once took photos of the classiest composting outhouse I think I’ll ever see.
It has vinyl flooring, is heated and air conditioned, has running water for the
upscale sink and has a door with a fancy beveled glass half-circle window at the top.
6) My first job was answering the phone, keeping track of the keys for the cars, and paging
salesmen at a large car dealership in Dearborn Michigan.
7) My first car was a black 1967 VW Beetle. My current car is a red 2004 VW New Beetle.
8) I’m 5 ft. 1 in. tall. I weigh . . . 60 lbs. more than I wish I did. I have grey-blond-brown
hair. Hazel (green-brown) eyes. I have two regular piercings in each ear. I have two
tattoos: a tiny rose bud and J.R.R. Tolkien’s monogram. I wear glasses.
9) My favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip. I am a chocolate lover. My favorite non
sweet snack is potato chips with French onion dip.
10) I have two earliest memories because I really don’t know which happened first, I do
know my mother was surprised that I remembered them at all because I was
two-years-old or less when the events happened.
I was at a funeral of a distant relative who I didn’t know and it bothered me that
his skin looked so yellow and like paper. That same day we walked on the beach
of Lake Erie, which was badly polluted at the time, and there were dead fish
everywhere. (I think the two dead things in one day, the man and the fish, were part
of why this stuck in my mind.)
I was at a park near where my Dad’s parents lived and I was running past a
wishing well - the kind with a little roof over a cylindrical stone well that had a
bucket. The wood frame of the roof was painted red and I felt free and happy as I
was running down the path.
11) My favorite movie is a tough question as I like a good many movies, but, one that
ties in well with my being an author is “Stranger Than Fiction.” It is a story about
an author who somehow is writing a real man’s life without knowing he’s real until
nearly at the end of the book - he is living it as she writes it and can hear her
thinking it as she’s writing - and the way she had envisioned the story he dies at the
end. It is funny, thoughtful, sad and happy. Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma
Thompson, Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman.
12) A problem that I’ve had.
I’m my own worst enemy and I’m amazed that I’ve accomplished all that I’ve
accomplished. I have battled depression, poor self image and ADD/ADHD my
whole life. But somehow, I keep hanging in there and have really done well in many
areas of my life in spite of it. It has helped having a husband, 2 kids and many
friends that have encouraged me along the way.
Pearl R. Meaker is an upper-middle-aged, short, pudgy homemaker, mother, and grandmother who in 2002 became a writer. Initially writing fanfiction she soon tried original fiction at the encouragement of her regular readers. She has been a life-long lover of mystery stories and automatically went to that genre for her first book, The Devil’s Music. She and her husband of nearly 40 years live in central Illinois. They both love bluegrass music, playing fiddle and banjo and singing. Pearl also does many crafts – when she’s not reading or writing - knitting, crochet, origami, needlepoint, and cross-stitch among them. She also enjoys birding and photography and is a former fencer.
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Giveaway
Pearl R. Meaker will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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