I'm very happy to introduce the first three books in the Barbara O'Grady Mystery series. Featuring artist-turned-investigator Barbara O'Grady, these are urban PI novels set in Vancouver, BC.

             

DEATH OF A SECRET  (Book 1)
A cheating husband. A lying client. A Senator murdered.

Long forgotten scandals and murders erupt with the murder of Senator Ed McMather.

Barbara frantically searches for a serial killer in an investigation with roots deep in the past. Upper-crust Vancouver families reveal dark secrets and the body count rises as Barbara unravels lies within lies and finally reaches the truth. A twisting tale of old secrets, death and treachery.

DEATH OF A THREAT  (Book 2)
Biker gangs. Threatening tenants. Your best friend charged with murder.

What do you do?

Barbara swears to find the killer and clear Andrea's name. With a little help from Nick, the sexy insurance salesman--or is he?--Barbara tracks a killer through an ill-assorted cast of investment bikers, fitness fanatics... and a twelve-year old named Chris, who wants to hire her.


DEATH OF A LOVER  (Book 3)
Barbara has a chance to re-visit that failed career--but does she want to?

Part-time temp Kathleen Marshal is a suspect in the horrific murder of her former lover on a small island in the Gulf of Georgia. Or is she?

Kathleen hires Barbara to clear her name, forcing Barbara to sort out truth from fantasy in Kathleen’s life. And to face some life-changing decisions of her own. Then the killer strikes again, and nothing will ever be the same, for any of them.

All three books are available now in e-book format on Kindle, iPad, Nook, Kobo, Sony and Smashwords.  They will be available in trade paperback in March.

The Lost Mine Murders is now available in Trade Paperback format at Amazon.com.  You'll be able to order from other bookstores, and request it from your  local library, soon.  Stay tuned.

I'm working on next book in the Granville & Emily series - which doesn't yet have a working title. All going well,  it should be available in all formats by the summer.  Here's how it starts:

          Chapter One
            April, 1900

John Lansdowne Granville stared at the letter in his hands as rain battered at the roof above him. “Beware the Ides,” he muttered under his breath. The quote felt apt, even if it was April rather than March.
“What’s that?  Something wrong, Granville?”
He crumpled the heavy white paper in one fist and tossed it across the partner’s desk they shared. “Not a thing.”
“’Cause I got to tell you, the way you look now, you’d scare off a Mama bear looking for her cubs.”
Granville gave a crack of laughter. Truth was, he’d rather face a grizzly than deal with this letter. “We’ve been offered a job.”
Sam Scott eyed the crumpled page. A challenging job would be welcome, but Granville’s expression and the postmark signaled trouble. “In England?”
“Not quite.  The Earl of Dorset has asked us to find his heir.”
“How’d he lose him?”
“Quite deliberately, I assure you. Dorset’s heir is a remittance man.”
“I thought they only paid off younger sons to disappear over here, not the heirs.”
Granville nodded.  “And until a most unfortunate boating accident several months ago, you’d have been right. Apparently the Viscount Portland and his younger brother drowned in unexpectedly rough seas off of Swanage.  Hence the search for George Weston, the new Viscount Portland.”
“Huh. Wonder what young George did that got him sent to the colonies.”
“Whatever it was, all seems to be forgiven.”
“He’s unlikely to have reformed any, not from what I’ve seen of the remittance boys.”
“True enough.”
“But now he’s the heir none of that matters?”
Granville nodded, amused despite his own misgivings by the outrage in Scott’s voice.
“I’ll never understand you English.” Scott glanced at the cramped, spiky handwriting.  “Where’s this Earl send the remittance?”
“Here in Vancouver, care of general delivery.”
“Sounds easy enough. So what’s the catch?”

Any thoughts for a working title?  I have to call it something...

So here, at long last, is the final cover for THE LOST MINE MURDERS, the sequel to THE SILK TRAIN MURDER!



I'm pretty pleased with it.  What do you think?

It's now available in e-book format, with the trade paperback coming in October, 2011.  You can find the e-book on amazon or smashwords.com and it's coming soon to ipad, nook, kobo, sony etc...

The sequel to the Silk Train Murder will be available soon!  (As I breathe a sigh of relief...)  The e-book will be out first; on Kindle, then in other formats, followed by a trade paperback version in late spring.  And in honour of the new publication, we have new covers. See what you think:

For "The Silk Train Murder":

And for "The Lost Mine Murders", either a)





or b)  



Any preferences?

Yup, I've joined the e-book generation!   After some considerable work on my technological skills, I might add.  But I think I've got it - and it's such an amazing feeling, having total control over this kind of publishing.  Not to mention how quickly a book can be available this way. 

So THE SILK TRAIN MURDER is now live on Kindle, for an introductory price of $2.99, here:

www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss

Please let me know what you think!


P.S.  I'm now working on other e-book formats, plus a few other things...  Stay tuned and I'll share the ups and the downs!

Living in the host city for the 2010 Olympic Winter games is the most amazing experience.  Downtown Vancouver is a mass of people all day, every day.  There is such energy and goodwill in the air.  Got caught in a massive peoplejam last night - it was almost impossible to move, but still everyone was in a good mood.  Even singing O Canada at the top of their lungs; the medal ceremonies had just ended - Jon Montgomery receiving the gold for Canada in men's skeleton.  Come to think of it, i've been jostled worse when Christmas shopping!  Here's a taste:

There are people everywhere, day...



and night;




Canadian flags...


and more Canadian flags;


flames.;


smoke and light shows;



and electric polar bears!



Wish everyone could be here for this!

The tulips are out



(did you ever see anything so gorgeous...?)

And so are the cherry trees!




My favourite fact of the week...  Vancouver has more than 10,000 cherry trees.  And more than 1,000 sushi restaurants.  Coincidence?  What do you think...?

 
I was feeling overwhelmed yesterday. It's been a busy three weeks, with too much going on at work, taxes and mortgage coming due, the urgent feeling that I need to de-clutter and organize my life that seems to descend every spring - and through it all, an angst about my current writing project.

I finished the sequel to "The Silk Train Murder" some time ago, and started playing with another mystery series, which I began long before writing Silk Train. This one's a contemporary PI mystery, set in Vancouver and featuring artist-turned-investigator Barbara O'Grady.  In my mind it's always been "The Barbara O'Grady series"  - and I actually have three books written in it.  I've always loved the characters and the stories, so in that "OK, I'm between books, now what?" phase, I picked up Barbara 1 and started re-writing.  It went well for awhile, then I got totally stuck.

With everything else going on, I've stayed stuck - maybe got a few words written or a paragraph changed each morning, but not much else. But yesterday being Saturday, I had a couple of hours free before meeting a friend to walk around Stanley Park - time to get that book unstuck. Not.

As my poet friend Crystal and I walked along the seawall, our discussion ranged from current writing projects through various parts of lives. It was cloudy but warm, and the seawall was thronged with walkers, runners, joggers and bikers. Spring is definitely (finally) here.  We checked out the tulip beds in the rose garden (I loved the beds of hot pink tulips intermixed with forget-me-not and bordered with pink and rose shasta daisies - I'm kicking myself for not bringing my camera)  and had Malaysian food for lunch - an amazing Curry Laksa.  I still couldn't lose that feeling of my head being too full of "stuff".

Then we wandered along Denman; checking out the plants for sale at the corner grocery, an art show at the community centre and then browsing in a bookstore.  I wandered over to the history section and found half a dozen things I wanted to read. Immediately the sense of calm that had eluded me all morning descended. I do love bookstores, and especially when I find books I hadn't heard about.

I finally bought "Once and Future Myths" by Phil Cousineau, who studied with Joseph Campbell.  I was reading it last night, while the rain beat against the windows. He starts by talking about the importance of myths, and stories that resonate at a very deep level, where meaning lies. "Yes!" I say, and settle in with my cup of green tea.  Oh, and when I went back to working on Barbara 1? It came unstuck and started to flow again.