Sunday, July 27, 2025
SleuthSayers: Guest Post: What Kind of Relationship Do You Have With Your Writing?
SleuthSayers: Guest Post: What Kind of Relationship Do You Have ...: This month, I'm turning my column over to a guest, Eric Beckstrom . I've been friends with Eric, a talented writer and photographe...
Guest Post: Excerpt from Death at Rock Bottom: The Reluctant Psychic Mystery series by Kris Bock
Please welcome back talented author Kris Bock to the blog today. Back in April, her new series, The Reluctant Psychic Mystery series, launched on 4/28 with A Stone-Cold Murder. She provided an excerpt of the first chapter of that book here. Today she brings us a first chapter excerpt from the upcoming second book in the series, Death at Rock Bottom. Published by Thule Publishing, the read is available in digital format at Amazon and will release Wednesday.
In Reluctantly Psychic Mystery series, a quirky
loner who can read the history of any object with her touch gets drawn into
mysteries at the museum of oddities where she works.
Petra Cloch has the psychic ability of psychometry – she can glimpse
the history of an object by touching it. Powerful emotions leave behind the
strongest vibrations. If Petra touches a watch or ring someone has worn for
years, she can sense the wearer’s personality and what they care about most. If
she touches an object used as a murder weapon, she might sense the emotions of
the killer and the killed – but that doesn’t mean she can identify the killer.
To
save her sanity, Petra avoids close relationships except with her many pets.
She studied geology, because rocks rarely speak to her. Her new job is supposed
to focus on the rocks and minerals wing of a peculiar private museum in a small
southwestern town. But she can’t avoid the echoes of violence all around her.
If she doesn’t want killers to go free, she’ll have to prove there is something
wrong by finding evidence beyond the psychic senses she hides.
Death at Rock Bottom
After
solving the mystery of her predecessor’s death, geologist Petra Cloch wants to
focus on her job as the rocks and minerals curator at a quirky, small town New
Mexico museum. But her friend and colleague Liberty is suspicious of the
supposedly accidental death of Frank Underwood, a retired petroleum engineer
and rockhound who died while hiking. Frank acted odd in his last weeks, talking
about something incredible he found in the desert and whispering about aliens.
Was he showing the first signs of dementia, or were more sinister forces at
work?
Petra
wants to help Liberty uncover the truth, and before long their book club has
somehow become a crime-fighting club. Petra uses her gift and her brains to
fight through the confusing and contradictory clues along with her newfound
family, but has someone gotten a taste for murder?
Death at Rock Bottom excerpt from Chapter 1
Every rock has a story, but most people don’t know how to read
them.
I hear their stories even when I don’t want to.
Liberty, my friend and colleague at the Banditt Museum, unlocked a
display case where a hundred or so arrow and spear tips were displayed. “I’ve
tried to identify these based on styles, but a lot of them were collected
decades ago by people who didn’t keep a record of where the items were found.”
A bigger museum would probably reject any donations without
provenance, but the founder and owner of ours, Peyton Banditt, was like one of
those Storage Wars dealers who’d buy the contents of a whole storage
unit sight unseen hoping one box might hold something valuable. Only instead of
then trying to sell the good stuff and dump the rest, Peyton crammed it all
into the museum.
I looked at one of the larger spearheads, made of dark
reddish-brown stone. The blade had rippled sides leading to a pointed tip. My
bachelor’s in geology did not mean I could identify every rock and mineral by
sight, but that was chert, common in the Southwest and often used in projectile
points. I laid my fingers over the spearhead and settled into the image. I was
up on a mesa, looking out over the landscape as I knapped the stone, flaking
pieces off the edges to get it sharp and shaped properly for smooth flight.
I opened my eyes and cleared my throat. “Authentic.”
“Are you all right?” Liberty asked.
“It was a lovely scene. Peaceful.” The man working the spear tip
knew who he was, how he fit in with his tribe, what the world meant. Must be
nice.
On the other hand, I had running water and was much less likely to
be killed by a wild animal or dysentery.
Liberty flipped the spearhead over, checked the catalog number,
and made some notes as I thought about what I’d learned. My interest was less
in the items in front of us and more in how I could read their stories safely.
When I hold an object that spent time in human hands, I pick up emotional
echoes of the past, residue left behind by the people who used or wore or loved
the item.
That sounds cooler than it is. I spent my childhood pushed around
by people who wanted to use my talent for their benefit, and most of my
adulthood hiding the skill. But then I got a job at an odd little museum in a
small New Mexico town, picked up a cluster of fluorite crystals while cleaning
my new office, and discovered a murder weapon. Trying to figure out what to do
about that led me to a conclusion: I might not always like my gift, but
it’s better to know how to use it.
Now Liberty was helping me experiment. She was the only one at the
museum who knew I could pick up echoes of the past through psychometry. I
wasn’t in a hurry to tell anyone else.
Liberty straightened, turning her head slightly. “Someone’s
coming.” The museum was a maze of rooms and hallways connecting in odd ways, so
we couldn’t see past the dogleg turn in this hallway, but we could hear the tap
tap of heels coming toward us.
I stepped back from the display case, instinctively distancing
myself from objects I’d been reading. Liberty closed and locked the case.
A woman I didn’t know swung around the corner and jerked to a
stop. She scowled at Liberty. “There you are.”
“Hello, Vanessa,” Liberty said. “You were looking for me?”
“Obviously.” She crossed her arms and tapped her toe on the floor.
She was thirty-five or forty, with carefully styled auburn hair. She wore a
black suit that managed to look businesslike and sexy at the same time, with
its short skirt and the white blouse with the top three buttons undone. She
looked like someone I’d expect to see on TV rather than in a small town in New
Mexico, where most people wore shorts and T-shirts at this time of year.
Liberty glanced at me. “This is Petra, our newest curator. Petra,
this is Vanessa Underwood.”
Vanessa flicked a glance my way and dismissed me as irrelevant. “I
want to see the rock Frank gave you.”
I looked at Liberty to see if that made any sense to her.
She appeared equally baffled. “What rock?”
Vanessa’s chin jutted forward. “Frank said he brought the rock to
the museum.”
Liberty shook her head. “If he donated a rock, I assume that would
have gone to the rocks and minerals wing. That’s Petra’s area now, but she’s
only been here two months.”
Vanessa kept staring at Liberty. “This would’ve been in the last
few weeks. And he’d bring it to you.”
“Sorry, I can’t help you.” Liberty added dryly, “But I am sorry
for your loss.”
Vanessa blinked a couple of times. “Yes. Thank you. It’s hard.
Obviously.”
“Frank was a good man,” Liberty said.
Vanessa looked sideways and down. “He was—in his way. But he was
acting awfully odd lately. You know how he was.”
Liberty made a noncommittal humming sound.
Vanessa looked straight at me for the first time. “My husband
decided to believe in aliens.”
“Oh?” I didn’t know what else to say.
“He was really strange lately,” Vanessa went on. “He claimed he
had to escape aliens during one of his rambles in the desert. The next day he
barely remembered anything about it. But he kept going out looking, and—Liberty
can tell you that part.” She gave Liberty another dirty look. “And he said he
brought the rock here—the one the aliens wanted or something. I need to know …”
Liberty gave a little shrug. “I swear I don’t know anything about
that rock. But you probably shouldn’t claim Frank was crazy for believing in
aliens if you’re going to demand the thing that proved he was right.”
“He wasn’t—I think he was getting dementia or something. But I
still want to see that rock. It was … important to him, so I want to make sure
… It should be displayed in his memory.” She looked from Liberty to me. I had
the feeling she was checking whether we bought her story. When we didn’t
respond, she glared. “You better not try to keep it for yourself, or I’ll—I’ll
sue.” Her voice rose on those last words. She swung away and strode off, the tap
tap of her heels fading after she was out of sight.
Finally I said, “That was strange.”
Liberty let out a little huff of laughter. “Which part?”
“All of it, and I have a pretty high bar for strange. Who’s
Frank?”
“He was a petroleum engineer before he retired. Then he got
interested in alien life, but not like how Vanessa made it sound. He was
involved with SETI—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It was started
by NASA, and lots of scientists volunteer with it. They’re looking for evidence
of intelligent life on other planets, but that means things like listening for
signals in space. Frank didn’t believe in alien abductions, as far as I know.”
“So this rock …” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
Liberty spread her hands. “I have no idea. I certainly can’t
imagine it had anything to do with an alleged alien abduction.”
“And Vanessa was Frank’s …”
“Wife. His second wife. They married about five years ago.”
I frowned over that. “I guess grief affects people in strange
ways.”
“Yeah. If it is grief.”
“You don’t like Vanessa.” It didn’t take psychic powers to realize
that.
“No. I’ve always thought she married Frank for his money.”
“How did he die?” I asked.
“About a week ago, Vanessa reported him missing. Search parties
went out and eventually found him in the desert. He’d been dead for almost a
day. The theory is that he got dehydrated and lost. Extreme dehydration can
interfere with one’s ability to think clearly. It can happen even to young,
healthy people. Frank was in his late sixties.”
“That’s tragic, regardless of how it happened.”
“It’s possible he had dementia, but I never saw any sign of it. It
would’ve had to get bad fast to make him behave that oddly now.” She spoke
slowly, as if figuring out her thoughts as she said them. “When I heard he’d
died, I was shocked, and sad, because he was in great shape—he hiked all the
time—and he should’ve had years left. It never occurred to me to wonder …”
“About aliens?” I asked cautiously.
She laughed. “No. I’m quite certain life exists elsewhere in the
universe. There are two trillion galaxies, each with billions of stars. It’s
egotistical to think we’re the only place with life. That doesn’t mean I think
little green men kidnap people and probe them.
I nodded, relieved. I had to believe in paranormal powers, since I
had one, but I placed alien abductions alongside folktales about werewolves and
unicorns, in the category of highly unlikely.
“No,” Liberty said, “I’m wondering about foul play of the human
variety.”
Learn more The Reluctant
Psychic Mystery series or order
copies.
Available in ebook and print at all major retailers.
Amazon
Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/44U5PFy
Kris Bock©2025
Kris
Bock writes adult mystery, suspense, and romance novels, many with outdoor
adventures and Southwestern landscapes as well as other books. Learn more at www.krisbock.com.
Saturday, July 26, 2025
KRL Update 7/26/2025
Up on KRL this week reviews and giveaways of 2 mysteries featuring pets-"Dogged Pursuit" by David Rosenfelt and "A Purrfect Date" by Alex Erickson https://kingsriverlife.com/07/26/a-pair-of-pet-mysteries-by-david-rosenfelt-alex-erickson/
And a review and giveaway of "Murder at the High School Reunion" by Lee Hollis https://kingsriverlife.com/07/26/murder-at-the-high-school-reunion-by-lee-hollis/
And a review and ebook giveaway of "Murder on U.S. Rte. 116" by DonnaRae Menard, along with an interesting interview with DonnaRae https://kingsriverlife.com/07/26/murder-on-u-s-rte-116-by-donnarae-menard/
We also have the latest Queer Mystery Coming Attractions from Matt Lubbers-Moore https://kingsriverlife.com/07/26/queer-mystery-coming-attractions-august-2025/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week we have a review and giveaway of "A Wicket of Lies" by Victoria Tait https://www.krlnews.com/2025/07/a-wicket-of-lies-by-victoria-tait.html
And a review and ebook giveaway of "A Plattering of Murder" by JC Eaton https://www.krlnews.com/2025/07/a-plattering-of-murder-by-j-c-eaton.html
And a review and giveaway of "Someone Is Out There" by Kaye George https://www.krlnews.com/2025/07/someone-is-out-there-by-kaye-george.html
Happy reading,
Lorie
Mystery Fanfare: CODE OF SILENCE: New British crime series
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Bitter Tea and Mystery: Spell the Month in Books — July 2025
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Spell the Month in Books — July 2025: Spell the Month in Books is a monthly meme hosted by Jana at Reviews from the Stacks . The link up post is posted on the first Saturday of ...
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkin...: Reviewed by Jeanne Monique Grant is working for Vivant magazine, hoping to make a name for herself as a reporter when the incredible ...
Scott's Take: West Coast Avengers Vol. 1: The Gospel of Ultron by Gerry Duggan, Danny Kim (Artist), Arthur Hesli (Colorist), and others
West Coast Avengers Vol. 1: The Gospel
of Ultron by Gerry Duggan, Danny Kim (Artist),
Arthur Hesli (Colorist), and others, collects the first five issues of the
series and comes out July 22nd. This series will only be two volumes. Unfortunately,
before the trade is even released, they have cancelled this series citing low
sales. Obviously it is not being given a second chance with readers with the
trade since why would people buy the first volume of a killed series?
This series sees a new team of West Coast Avengers
(basically California Avengers) attempting to reform villains. One of the
biggest recruits to this program is Ultron. Ultron has spread himself into
separate programs to prove which way is superior. There is a good Ultron who
has joined the Avengers, an evangelistic one who has founded a church dedicated
to turning humans into robots, and there are other Ultrons. Also, Hydra Cap is
back….
The team consists of Spider-Woman, War Machine, Iron
Man, Firestar, and Blue Bolt. Iron Man is his usual funny self and I enjoyed
his presence. Firestar has one of the most compelling story arcs as her time as
a double agent for the X-men has led to her have an alcohol problem and a
severe hatred of all robots.
The rest of the characters get some moments, but
they did not stick in my mind as I read this as it released through the Marvel Unlimited app. The art was
above average and worked for this book.
The ending, which is a setup for the second volume is rather abrupt.
The second volume titled, War of Ultron, should release December 2025. I liked this series, but I did not like Akerman’s Iron Man which had two relaunches in ten issues. It seems Iron Man is going to be reset with a new status quo which is another reason this series is being killed.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4kBRBz0
I read this through the Marvel Unlimited app.
Scott A. Tipple ©2025
Friday, July 25, 2025
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 36 Writing Contests in August 2025 - No entry fees
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 36 Writing Contests in August 2025 - No entry fees: This August there are three dozen free writing contests for short fiction, novels, poetry, CNF, nonfiction, and plays. Prizes range from $20...
Paula Messina Reviews: Champagne for One by Paula Messina
Please
welcome back Paula Messina to the blog today…
Champagne for One
by Paula Messina
When
an acquaintance with a bad cold asks Archie Goodwin to take his place at an
annual charity dinner for unwed mothers, the private detective agrees. After
all, it might be fun. So begins Rex Stout’s Champagne for One.
Fans
of Stout’s Nero Wolfe know the fun won’t last long. When Archie’s around, the
Grim Reaper is tagging along.
Sure
enough, Faith Usher collapses and dies after drinking a glass of champagne.
Everyone
in attendance, even the butler, is one hundred and fifty percent positive that
Faith committed suicide. Her habit of keeping a vial of cyanide in her purse
was widely known, and Faith had frequently voiced her intention to ingest the
poison. Besides, witnesses insist no one tampered with the champagne. Even
Inspector Cramer is convinced Faith died at her own hand. Case closed.
Archie
pipes up. Not so fast. Faith Usher didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.
His
proof? His eyes. Shortly before Faith’s demise, one of the other honored
guests, worried Faith would harm herself, warned Archie about the cyanide’s
whereabouts. Archie kept an eye peeled on the purse in question while closely
monitoring Faith’s every move. He knows what he saw and what he didn’t
see—Faith never went near the purse and couldn’t have laced the champagne with
cyanide. Ergo, Faith was murdered.
Before
Nero Wolfe can ring for beer, Edwin Laidlaw, one of the gentlemen who attended
the deadly dinner, arrives to plead that Wolfe uncover the murderer. Faith in
Archie’s accurate memory and a hefty retainer convince Wolfe to take on the
case. The game’s afoot.
Goodwin
can assert in the affirmative that Faith was murdered, but he can also prove no
one tampered with Faith’s last glass of champagne. Archie is frustrated. Wolfe
is stumped. How did the murderer taint the bubbly?
Wolfe,
genius that he is, gathers everyone who attended at the party in his office,
and…. No spoiler alert here. I’m not
telling. You’ll have to read Champagne for One to learn the killer’s
identity.
Nero
Wolfe and Archie Goodwin remain among the most popular figures in the pantheon
of mystery fiction. The stories still feel fresh. Archie is always witty and
Nero Wolfe perennially grouchy. Wolfe and Goodwin appear in several TV series,
including one set in Rome and starring Francesco Pannofino as Wolfe and Pietro
Sermonti as Archie.
In
2000, Nero Wolfe was a finalist for the Series of the Century Award at
Bouchercon XXXI, and Rex Stout was a finalist for the Writer of the Century
Award. To no one’s surprise, Agatha Christie snagged both awards. Well, she
would have snagged them if she’d still been around. The Mystery Writers of
America presented Stout with the Grand Master Awards in 1959. Rex Stout, who
was as thin as Nero Wolfe was fat, was inducted into the Short Mystery Fiction
Society Hall of Fame in 2024.
Amazon Associate Purchase
Link: https://amzn.to/46EiW05
Paula Messina ©2025
Paula
Messina lives within spitting distance of the Atlantic. When she isn’t reading
about Archie Goodwin’s adventures, she’s writing fiction, make that historical,
contemporary, and humorous fiction.
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