Things have been different since my husband died, returning (as I thought) from saving lives at one of our local hospitals. Of course I was in mourning, but it was a mourning cut short when I learned he’d been unfaithful to me.
Even learning the circumstances surrounding his choice of inamorata didn’t change the way I felt about things. He really was dead to me.
But at least, I told myself, I had my work. I was a successful crime writer, depending on how you define “successful.” For most of us, it’s a constantly moving target. But my fictional sleuth lived in a land where I could only daydream of living, the south of France. And she had adventures, including romantic ones, I could only dream of having.
Then one day, my neighbors disappeared. It’s a wealthy neighborhood, Old Town, and people disappearing for travel for weeks on end is not unheard of. But these two had a child and to all appearances the child was unaccounted for. This fed right into my need to be useful combined with my sudden need not to sit at a desk all day writing. I wanted to be out there, even in the face of stern warnings from the detective assigned to the case. Could I help it I was good at this detecting stuff?
Augusta Hawke, An Augusta Hawke Mystery #1
Genre: Traditional
Release: July 2022
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Sometimes it’s safer not to know your neighbors’ secrets.
Where are Niko and Zora Norman? Crime writer Augusta Hawke puts her sleuthing skills to the test to solve the mystery of her disappearing neighbors in the first entry in a new series.
While Augusta Hawke is a successful author of eighteen crime novels, since her husband’s death she’s been living vicariously through her Jules Maigret-like detective Claude and his assistant Caroline. Then a handsome police detective appears investigating a real-life mystery.
Where are her neighbors, the Normans? No one has a clue what’s happened – except Augusta. Although she isn’t nosy, spending all day staring out the windows for inspiration means she does notice things. Like the Normans arguing. And that they’ve been missing a week.
Once the Normans’ car is found abandoned, Augusta senses material for a bestseller and calls on the investigatory skills she’s developed as a crime writer. But she soon uncovers long-hidden secrets and finds herself facing real-life dangers her characters never faced . . . ones she can’t write her way out of.
About the author
G.M. Malliet’s first DCI St. Just mystery won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. The series was later nominated for Anthony, Macavity, and Left Coast Crime awards. Along with St. Just, her two other series characters will continue their adventures in 2023. Three of her short stories recently placed in EQMM’s Readers Choice Award and her novella, “A Murder at Morehead Mews,” was nominated for a Derringer.
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