My name is Cameron Chandler, and I’m a private investigator. Granted it’s for a “discount detective” agency located in a suburban mall, but just over a year ago I was an unemployed single mom with no prospects. Now I have a steady job, and although for the most part it involves mundane or tedious takes, occasionally it’s exciting, even a bit scary. I also have two children, also sometimes a bit scary. My son is a pre-teen news junkie, and my daughter is starting on that bumpy ride through adolescence. The three of us share a carriage house with my mother. Since my job can involve nights or even weeks away from home, having my mother handy makes it possible for me, a single mom, to pursue a career as an investigator. But she does it for her grandchildren, not for me. What she does for me is put annoying articles on the shortcomings of single parent families under the goose magnet on my refrigerator.

My day starts with struggling to get myself together while trying to hustle my kids off to school. Why didn’t I choose what to wear the night before? Should I tell my son he needs to find a shirt that isn’t wrinkled? Can I resist telling my daughter to stand up straight? As they leave, I shout to their retreating backs to have a good day. Then I head off to work.

Sometimes I stop for coffee and a pastry on the way, but most days I simply drink the bland office blend and snitch a donut from one of my colleagues, Yuri. Yuri always has donuts or junk food on his desk. I pretend I prefer a healthy diet, but I never hesitate to poach some of his goodies. And when we are on stakeouts together, we never count the empty calories we snack on.

Yuri is not only a mentor and a colleague, but a good friend. He has unruly black hair and thick glasses, is a terrible driver, a relentless tease and becomes obsessed with trivia when he is stressed or bored. Because of him I know about dozens of obscure phobias, can recite any number of bizarre names for animal groups and know the origins of countless odd proverbs. He and my other less quirky colleagues make Penny-wise a great place to work.

In general, the great thing about being an investigator is that you never know what kind of case will come your way. The bad thing is that “you never know what kind of case will come your way.” Some days I end up spending hours doing computer research on this or that. And there are always reports to write up to justify time spent on a project. Then you have the occasional unbalanced client. Routine pursuits for a lost dog or a missing bicycle. Things that the client coulda/shoulda been able to handle on their own. But for whatever reason, they would rather pay someone to do it for them.

Sometimes what initially seems like a no-brainer assignment mushrooms into something formidable, something that challenges my newly acquired investigative and self-defense skills and tests my ability to make good decisions and act quickly in the moment. I love the adrenaline rush of these moments, but I haven’t adjusted to the fact that you can encounter a perilous situation when you least expect it. For example, who would have thought a stakeout to determine who was stealing political signs would end up . . . but wait, I don’t want to spoil it for you. If you want to know what happened that night, you can read about it in Campaigning Can Be Deadly.

Campaigning Can Be Deadly is the second book in the “Discount Detective” mystery series, released September 29, 2020.

When two investigators, Cameron Chandler and Yuri Webster, discover a body next to a pile of stolen signs, what began as a prank becomes a murder investigation. The local candidate for the U.S. Congressional seat gets all of the endorsements, but he can’t compete with the unlimited resources of his opponent. Funded by an east coast family in the oil business, the out-of-state candidate takes the state by storm, marrying the daughter of a local prestigious family and flooding the airwaves with ads, many of them negative. Cameron and Yuri soon find themselves targets in a battle between the local candidate, big oil interests, and anti-big oil activists.

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Meet the author
In a world filled with uncertainty and too little chocolate, Charlotte Stuart has a passion for writing lighthearted mysteries with a pinch of adventure and a dollop of humor. Her first discount detective mystery, Survival Can Be Deadly, was a Foreward INDIES mystery finalist. Why me? Chimeras, Conundrums and Dead Goldfish made the semi-finals for the Chanticleer Murder and Mayhem contest. Charlotte is the VP of the Puget Sound Sisters in Crime.

Visit her website at charlottestuart.com.

All comments are welcomed.