On this mild August morning, too beautiful to believe, I’m standing outside in the front of our little colonial placed in a Currier and Ives New England setting. I’m waiting for Lillian, my mother-in-law, to drive up the pebble and dirt driveway of Peaceable Kingdom, our nine-acre farm and animal preserve. My three-month-old cradled in my arms smells like heaven. She’s gazing up at me with her warm brown eyes that are just like her dad’s.
I stare across our farm to the east, the back pasture, where our two sheep, our goat and our seven dogs are roaming; all rescued animals. The tomato garden is around back, and the fragrance from the summer ripened tomatoes with their thick juicy vines, and the steaming mulch wafts through the air like a heavenly scent blessing the moment.
I put my cheek to Leonora’s soft baby cheek, she’s my one and only since I’m forty-seven, you see. So, she’s my miracle baby. Did I mention that Jerry, my husband, is eleven years younger than I?
I don’t make things easy for myself do I?
But perhaps that’s why everything seems so perfect. Jerry and I found love later in life and our shared values and beliefs made the age difference disappear. Our love seemed like a storybook romance, and now we have Leonora.
We live in Wilton, Connecticut where Jerry’s is a police detective. So, while it’s peaceful now, everything can change in a few seconds. Then, very undeservedly, I’m thought of as a sort of local hero for my expose’s written when I was a reporter for a town weekly and then a Norwalk daily. While investigating the couple of criminal cases I wrote about, I was forced to be a bit of an amateur sleuth and did, with Jerry’s help, assist in solving the crimes. The town’s people, however, give me full credit as if the police had nothing to do with it.
So, when in trouble, people have shown up to ask for my help. I was glad to do it when I was a reporter, but now I hug Leonora even closer afraid of losing time with her for any reason.
We can hear Lillian driving up the driveway, the gravel scraping under the car’s wheels. I continue to take-in the sweet farm air as I hold my baby to me in my new-found motherhood bliss, putting the moment to memory. I don’t want to leave her even to go to shopping. She’s in her little pink pinafore-her tiny shoulders-a thing to behold, and I grasp at this rarified moment.
You can read more about Carol in Keys To Nowhere, the third book in the “Carol Rossi” mystery series.
A Tucson vacation morphs into terror when two teenage girls and their aunt vanish. The desperate parents turn to their friend and Connecticut investigative journalist Carol Rossi. Rossi has no choice but to leave her infant daughter, her police detective husband, and her farm animals to lead the hunt through the desert. It’s 1985 and Rossi is chasing down a new kind of danger: the serial killer.
When the Tucson police aren’t interested in her theories, Rossi acts alone before the killer can strike again.
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About the author
Dorothy Hayes, a staff writer for local Connecticut newspapers for five years, received and honorary award for her 
in-depth series on Vietnam Veterans from the Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to that she was a Language Arts teacher. A staff writer for a national animal protection organization, for six years, she wrote her first novel, Animal Instinct, in 2006. Dorothy lives in Stamford, Connecticut with her husband, Arthur. She also raised four children, and is the mother-in-law to three, grandmother to fourteen and great-grandmother to Bella.
Her other books in the Carol Rossi Mystery Series are: Murder at the P&Z, 2013 and Broken Window, 2015. Her short story, Back from the War, was published by Mysterical-E, December 2016.
She is a member of Sisters-in-Crime-Tri-State Chapter, and Mystery Writers of American. Visit her at dorothyhayes.com.
All comments are welcomed.
Giveaway: Leave a comment below for your chance to win a print copy of Keys to Nowhere. US entries only, please. The giveaway ends March 24, 2017. Good luck everyone!
Keys to Nowhere is available at retail and online booksellers.
This is a new author to me. I’d love to win and read her book!
Hi Linda, Keys to Nowhere is the third mystery in the Carol Rossi Mystery Series. So if you like this one there are two more books to read. Thanks for the comment.
This busy author is new to me, and I wish her well with her writing and I hoe that we will be able to read more from her.
Hey, Pauline, I’m working on that. There are two other books in the Carol Rossi Mystery Series, at the moment, however. Thanks for the comment.
Having two rescue dogs, I will relate to this setting. Thanks!
Hi Donna, your dogs are so lucky. Thanks for the comment.
Hi Dru, Happy Sunday to you. I’d love to be your lucky winner of this cozy. It certainly looks like an interesting read.
Just reading that excerpt evokes a lot of feelings and memories! I can’t imagine leaving her idyllic setting either! This is a new series for me and I will have to read the first 2 books right away. Thanks Dru Ann for introducing me to the series. Thanks Dorothy for the chance to win a copy! <3
Barbara, the mysteries all stand alone, I do refer to the others, however, in Keys to Nowhere. Reading Murder at the P&Z and Broken Window will give you more insight into Rossi, but Rossi makes friends with most readers in a hurry in all three books.
Another new-to-me author to try. Sounds interesting. Thanks for a chance to win a copy.
Thanks for the chance. This book sounds interesting.
What a perfect setting! I think I’ll have to try this new author. Thanks for a chance to win the book.
suefarrell.farrell@gmail.com
Since the setting for the story is pretty local to us I think we’d enjoy the book a lot. Thanks for the chance to win a copy.
Keys to Nowhere sounds like a great book, and I’d love to win a copy! Thanks so much for the giveaway!
Sounds like a series & author I need to read.
The setting and the plot really pulled me in. Thanks for sharing!
This is another new author to me and I really like the description of the book and I’m looking forward to reading to reading.
Sounds like a winner.
Thanks all for your comments. Thank you, Dru, for the exposure you offer authors.
What a great sounding series. Thank you for introducing us to this author/series.
I like the first person point of view that sounds so natural.
Looks like a really great read. On my TBR. With a hundred others Dru has introduced me to. So grateful. Grateful to Lina Langford to cluing me in to this site
Oh cool! A new to me author and series. Sounds right up my alley. Just ordered books 1 and 2
Johanna, hope you enjoy the stories, all three mysteries are adventures. Right now the price is right for they are all on sale in the ebook copies for $1.99.
**** WINNER ****
of Keys to Nowhere is Johnna Smith
Congratulations!