Okay, first of all, everything you’ve heard about me is false.

I’m not a robot. I don’t have two bolts sticking out of my neck. I don’t walk with my arms out in front of me as if I thought I was Superman but forgot to jump up in the air. I’m not made from the corpses of dead murderers.

None of that is true. I’m just a regular woman who runs a small investigation firm in New York City that specializes in helping adopted people locate their birth parents. That’s the whole story.

Okay, so it’s not the whole story.

I’m Fran Stein and I do indeed run K&F Stein Investigations with my brother Ken. (Why his initial comes before mine in the company name is another story for another time.) We have a certain investment in our work because we haven’t actually seen our parents since we were very young, and for years thought they had been killed in a car accident.

Our agency is like most other such private investigation firms, but we are, if I have to be brutally honest, not like other investigators. I mean, we’re human, or at least 98% of us is human. But the rest…

Let’s say that Ken and I weren’t so much born as we were created. And for the time being we can leave it at that.

But you asked about my typical day. As you might imagine, very few of my days are typical. Occasionally (every three or four days) I have to spend an hour with a cord plugged into my left side, just under my armpit, to maintain my energy. And no, a Red Bull would not have the same effect. It’s the one concession Ken and I make to who we are. Without it, wouldn’t be able to function at all, and it’s possible we might die. We’ve never tried to find out.

The advantages are more noticeable to the average bystander. Both my brother and I are unusually tall and we’re strong. I don’t mean like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson strong. I don’t like to brag, but one writer referred to us as “junior superheroes.” Not sure I agree with either of those words exactly, but we’re pretty strong.

But that doesn’t usually come into play for me. I usually get up in the apartment Ken and I share (one flight up from our “Aunt Margie,” and there’s a reason for those quotation marks), get dressed and go to our office just above a Jewish deli on East 25th St. in Manhattan. Our receptionist Igavda, hired by Ken more for her, let’s say decorative value than her efficiency, comes in about a half hour after I do and Ken ambles in whenever the sun rises high enough to shine directly into his bedroom, which on the third floor takes a while.

Most clients are those for whom we can do a decent amount: They want to find one or both birth parents for medical or emotional reasons and they have some general idea of a location to start looking. Usually the difficult part, frankly, is getting the birth parent’s permission to allow contact.

But when Evelyn Bannister sat down in my client’s chair and asked me (and by extension, Ken) to find a rare ukulele she thought would lead to her birth father, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I should have paid attention.

That was not a typical day.

Ukulele of Death, A Fran and Ken Stein Mystery Book #1
Genre: Private Investigator
Release: May 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Meet Fran and Ken Stein – a private investigator duo who refuse to let a little thing like being not entirely human stop them from doing their jobs.

After losing their parents when they were just babies, private investigators Fran and Ken Stein now specialize in helping adoptees find their birth parents. So when a client asks them for help finding her father, with her only clue a rare ukulele, the case is a little weird, sure, but it’s nothing they can’t handle.

But soon Fran and her brother are plunged into a world where nothing makes sense – and not just the fact that a very short (but very cute) NYPD detective keeps trying to take eternal singleton Fran out on dates.

All Fran wants to do is find the ukulele and collect their fee, but it’s hard to keep your focus when you’re stumbling over corpses and receiving messages that suggest your (dead) parents are very much alive.

Ukuleles aside, it’s becoming clear that someone knows something they shouldn’t – that Fran and Ken Stein weren’t so much born, as built . . .

The Ukulele of Death is the first in a new series of light-hearted, paranormal tinged mysteries that are filled with off-beat humor, heart and the wry wisdom that’s E.J. Copperman’s signature style.

About the author
E.J. Copperman’s new novel is Ukulele Of Death, first in the Fran and Ken Stein Mystery series. E.J. also writes the Jersey Girl Legal Mystery series, currently represented by And Justice For Mall and soon to be joined by My Cousin Skinny. When not otherwise occupied, E.J. lives in New Jersey.

All comments are welcomed.