Sarah James is the sleuth in the “Fog Ladies” mysteries. One of the best ways to learn about a person is by asking questions. So, let’s get to know Sarah.

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What is your full name?
Sarah James

How old are you?
Twenty-eight, which is half a century younger than my fellow Fog Ladies.

What is your profession?
I am a medical resident at a hospital in San Francisco, now in my second year of three years of an internal medicine residency.

Do you have a significant other? What is their name and profession?
I recently started to date an incredible man who lives in my apartment building, Andy Middleton. He’s a photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and he’s sweet, laid back, gentle, and handsome to boot. He’s gone off to Asia to photograph elephants, and I hope he’ll be back soon.

Do you have any children?
No, I barely have the boyfriend. But I’m around a little guy all the time, one-year-old Baby Owen. Alma Gordon, an older woman who lives in my building, takes care of an abandoned baby left over from one of the Fog Ladies’ charity activities, waiting for his mother to return. I should explain about the Fog Ladies. They’ve been meeting for more than a decade and growing larger as each woman became a widow. I’m actually the one who named them the Fog Ladies. Frances Noonan told me that you can count on them like you can count on early morning fog. Every morning I hear the weather report on the radio and every morning it is the same—early morning fog burning off by midday. San Francisco weather is a constant you can count on and so are the Fog Ladies. I’m a Fog Lady now, too, invited in as we all grew closer over this past year. Murder does that to you.

Do you have any siblings?
Yes, my brother, Tim, who lives in Washington, DC.

Are your parents nearby?
No, both my parents are dead, which is why I am so grateful to have my brother.

Who is your best friend?
Helen, a fellow medical resident. She and her husband are having a little trouble because Scott is working on his PhD, and they are expecting a baby. Scott will be the sole caretaker and he’s worried he’ll never finish the PhD. I never dreamed that a murder we Fog Ladies are working on could ever endanger Helen and her new family, but unfortunately, that’s what happens.

Do you have any pets?
Not me, but there are plenty in the building to go around, with Frances Noonan’s cat, Camouflage, and Enid Carmichael’s feisty, bitey Bichon Frise, Snowball. Enid Carmichael also mistook a Newfoundland for a trained bear, which is pretty funny. She spied it from that perch of hers above the front door.

What town do you live in?
San Francisco, in the Pacific Heights neighborhood.

Do you live in a small town or a big city?
Big, beautiful city.

Type of dwelling?
I live in a very elegant apartment building, which is how I met all the Fog Ladies. Thank goodness my rent is subsidized by the hospital, because it’s a pricey area.

What is your favorite spot in your home?
Several of the apartments in the building have incredible views of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Mine has a view of the apartment building across the street. So, my favorite place is Frances Noonan’s kitchen table, with her beautiful view and her home-baked goodies.

Favorite meal and dessert?
Anything Mrs. Noonan is cooking. Her molasses cookies, which she hasn’t made since her husband died, are out of this world with their chewiness and spices.

Do you have any hobbies?
No. I’m a medical resident. I don’t have time to even read a book. The last novel I read was on a weekend between rotations when I went to a family resort in Big Sur. That’s when I met the man who supposedly killed his wife with kitchen shears. I don’t believe it and I’m hoping the Fog Ladies can help me prove him innocent.

What is your favorite vacation spot?
Well, I would have said the family resort in Big Sur. I took Alma Gordon, Mr. Glenn and Baby Owen there, and I took Helen and Scott. But I think I’d better stop recommending it, because everyone who goes there ends up dead.

What music do you listen to?
Same as the hobbies question. I’m a medical resident. I spend all my time at the hospital or reading about disease. I’ve never been able to listen to music and study at the same time, so, for now, no music.

Do you have a favorite book?
Ha! Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. I read it every day.

What is your idea of a really fun time?
Andy and I went on a date around Christmas which was perfect. We went to dinner and ice-skating down at the rink at Union Square. Andy had never skated before, even though it was his idea. I held him up the whole time, and we fell so many times I thought we’d end up in the emergency department. The Union Square Christmas tree was taller than the Macy’s building, lighted with so many lights I couldn’t see the tree underneath. One of the hotels had a gingerbread house display, and we went there, too. The perfect date.

If you were to write a memoir, what would you call it?
*** How I Hung Out with Women Three Times my Age, Solved Murders, and Ate Well, All While Becoming a Doctor ***

Amateur or professional sleuth and with whom do you work?
The Fog Ladies are a bunch of old ladies with too much time on their hands, and me, a doctor with no time for sleuthing. We are definitely amateurs.

In a few sentences, what is a typical day in your life like?
I get up before six, get to the hospital around seven, get home around seven, hope Mrs. Noonan sees me and invites me to dinner, eat a lovely meal with her, watching the sunset on the Bay, hear about the Fog Ladies latest suspicions, go home with a doggy bag of lemon squares, read up on patient cases from the day, hope I didn’t miss any diagnoses, and fall asleep by midnight.

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The Fog Ladies: Family Matters is the second book in the “San Francisco Cozy Murder Mystery” series, released October 7, 2020.

Till death do us part, with kitchen shears. What drives a family man to kill his wife? This question haunts Sarah James, a medical resident who meets the unhappy family at a resort near Big Sur. She witnesses how ugly a marriage can be. But murder?

Sarah and the spunky Fog Ladies—elderly neighbors from her San Francisco apartment building—set out to discover the truth. Their probing finds the threat is perilously close to home, endangering another troubled family struggling to survive.

Purchase Link

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About the author
Susan McCormick writes cozy murder mysteries. She is also the author of Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease. She is a doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in Washington, DC and San Francisco, where she lived in an elegant apartment building much like the one in The Fog Ladies: Family Matters. She served nine years in the military before settling in the Pacific Northwest. She is married and has two boys, plus a giant Newfoundland dog..

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