Meet Kate Jasper, Marin County, California’s own, organically grown, amateur sleuth.

In Jaqueline Girdner’s first Kate Jasper novel, Adjusted to Death, the heroine plunges into her career when she visits her chiropractor for a simple spinal adjustment, but instead finds a dead man on one of the tables…dead of a broken neck. And it seems everyone in the chiropractor’s office knew the victim, Scott Younger, in one way or another, except for Kate herself. Maggie, Kate’s friend and chiropractor, has known Scott for years, as has her staff. Her receptionist, Renee, even dated him. Devi knew Scott from college. Guru-follower, Valerie, accuses Scott of being a drug pusher! And Wayne, Scott’s now unnecessary bodyguard, a shy, homely man who almost makes Kate forget her husband has left her, knew him the best of all. But Kate can’t forget murder, especially since Wayne is the main suspect. And there’s the pesky matter of Kate’s fingerprints on the metal bar that broke Scott Younger’s neck. Kate Jasper’s in for a spine-tingling, bone-chilling adventure.

The Kate Jasper novels have been in e-book format for a while but now you can snuggle up with paperback editions. For a complete listing, click here. And read the author’s fascinating dossier on her heroine. Researching real people is hard enough, but researching your own fictional ones – that takes some clever doing!

RC

Permed to Death introduces sassy salon owner Marla Shore, and what an introduction it is! Here’s Marla giving grumpy Mrs. Kravitz a perm when the old lady croaks in the shampoo chair. If that isn’t enough to give her a bad hair day, handsome Detective Vail suspects Marla of poisoning the woman’s coffee creamer! Figuring she’d better expose the real killer before the next victim frizzes out, Marla sets on the trail of a wave of wacky suspects.

Looks like Marla’s heading for a bad hair day, but you’re heading for some delicious reading as E-Reads publishes nine delightful whodunnits in the Bad Hair Day series by one of America’s most beloved women’s novelists. The rave reviews will absolutely curl your hair. Oops! Bad hair pun. The thrills will stand your hair up on end. Um, no, not that one either. Well, read all nine books and see how many plays on words you can make up. E-Reads offers them both as e-books and paperbacks.

Read the first chapter of Permed to Death.

RC
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PRAISE FOR PERMED TO DEATH

Sun-Sentinel: “…an amusing tale, buoyed by a likable amateur sleuth and enhanced by the South Florida atmosphere.”

I Love a Mystery: “PERMED TO DEATH is a beauty of a read. The characters are believable,
the mystery is well-plotted, and the suspense is a real manicure ruiner.”

Kirkus Reviews: “…a plot with more tangles than an uncombed perm…”

Mysterious Women: “…a fascinating story, with intriguing, sometimes quirky characters, a touch of humor,
a hint of romantic possibilities, and a look at a profession we don’t often see in mysteries.”

GO Riverwalk Magazine: “Cohen fills her book not only with a close look at the South Florida scene, but a rash of well delineated murders, which keeps the reader’s attention right to the end.”

Murder on Miami Beach: “A pleasing and interesting cozy that will keep you entertained all evening…The atmosphere is definitely South Florida, the heat, the crazy drivers, the Santeria, but with none of the Miami overtones.”

Under the Covers: “PERMED TO DEATH is propelled by strong characters set in a plot full of interesting kinks.” (Highly recommended)

Cozies, Capers, & Crimes: “…a funny, suspenseful story…PERMED TO DEATH is a good book to start reading while waiting at your favorite salon for your hair appointment. Just the title alone, ought to get you great service.”

MyShelf.com: “Nancy Cohen has styled a novel that is to curl up and die for. A permanent solution to the doldrums.”

The Mystery Reader: “…exceptionally clever, amusing, and lively…”

Crescent Blues: “Cohen captures Marla’s voice perfectly and makes the Cut ‘N Dye salon so real
I could swear I’ve sat in its chairs.”

About.com: “Even if you don’t like your current hairstyle, you will love PERMED TO DEATH.”

BookBrowser: “PERMED TO DEATH is an entertaining amateur sleuth tale that sub-genre fans will fully enjoy.”

Southern Scribe: “…a nail-biting adventure, so schedule a manicure. PERMED TO DEATH is a witty and a well-crafted mystery that will have you guessing till the intense end.”

Romantic Times: “…a nicely woven story…” (4 stars)

Fort Myers Life Magazine: “This is a very successful mystery in a new series.”

In an age of young superheroes, a 72 year old Laotian coroner is not at first glance the most promising selection for protagonist of a mystery series. That’s why Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri Paiboun deserves a second glance, and believe me, that’s all you’ll need to fall in love with one of the most engaging characters in the mystery field today.

E-Reads has just released e-books of the first two volumes in the series, The Coroner’s Lunch and Thirty-Three Teeth, and there are more to come. If you have a taste for faraway settings, they just don’t come more exotic than Colin Cotterill’s.

In The Coroner’s Lunch, Dr. Siri, one of the last doctors left in Laos after the Communist takeover, has been drafted to be national coroner. He is untrained for the job, but this independent 72-year-old has an outstanding qualification for it: curiosity. He has survived thirty years as a revolutionary and doesn’t mind incurring the wrath of the Party hierarchy as he unravels mysterious murders, because the spirits of the dead are on his side. When he performs an autopsy on the wife of a government official and on an unidentified body fished out of the river, it’s clear that all is not calm in the new Communist paradise of Laos.

In Thirty-Three Teeth, Dr. Siri investigates a series of deaths by what seem to be bear bites, to explain why the government official ran at full speed through a seventh story window and fell to his death, and to discover the origins of the two charred bodies from a crashed helicopter in the temple at Luang Prabang.

Some full-throated praise for The Coroner’s Lunch

”A wonderfully fresh and exotic mystery.”
–The New York Times Book Review

”The sights, smells and colors of Laos practically jump off the pages of this inspired, often wryly witty first novel.”
–Denver Post

”If Cotterill…had done nothing more than treat us to Siri’s views on the dramatic, even comic crises that mark periods of government upheaval, his debut mystery would still be fascinating. But the multiple cases spread out on Siri’s examining table…are not cozy entrtainments, but substantial crimes that take us into the thick of political intrigue,”
–The New York Times Book Review

And here’s what reviewers had to say about Thirty-Three Teeth:

”A crack storyteller and an impressive guide to a little-known culture.”
–Washington Post Book World

”The quasi-mystical story keeps a perfect balance between the modern mysteries of forensic science and the ancient secrets of the spirit world”
–The New York Times Book Review

”Readers who were charmed by Cotterill’s first novel, last year’s The Coroner’s Lunch, will be delighted to hear that his hero, the witty seventy-something Dr. Siri Paiboun, is back again.”
”Day to Day,” NPR

Bestselling author Barbara Parker died on Saturday, March 8 2009. The cause was cancer which, after a blessed couple of years of remission that freed her to relaunch her writing career, metastasized. She was 62 years old.

She was best known for a series of thrillers, commencing with Suspicion of Innocence, set in Miami and starring attorneys Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana. Fans followed their stormy relationship from book to book as Connor’s Cuban-born lover disappeared and reappeared on mysterious and dangerous missions having to do with Cuban politics. Their on-again off-again romance was the subject of intense speculation by readers wondering if the dark man of mystery would ever settle down.

I represented Barbara from her very first book and never once saw her in any other mood but upbeat. Her eyes perpetually twinkled with self-deprecating humor. Her head was always cocked with curiosity like a puppy listening to a whistle out of the range of human hearing. She took in everything and everything was of intense interest to her both personally and professionally. She was tethered to a notebook and I never knew when some random comment uttered by me or a stranger would provoke a frenzy of scribbling that would eventually find its way into one of her books.

She was a writer’s writer. Some years ago I visited her in her home town of Ft. Lauderdale, where I had booked a reservation in a fancy restaurant. She told me to meet her at a theatre where she was researching her current novel. She emerged in jeans and denim workshirt, hair and face covered with dust from clambering around the theatre’s flies. I asked her if she wanted me to take her home to change for dinner. “No, I’ll just change in my car,” she said. She disappeared into her car and I saw clothes flying as if tossed in a dryer. She stepped out beautifully dressed, impeccably groomed, and laughing her girlish laughter. I will sorely miss that laughter.

An obituary by Oline H. Cogdill appears in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Before she became sick she arranged for E-Reads to reissue her Gail and Anthony novels. Nothing could give me greater pleasure to pay this tribute to her, and I know her fans will say the same.

Richard Curtis

As Jack Malcolm, owner of the Seattle computing firm Megasoft, is answering questions about his candidacy for President of the U.S., he is assassinated by a terrorist on national television. Just weeks later, Jonathan Goodman, an employee at Megasoft, witnesses a murder of another employee and watches the killer escape inside Building 9. But did anyone know he was there watching? Determined to uncover the mystery, Goodman and his new partner, business reporter Karen Grey, discover a major conspiracy.

That’s the story line of Ulterior Motive, and if you’re wondering if “Megasoft” sounds an awful lot like another company in Seattle, consider the author, Daniel Oran. He’s famous at Microsoft for being the creator of the start button and taskbar. Or maybe all resemblances between the fictional venue and the one in Seattle are strictly coincidental. You tell me.

– Richard Curtis

In Detective, the first Stanley Hastings mystery story by Parnell Hall, Hastings is so unconfident he actually turns a case away. It doesn’t matter. The case comes to his doorstep anyway, and with a vengeance!

Hall, a former private detective, an actor and a multiple Mystery Writers of America Edgar nominee, introduces a classic bumbler who succeeds despite his best efforts to screw up. Kirkus Reviews found Detective “Engaging…thanks largely to Stanley’s shambling, casual, occasionally raunchy delivery.”

E-Reads carries several Stanley Hastings novels about which the reviewer for the Washington Post Book World says, “…The charm of Stanley Hastings lies in his chummy, loquacious, self-deprecating commentary as the narrator of this adventure.”

– Richard Curtis

His life all but ruined because of a bad rap he took for murdering two guys to prevent a rape, Reid Bennett relocates in a quaint backwater town in Canada. Then the corpses show up. German shepherd Sam by his side, Bennett does what he has to do, and none of it is in the police officer’s manual.

Dead in the Water launched Ted Wood’s mystery career and the fictional adventures of Reid Bennett. But what brings readers back for book after book — E-Reads has five of them — is Sam, Reid’s German shepherd. Publisher’s Weekly described Sam thus: “…a multitalented utility infielder who can “keep,” “track,” “seek,” “fight,” “guard,” sniff out cocaine and corpses, save lives and generally pinch-hit for a dozen patrolmen.” Fans plead, “Whatever happens to Reid Bennett, don’t touch a hair of that dog’s head!”

– Richard Curtis

We’d like to let Jaqueline (“Jaki”) Girdner tell you about her Kate Jasper mystery series, now available from E-Reads, in her own words:

My protagonist, Kate Jasper, lives in Marin County, California, a very strange place. I like to call Kate, “Marin’s own, organically grown, amateur sleuth.”

Marin County, for those of you who haven’t been here, is filled with people who still think the New Age is really new. There’s a lot of money here too, not to mention an attitude of spiritual elitism. (In Berkeley across the Bay, people like to be politically correct. In Marin, they like to be spiritually correct.) So Kate Jasper tends to stumble over dead bodies against this particularly touch-feely Marin backdrop: a human potential discussion group in Murder Most Mellow; a chiropractor’s table in Adjusted To Death; a lethal health spa in The Last Resort; and a psychic seminar in Murder on the Astral Plane (just to name a few). Kate has a serious side too. She recognizes the dichotomy of spiritual correctness in collision with poverty, crime, injustice, and despair, collisions that often end in murder in Kate’s world.

Yet Kate Jasper is definitely a product of mellow Marin County. Kate’s a vegetarian. Since I was a vegan for fifteen years, it’s easy for me to write the semi-orgasmic food scenes. And of course, her vegetarianism gets her into trouble. There’s a lot more comic potential in vegetables than most people realize. In Fat-Free and Fatal, Kate attends a vegetarian cooking class along with her psychic friend, Barbara Chu. Unfortunately, Barbara isn’t psychic enough to avoid tripping over a murder victim on her way to the restroom. The murder weapon? A little hand-held electrical appliance used to grate vegetables, called a SaladShooter. But don’t worry, the victim wasn’t shredded to death. Now if you want to find out exactly how to murder someone with a SaladShooter, you might want to read Fat-Free and Fatal.

Kate Jasper also practices tai chi, a meditative martial art form that I’m certain no tough P.I. would deign to use. But believe me, it’s effective, especially for Kate. In tai chi, the person who is the most relaxed and centered wins. Not the big guys with all the muscles! I’ve practiced tai chi for over twenty years. And I’ve done a kind of tai chi sparring called “push hands” in which I was consistently pushed over by a woman twenty years older and much smaller than myself. And in turn, I was always able to push over this young muscular guy who was about six-foot-three. The poor guy kept trying, but he was just too big and tough. I love it. And it’s even more satisfying in fiction when Kate uses tai chi to protect herself. In one of the books, Kate uses a particularly elegant move which is meant to strike a person in the groin and the throat at the same time. Unfortunately, she misses the throat of the thug who has been terrorizing her, but what the hey? The man’s writhing on the floor, clutching his crotch. Fictional tai chi can be so much fun!

Kate owns her own small business, a gag-gift business called “Jest Gifts.” Jest Gifts sells specialty items to professionals, things like shark mugs for the attorneys and shrunken-head earrings for the psychotherapists. She’s easy for me to write. I once owned a company called “Jest Cards” which manufactured greeting cards featuring terrible puns. It’s also a great position for an amateur sleuth. It’s Kate’s own company. She can take time off to investigate murder, even though she does have to work late to make up for it. And like most people who own their own business, she’s both determined and a little crazy, crazy enough to follow up on her misguided investigations. So far I haven’t had a gag-gift murder. No one’s been strangled with a psychotherapist’s “Uh-Huh” tie or brained with a doctor’s quack cup, but you never know.

Kate is too busy with gag gifts to be a professional detective, so why does she keep sticking her nose into murder? Her friends tell her it’s her karma. But of course, they’re from Marin. The real truth is that Kate Jasper is a caretaker. Unlike the lone wolf detective, she has a lot of friends, and when her friends are in trouble, she tries to help them out. Kate even helps out her ex-husband, Craig, in The Last Resort. He and his new girlfriend, attorney Suzanne Sorenson, have taken a trip to a health spa. Suzanne is not only the woman who broke up their marriage, she’s the one who filed the divorce papers. She’s found dead, face down in a mud bath. And the police suspect Craig. Kate gets on a plane and flies down to help him. Now that’s a caretaker!

I know what makes Kate Jasper tick. Sometimes, she’s too close for comfort. She’s the kind of character who gets a phone call from a friend in need, say a friend who says her boyfriend’s going crazy on her. And Kate says, “Oh that’s terrible, why don’t you come stay with me?” So the friend does. Then the boyfriend comes over, and he really is crazy. And his friends come over and they’re Hell’s Angels. And his family members are from another planet entirely, and his dog’s a Doberman pinscher, and, well… you get the idea. That’s Kate Jasper.

At least, that’s how I think of Kate Jasper. Here’s what a few others have said:

“Kate is a heroine with backbone, heart, and a sweet sense of humor.”
—Pacific Sun

“She’s smart, funny, vulnerable, and unpretentious.”
—Marilyn Wallace, editor of the Sisters in Crime series

“Clever, smart, and resourceful, Kate is an ideal amateur detective.”
—Silk Stalkings, Nicholas and Thompson

“Kate is smart and funny and independent and all those other things we like our protagonist to be. But one of the things that makes her special to me… is that she is a kind and loving person.”
—Kathleen Swanholt, editor of Mysterious Women

I’ll be curious to find out what you think of Kate. And of course, Kate will be curious about you.