A new Eve Appel mystery with Character Interview: Killer Tied by Lesley A. Diehl

Eve Appel Egret is adjusting to married life with Sammy and their three adopted sons in Sabal Bay, Florida. While still running her consignment stores, she is going pro with her sleuthing by becoming an apprentice to a private detective.

Until her marriage, Eve’s only “family” was her grandmother Grandy, who raised her after her parents died in a boating accident. Now, in addition to her husband and sons, she has a father-in-law who clearly dislikes her. Sammy’s father, a full-blooded Miccosukee Indian long presumed dead, has emerged from the swamps where he’s been living like a hermit, and he isn’t happy about Eve’s marriage to his half-Miccosukee, half-white son.
As for Eve’s family, are her parents really dead? A woman named Eleanor claims to be Eve’s half-sister, born after her mother faked a boating accident to escape her abusive husband, Eve’s father. Then Eleanor’s father turns up dead in the swamps, stabbed by a Bowie knife belonging to Sammy’s father, Lionel. Strange as Lionel Egret is, Eve knows he had no motive to kill this stranger. In order to clear him, Eve must investigate Eleanor’s claims, and she might not like what digging around in her family’s past uncovers.


Grandy, welcome to Island Confidential! Can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself?
I’m Eve Apple’s maternal grandmother. I worked for years for a wealthy family in Hartford, CT and fell in love with their son, but they were not anxious for him to marry the hired help. They warned him they would disown him and write him out of their will if he chose to marry me. He was such a lovely man, and I loved him with all my heart. He was willing to go ahead with our wedding, but I knew he would eventually come to resent me for what he had to give up, so I let him go and later married Eve’s grandfather. We had only one child, Eve’s mother. I lost him soon after Eve was born, but he did get to see his only grandchild. Then my daughter and her husband died in a boating accident when Eve was only nine. It was difficult to deal with my own grief, but I had the responsibility to get Eve through her parent’s deaths, and that was not easy.
She dealt with her loss by becoming an angry rebellious child, mad at the world for dealing her such a rotten hand. But she eventually got beyond that, and I think the friendship with Madeleine Boudreau begun in grade school helped her. Eve taught Madeleine how to stand up for her rights, and Madeleine taught Eve some manners and how to deal with difficult people, other than trying to beat the snot out of them.
All of us, Eve, Madeleine and I relocated to rural Florida. I’m surprised how well Eve has done adjusting to a place where the nearest mall with a decent store for designer fashion is almost forty miles away. Eve is quite the fashionista, but she addressed her need for designer wear by opening a high-end consignment shop with Madeleine. I was a bit surprised because I thought the only thing alligator to be found around here was in the nearby swamps, but there are a few alligator bags and boots in Eve and Madeleine’s shop.
My current husband Max and I used to run a fishing charter boat out of Key Largo, but since his heart attack, we’ve relocated to be near Eve. Max has enjoyed fishing the Big Lake, Lake Okeechobee, and I work with Eve a few days each week in the shop. It’s a pretty laid-back life, unless Eve taps me to join her on one of her detective adventures. Now that’s fun. Eve says I’m responsible for her snoopy nature, and that’s probably true.
Who in the book would you say you get along with the best?
I’m close to Eve, her husband, their adopted boys and Grandfather Egret, her husband’s grandfather as well as Madeleine and her family. But I have to say I just love Nappi Napolitano, our “Family” friend from the Northeast. He treats me like a queen, always kisses my hand when he greets me and says I am a good-looking woman, and he does not add, “for your age.” How can a woman not love that in a man? Were it not for my husband Max and for the difference in age between Nappi and me, I might consider a serious fling with the guy. I have a thing for “bad boys”, and it appears Nappi is one. He dresses well, and he seems to have access to information others have trouble getting. If there’s anything a person wants to know about someone, Nappi can find it out. I know Madeleine and our police detective friend Frida have some doubts about Nappi’s “connections”, but he’s always been there for Eve, her friends and family. I’ve gone on some capers with him, you know, sleuthing adventures, and he’s always treated me as an equal partner. I must admit that some of what we’ve been involved in has been just this side of legal, but over the moon fun. You can read about my first caper in Book 1 of the Eve Appel mysteries, A Secondhand Murder.
Is there anyone you don’t get along with so well?
For most of the years I’ve known Sammy Egret, Eve husband’s, who is half Miccosukee, his father was missing, gone, we were told, into the swamps when Sammy was small. Imagine our surprise when the man showed up one day. Lionel Egret disappeared into the swamps out of a sense of guilt but returned when Sammy and Eve married and adopted three orphaned Miccosukee boys, also Lionel’s relatives. I give you this background because I think it might explain why he acts the way he does. He’s suspicious, arrogant, and sullen, and particularly hard on Eve. He’s not crazy about white folks although Sammy’s mother, Lionel’s wife was white. Given his years alone in the swamps, I try to be understanding, but the man is hard to take. I will say, however, that he does love the three boys Eve and Sammy adopted, although he thinks he knows best how to raise them. Eve says he’s coming around, slowly, very slowly.
Just between you and me: What do you really think of your author?
I’m not happy she made me overweight, but she did write me as a fun-loving and adventurous gal. She also gave me my hubby, Max, who I love despite the fact he smells like fish because he spends his days out on the lake with his fishing pals. At least he cleans the catch for me!
This author never lets things be. Just when you think everything is going to settle down, and the path ahead looks easy, she injects an event to shake things up or introduces a character that sets you back on your heels. For example, I hadn’t seen my sister for years. We just seemed to drift apart, but wouldn’t you know it, Miss Diehl creates a situation in Killer Tied that demands I get in touch with her. I wasn’t expecting that, and it took adjustment on my part. Maybe it was just as well. I guess I shouldn’t have let family get so far away. And I learned a secret about my sister that I never knew.
So what’s next for you?
Max is grumbling about needing to get back to fishing the blue ocean and not the brownish waters of the fresh water lake. I miss the salt water also. I think we might divide our time between the Keys and rural Florida. I’ve heard rumors that Madeleine has family in Scotland that are eager to come to the United States for a visit. I’m eager to meet them. I’m a little worried about Nappi lately. He seems to have something on his mind. He’s just not his old charming self. I know he suffered a gunshot wound, but I thought he was fully recovered from it. Perhaps not. Maybe Eve and I should take him out to lunch and see if we can wheedle the truth out of him.
Thank you, Grandy!
It was a pleasure to talk with you, Frankie.


About The Author


Lesley retired from her life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed her country roots by moving to a small cottage in the Butternut River Valley in Upstate New York. In the winter she migrates to old Florida—cowboys, scrub palmetto and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office, and gators make golf a contact sport. Back north, the shy ghost inhabiting the cottage serves as her literary muse. When not writing, she gardens, cooks, frequents yard sales and renovates the 1874 cottage with the help of her husband, two cats and, of course, Fred the ghost, who gives artistic direction to their work. She is the author of a number of mystery series and mysteries as well as short stories. The third book in the Eve Appel murders (from Camel Press) A Sporting Murder was awarded a Readers’ Favorite Five Star Award and her short story Gator Aid a Sleuthfest (2009) short story first place. She has fired the alligator that served as her literary muse when she is in Florida and is interviewing applicants for the position.

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#Interview: Mud Bog #Murder by Lesley A. Diehl

>>>Enter to win an e-copy of Mud Bog Murder<<<
When Jenny McCleary leases her property to be ravaged by the annual mud bog races, the small rural town of Sabal Bay, Florida, is divided into warring camps: environmental activists versus monster truck fans. Jenny, who frequents the consignment store owned by Eve Appel and her friend Madeleine, doesn’t seem to mind when Eve and Madeleine join the protesters the day of the races.




During the race, Eve catches Jenny’s airborne head after it is tossed into the air by the wheels of a truck. Now every protester is a suspect in Jenny’s murder. What’s left of her alligator-gnawed body is found near the airboat business of Eve’s Miccosukee Indian friends, Sammy Egret and his grandfather. When more evidence turns up nearby, Grandfather is arrested.
Even without the disembodied head, Eve has her hands full. The town resents her role in the protests and is boycotting the consignment shop on wheels. She is torn between two men–GQ-handsome, devoted PI Alex and tall, dark, and exotic Sammy. Jenny’s sweet and needy teenage daughter is dating a petty criminal. Will Eve and Madeleine ever be able to move into their new digs? Not unless the town forgives them. And not if whoever decapitated Jenny gets to Eve before she and her sleuthing buddies solve the mystery.


Q: Aloha Lesley, and welcome back to Island Confidential. Can you tell us a little bit about Eve Appel?
A: The protagonist of the Eve Appel mystery series and the newest book in it, Mud Bog Murder, is Eve Appel, a woman who has spent her life in the Northeast and has now moved to rural Florida to open a consignment shop there with her best friend, Madeleine Boudreaux Wilson. These two friends couldn’t be any different in appearance. Eve is tall, willow thin with spiky blonde hair (with dark roots, her fashion statement) while Madeleine is short, round and has red curly hair. They are different in personality also. Eve is an in-your-face gal and Madeleine, although a bit physically clumsy, is polite and always knows the right thing to say. Eve may know what is socially appropriate, but she seldom feels compelled to say or do it.  The two have been friends since childhood, sharing a commitment to righting wrongs and a loyalty to friends and family. Eve loves designer fashions as long as she doesn’t have to pay full price, so she’s addicted to consignment shopping, and she’s determined to bring the opportunity to dress for less to rural Florida. And, oh yes. Eve is as snoopy as can be especially when it comes to murder.
Q: How much of you is in Eve?  How would you feel about her if you met her in real life?
A: There is little of me in Eve except that we both probably share the need to find answers to questions. My questions involve more mundane issues such as where did I leave my glasses while her questions are both mundane (what should I wear today?) and significant to her life and her community (who killed my friend?).  In Mud Bog Murder, that means Eve not only catches the severed head of the victim, but she searches for the killer. There’s no question that if I had caught that head, I would have dropped it and run like crazy. I admire her and Madeleine for different reasons. I can certainly relate to Eve’s search for secondhand merchandise. I’m addicted to yard sales, consignment shops and bargains in general. There is nothing that Eve won’t take on when it comes to social injustice—insults to the environment, family upheavals, as well as theft and murder. Who wouldn’t want a friend with the attitude of can do, or as they say, in the South a get ‘er done approach to problems? Madeleine’s warm, friendly, ladylike exterior hides a streak of real spunkiness. Madeleine is the lady my mom raised me to be. I guess it didn’t take. But, for Madeleine, lady combined with spunk really works.
Q: Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series? I imagine catching a severed head (!) would be a transformational experience, no?
A:  Yes, they do. I think it’s necessary for characters to face challenges and change to handle these in each book, but I think a writer must take series characters through life journeys especially if the writer decides to age the characters which is what I do. Throwing murder at a character necessitates adjustment and self-exploration especially if solving the crime means the character confronts situations she fears and people she doesn’t like. In a mystery series, writers do this again and again, so the reader has a right to see a character altered by so many encounters with death. Subplots that involve the character’s personal life and development entail the same consideration: what does love, family, friendship and the absence, presence or alteration in all these mean for the character. How is she different at the end of the series from what she was in the beginning? Eve has certainly confronted some interesting issues, and she has been changed by them. Love is one of these, and what happens to Eve’s love life in Mud Bog Murder may surprise the reader. It certainly surprised Eve.
Q: So just between you, me, and the millions of people with internet access: Have you ever thought of killing someone that you know in real life–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean? 
A:  Sure, and I did it in an early manuscript in which I also made the murderer someone I knew and disliked. It was quite cathartic, and some really bad writing on my part. I radically altered that story and it later was a book in which the story is nothing like the original version. However, I have to thank the people I disliked for helping presenting me with characters I could enhance and recreate. It sure was fun!
Q: How realistic is your setting? Do you take liberties, or are you true to life?
A:  The setting for Mud Bog Murder is rural Florida a place few tourists are familiar with or visit and where few Floridians live. The county I live in has more cattle than people and probably more alligators too. This is really “old Florida”, the Florida before interstates, sugar fields and runaway development. I try to stay true to the setting and what it means to its people although I do alter names of towns and streets sometimes. I want the story to not only be about murder, but I want the impact of that to be imbedded in the setting such that to move the story away from that setting would change the tone and the significance of it. Because I’m not a Florida native, neither is my protagonist. She’s an outsider, someone who can see what is happening with new eyes, but who becomes more and more a part of the community in each book.
Q: When the movie or TV series is made, who plays the major parts?
A:  I’m not much of a moviegoer. My husband and I prefer watching British comedies and mysteries on Netflix. I’m not good at knowing actors, but there is the short, shapely blonde on Big Bang Theory who, with a red wig could play Madeleine. She seems to have the bubbly persona of Madeleine.  As for Eve, she is physically like Angeline Jolie but with short, blond hair. Since the mystery is humorous, it’s always difficult to find comic actors who can carry the parts.
Q: What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
A:  In the writing world, we’re always told to write what we know, but sometimes it’s important to understand what it is we know, and it’s not always what we have spent our lives doing. My first manuscript featured a college psychology professor. That’s what I did, so I figured I was on safe ground writing about it. I was so close to the college world that my manuscript lacked sizzle. It was boring. Once I used what I knew to create, not copy the world in the story, the manuscript improved. Writing is all about imagination and the creation and crafting of the work. Sometimes we leave that out when we tell beginning writers to write what they know. Most important is to learn your craft. You can only break the rules when you understand what they mean to your story. As for what you know, you can always learn what you don’t know. Research is important—interviews, experience, involvement in new endeavors as well as research on line and in libraries. It can open a world of writing opportunities.


About the Author


Lesley retired from her life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed her country roots by moving to a small cottage in the Butternut River Valley in upstate New York. In the winter she migrates to old Florida—cowboys, scrub palmetto, and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office, and gators make golf a contact sport. Back north, the shy ghost inhabiting the cottage serves as her literary muse. When not writing, she gardens, cooks and renovates the 1874 cottage with the help of her husband, two cats and, of course, Fred the ghost, who gives artistic direction to their work.
She is the author of a number of mystery series (Microbrewing Series, Big Lake Mystery Series, Eve Appel Mystery Series and the Laura Murphy Mysteries), a standalone mystery (Angel Sleuth) and numerous short stories.
Visit her on her website: www.lesleyadiehl.com
Webpage: www.lesleyadiehl.com
Blog: www.lesleyadiehl.com/blog
Twitter: @lesleydiehl
Facebook: [email protected]
Buy on Amazon


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#Giveaway and New Campus Murder Mystery: Failure is Fatal by Lesley A. Diehl

>>>Enter to win an e-copy of Failure is Fatal<<<

Someone at Professor Laura Murphy’s college appears to be playing a joke on her by planting sexually explicit stories in her research results…Failure is Fatal Cover

but the joke turns deadly when one story details the recent stabbing murder of a coed. Eager to search out clues, Laura ignores warning signs that playing amateur sleuth may jeopardize her newly developing romance with Guy. And of course her usual intrusive manner puts her at odds with everyone on campus—colleagues, the college administration, the head of campus security and fraternity members. Is there no one Laura can’t offend in her eagerness to find the truth?


Setting Inspires my Work
Guest Post by Lesley Diehl

Failure Is Fatal is the second book in the Laura Murphy mystery series. In this book, Laura is, as we have come to know her: an impulsive, smart, chocolate-addicted advocate for taking down the bad guys especially those threatening the values she holds to be important—education, protection of the environment and justice for the victims of crimes. And she accomplishes all this while trying to hold together a long-distance love relationship. Of course, she has friends to help her as well as her sense of humor.
My novel length work and my short stories all have a strong sense of setting. I like to think of it as another character, one I can use in various ways. The setting can become the backdrop for the mystery. In the case of Failure Is Fatal the book is set in a small community in Upstate New York. The town houses a public university where my protagonist, Dr. Laura Murphy is a professor of psychology. The size of the community and the college allows me a limited area for the events in the story to unfold and affords me the opportunity to explore the geographical as well as the social setting where my characters live and work. And kill. I like my readers to be able to develop a mental map of the vicinity so that the reader moves around with as much familiarity as do the characters. I think this familiarity sets the stage for all of the changes made in the story, e.g., the murder, the search for clues, changes in relationships and the catastrophes I introduce into the setting. I want my reader to say, “Oh, yes. I know where she’s going. I’d do that too,” as the reader forms a sleuthing partnership with Laura.
Another way I like to use setting is to turn it on its ear, i.e., introduce some form of friction into the setting. For example, many of the scenes in the book take place in Laura’s house on a small lake outside of the college town. The conversations among Laura, her love interest, Guy, and the detective who enlists her aid in the case bristle with the tension of the killing but are set against the beauty of woods turning their autumn colors. As much as the setting might lull us into a feeling of normalcy, the threat of the coming winter and the tragedy of the murder work together to propel Laura forward in her search for the killer, forecasting the possibility of disaster yet to come.
As the promise of snow is realized, the story leads the reader into the blizzard of conflicting clues that toss Laura backward into events in her past that she must unravel and forward toward confrontation with the killer. Laura fights oncoming winter in terms of what it means for her long distance relationship with Guy as well as its impact on her ability to dig out clues to the murder in a community buried under ice and snow. The final resolution of the crime takes place during a deadly snowstorm. Laura could find her way through the snow to the killer or lose her way in the whiteout.
As I did with the first book in the series, Murder Is Academic, in Failure Is Fatal, I use the building tension of worsening weather as the culmination of a final meeting between Laura and the killer. Depending upon the season, Upstate New York can be subject to weather disasters such as floods, tornados, thunderstorms, blizzards and ice storms. The threat of bad weather can make for a great tension building device especially if it is used in parallel with the protagonist’s difficult path to finding the identity of a killer. A murder mystery is always better during a storm, especially if the writer pairs bad weather with a devious killer bent taking out the protagonist. Will the weather do her in? Will the killer? And if she defeats the killer, will the weather take her out? What fun for creating ultimate tension and anxiety, and, finally, as the reader expects in a good cozy mystery, a satisfying solution to the mystery.


About the Author
Lesley Diehl
Lesley retired from her life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed her country roots by moving to a small cottage in the Butternut River Valley in upstate New York.  In the winter she migrates to old Florida—cowboys, scrub palmetto, and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office, and gators make golf a contact sport.  Back north, the shy ghost inhabiting the cottage serves as her literary muse.  When not writing, she gardens, cooks and renovates the 1874 cottage with the help of her husband, two cats and, of course, Fred the ghost, who gives artistic direction to their work.
She is the author of a number of mystery series (Microbrewing Series, Big Lake Mystery Series, Eve Appel Mystery Series and the Laura Murphy Mysteries), a standalone mystery (Angel Sleuth) and numerous short stories.   
Visit her on her website:  www.lesleyadiehl.com
Webpage: www.lesleyadiehl.com
Blog: www.lesleyadiehl.com/blog
Twitter: @lesleydiehl
Facebook: [email protected]


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