‘Maigret’s Holiday’ by Georges Simenon

(Translated by Ros Schwartz in 2016)
Published by Penquin Classics,
4 February 2016.
ISBN: 978-0-241-78822-6 (PB)
Originally published 1948.

Maigret is on holiday in Les Sables d’Olonne, a seaside resort and port on the western coast of France, but his enjoyment has been derailed by his wife’s sudden, serious illness. Madame Maigret has survived the urgent operation to remove her appendix and is now recovering in the local hospital. For the last few days, Maigret has phoned at the same time every morning to enquire about his wife’s progress, and visits her for precisely thirty minutes at the same time every afternoon. He finds the hospital very claustrophobic and regimented, and he feels uncomfortable in the presence of the imperturbable nuns, and has the feeling that he and his wife are losing their identity. This is fuelled by the nuns’ habit of referring to Madame Maigret as ‘our dear patient’ and addressing him as Monsieur Six, the number of her hospital room. With his holiday plans destroyed, Maigret has settled into a rigid, alcohol-heavy routine, repeating his actions at the same regulated time each day. His apathy is shaken when he discovers in his pocket a note that reads: ‘For pity’s sake, ask to see the patient in room 15.’ Maigret considers it to be too late to follow up on this on the evening he discovers it, especially as he is reasonably sure that the person who put the note in his pocket is one of the nuns who escort him through the hospital corridors to visit his wife. However, the next day, when he visits his wife, he discovers that she is upset because the patient in room fifteen has died.

Maigret has no official jurisdiction to investigate the death and there is no reason, other than the anonymous note, to show that the death was anything but accidental, however he is famous enough that the none of the local police officers would feel comfortable about complaining if he interfered. He soon establishes that the dead woman was Hélène Godreau, the nineteen-year-old sister-in-law of a prominent local citizen, the distinguished neurologist, Doctor Bellamy. She had been injured when she fell from Bellamy’s car when the car door accidentally opened. Maigret has already seen Bellamy, whom he has watched playing bridge in a café with some equally distinguished colleagues. Maigret noticed Bellamy because he is the only player who always pauses the game to make a phone call, and Maigret learns that he phones his home to check on his wife, Odette, who he adores to the point of obsession. Odette Bellamy is the dead girl’s elder sister, whom everyone describes as an outstandingly beautiful woman. When Maigret approaches Bellamy he is remarkably forthcoming and invites Maigret to his home, although Maigret does not see Odette, whom Bellamy claims is ill. However, he does catch a glimpse of a young, working-class girl who is slipping away from Odette’s room. Maigret tries to identify and track down the girl, impelled by the conviction that death and danger are moving nearer with every passing hour and certain that it is essential he acts before further disaster strikes but, as a stranger in an unfamiliar town, with none of his usual team to back him up, his chances of success are limited.

Maigret’s Holiday was first published in French in 1948, and the book has the heaviness and foreboding atmosphere of a country that was still struggling to recover from the ravages of the Second World War. At the beginning of the book, his wife’s illness has thrown Maigret off balance at a point when he was already out of routine because of his holiday. However, when a crime requires investigation and tragedy stalks the small holiday town,Maigret moves back into action and rediscovers his usual competence and investigative skill. Maigret’s Holiday is a classic read from a great author and it is still remarkably engaging today.
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Reviewer:  Carol Westron

Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium in 1903 and died in 1989. At sixteen he began work as a journalist on the Gazette de Liège. He moved to Paris in 1922 and became a prolific writer of popular fiction, working under a number of pseudonyms. In 1931 he published the first of the novels featuring Maigret, his most famous and enduring creation. He wrote 75 books in the Maigret series.  

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries, the series which began with The Fragility of Poppies.  

www.carolwestron.com 

‘Deadly Dancing at the Seaview Hotel’ by Glenda Young

Published by Headline,
11 September 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-4722-8572-0 (HB)

It’s autumn, which to many people means the new series of Strictly Come Dancing – so Glenda Young’s latest cosy mystery set in a Scarborough hotel is timely. It features a troupe of ballroom dancers who move in to Helen Dexter’s Seaview Hotel while they rehearse and perform a dance show at the town’s iconic Spa.

Fans of this entertaining series will recognize the regular characters: Helen herself, who is blessed, or possibly cursed, with a keen curiosity about her clients; Jimmy her Elvis impersonator boyfriend; Jean the hotel’s award-winning cook, who is unexpectedly vulnerable this time around following the death of her beloved mother; Sally the cleaner, now pregnant with twins, and her entrepreneur husband Gav; Marie, Helen’s elegant friend; and of course Suki the greyhound, recipient of confidences.

The dancers are glossy and glamorous, but under the shiny surface lurks a darker reality. Monty is startlingly handsome, and knows it. His wife Carla is bitter after an accident in Blackpool ended her dancing career. Rosa is too ambitious for her own comfort. Bev the company manager has an acid tongue. Podcaster Paul seems to be a stranger to personal hygiene. In fact, the only one Helen takes to is Tommy, who doesn’t really want to be a dancer at all. And skulking on the sidelines are the Tanners, Frankie and Bobby, father and son. They’re very bad news indeed, but Jean won’t have a word said against them, especially Frankie.

And then there’s a murder, at the opening of Gav’s latest enterprise, a tanning salon. The victim is one of the dancers, and not for the first time, Helen, Jean, Sally and Gav find themselves entangled in the investigation.  

Over the next few days all kinds of questions float to the surface. Is the murderer one of the hotel guests? Who tampered with the equipment in Gav’s salon? Can anyone persuade Jean that the charming but unscrupulous Frankie Tanner is bad news? Why is Bev constantly on her phone? Is Monty to be trusted? What really happened in Blackpool? And most important of all, will Helen agree to go on holiday to Graceland with Jimmy?

This is crime fiction, so naturally all will become clear – but before it does, there’s a labyrinth of bribery, extortion and fraud to be negotiated, not to mention a murderer to track down. Strictly this is not – but fans of cosy mysteries will have great fun unravelling all the knots.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Glenda Young credits her local library in the village of Ryhope, where she grew up, for giving her a love of books. She still lives close by in Sunderland and often gets her ideas for her stories on long bike rides along the coast. A life-long fan of Coronation Street, she runs two hugely popular fan websites.

http://www.glendayoungbooks.com  

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction. 

‘Children of Fog Island: Fog Island’ by Mariette Lindstein

Published by HQ Books,
31 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-000824544-3 (PB)
Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.

Laudatory reviews of Mariette Lindstein’s Fog Island trilogy often focus on the apparent authenticity of her descriptions of life in a cult, and for good reason. Born and raised on the west coast of Sweden, Lindstein joined the Church of Scientology at the age of twenty and was actively involved in the organisation for the following twenty-five years. Finally freeing herself – escaping with a fellow cult member whom she later marries – Lindstein decided to use her own experiences in her crime fiction novels to warn readers about the dangers of cults, including vivid depiction of the temptations posed by the cult mentality.

In Lindstein’s work, the cult in question is ViaTerra, a New Age movement based on Fog Island off the Swedish coast led by the charismatic Franz Oswald. While Children of Fog Island is the third book of Lindstein’s trilogy, it can be read as a stand-alone, containing sufficient background information for the reader unfamiliar with the first two to be gripped and enthralled by its narrative.

The main character is Sofia Bauman who, as an impressionable young girl, had fallen under Franz Oswald’s spell. Adrift and at a loss, having just graduated from university and ended a troubled relationship, she was vulnerable, an ideal candidate for seduction by the allure of a cult peopled by good-looking individuals radiating confidence in the tenets of their faith. In the first book of the trilogy, we see how people such as Sofia are attracted by cults, in the second, what happens if a person escapes a cult and, in the third, a description of children born to cult members.

In Children of Fog Island, Sofia, like Lindstrom herself, has escaped from a cult with a fellow former member and entered into a relationship with him. Sofia supervises a refuge for cult defectors and Benjamin runs a lucrative business from their home. They are the parents of Julia, an attractive and lively teenager, although Sofia harbors a secret fear that her daughter is actually Oswald’s, the result of his raping her: the event that triggered her decision to flee ViaTerra, setting fire to the manor house in the course of her escape as a kind of revenge. Oswald has recently been released from prison after serving a term of fifteen years for sexually assaulting a minor, and Sofia finds her thoughts constantly turning back to him and the period when she was imprisoned on Fog Island. When a fierce hurricane hits Sweden, she chances to see Oswald on the news and understands she can’t prevent his re-entering his life. Her worst fears are realized when Oswald contacts her, offering to help finance the rebuilding of her shelter, that has been destroyed by the storm.

The novel is told largely through Sofia’s viewpoint although Thor, one of Franz Oswald’s young twin sons by a young woman named Elvira, also records his thoughts and feelings growing up as a child of a cult leader. His brother Vic is his father’s favorite child, and Thor’s perspective of events is that of the despised outsider.

Lindstein provides a rollercoaster ride in the last book of her trilogy, filled with spills and thrills. Children of Fog Island is compulsively readable while shedding light on a topic that is timely but not yet well or widely understood: the attraction of cults.   
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra.

Mariette Lindstein was born and raised in Halmstad on the west coast of Sweden. At the age of 20, she joined the Church of Scientology and worked for the next 25 years at all levels of the organization, including at its international headquarters outside Los Angeles. Mariette left the Church in 2004, and is now married to Dan Koon, an author and artist. They live in a forest outside Halmstad with their three dogs. Fog Island, her debut novel, was first published in Sweden where it won the Best Crime Debut at the Specsavers Crime Time Awards. Mariette now dedicates her life to writing and lecturing to warn others about the dangers of cults and cult mentality. Children of Fog Island is the third book in the Fog Island Trilogy. 

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising three murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels.

‘Death on Ice’ by R.O.Thorp

Published by Faber & Faber Ltd,
13 February 2025.  
ISBN: 978-0-57138659-8  

Death on Ice begins as the luxury cruise ship Dauphin departs from an English port bound for the Arctic.  The vessel provides an opulent setting for the wealthy holiday makers who have paid a small fortune for this journey of a lifetime.  As well as the promise of fine wines and cuisine, the passengers also have the option to attend lectures given by a team of five scientists and to observe their cutting-edge research.  The Dauphin was designed to enable such joint ventures.  It boasts two modern laboratories and a small round submersible, the Mouette, which can be operated remotely or by a crew of two.  

 When the ship reaches the icy northern waters, marine biologists twins Finn and Rose Blanchard make the first dive in the tiny sub.  They want to discover more about the shy Greenland shark, but whilst they are underwater one of their fellow passengers is murdered.  The body is discovered on the merciless ice above them, and the twins are recalled to the floating palace where they are now the only members of the party who have a credible alibi.  The sister and brother who had sought an underwater predator must now turn their attention to an equally elusive killer.

Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Tom Heissen and his sergeant, Titus Williams are in Svalbard on the trail of a smuggling gang.  When their Norwegian counterparts request assistance with an incident involving some English people in the area, they find themselves being flown to the Dauphin where they join forces with the twins to solve the watery ‘locked room’ mystery.   

The characters in this unusual novel reveal a variety of comical and eccentric personalities.  Themes of selfishness and generosity, loathing and love, cruelty and kindness are explored through the relationships of those on board the ship.  Rose quickly establishes herself as the central protagonist who fearlessly seeks out the villain, or villains, whilst being equally determined to protect the sensitive Finn who is getting over a bad relationship.  Almost everyone on board is hiding a secret; this thwarts the investigators as they try to tease out the truth from entitled passengers who are not used to being interrogated.  As the search for the killer intensifies, so does the scrutiny that threatens to expose past misdemeanours and mistakes.

Death on Ice is well-researched and beautifully written.  Sumptuous and evocative descriptions of nature’s glory and terrifying power create the perfect backdrop for a mystery that is intricate, witty, entertaining and heart-warming.  But beware, a devastating twist close to the end of the novel provides a real ‘Oh no!’ moment.

A great read and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

R. O. Thorp is an Australian living in Cork, Ireland, where she writes lyrics and herds cats. She was one of the Observer's top 10 debut novelists of 2021, and her writing has won the London Short Story Award and been shortlisted for the BBC Opening Lines Prize. Death on Ice is her first foray into murder mysteries.  

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.

‘Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife’ by Martin Edwards

Published by Head of Zeus,
11 September 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-03591058-8 (HB)

Harry Crystal has thirty-two mystery novels to his name, but with his career stalling and a failed marriage he now lives alone in dowdy rented accommodation.  It’s no surprise, therefore, that he accepts an invitation to attend an all expenses paid Christmas break in Midwinter Village.  The unexpected offer includes an opportunity to take part in a mystery game with a special prize for the winner.  As Harry disembarks from the train at Midwinter Hall, he hopes his luck is about to change. 

Snow is falling as Harry waits outside the station for a promised chauffeur.  He is not alone.  When a Mercedes arrives, he and one other invitee are welcomed by their driver.  After a short, but increasingly treacherous drive, they reach their destination where Chandra Masood, “Head of People” at the Midwinter Trust, is on hand with maps of the area.  Unnerved by a surprisingly rigorous initial check in, Harry is relieved when he is at last permitted to mingle with the five other guests.  It soon transpires that they all have links with the world of crime fiction, and they have all fallen on hard times.  Bad blood between some of the characters adds spice to the retreat as contestants are encouraged to “Trust no one.”  Meanwhile, the snowfall has intensified and threatens to cut off the remote village; uncomfortable for the six guests, but the perfect prelude to a wicked Christmas crime!

The characters are delicious and inscrutable creations.  The six guests are encouraged to keep a journal as they try to work out the prize puzzle mystery, and the reader is given access to those written by Harry Crystal and a fellow guest called Poppy de Lisle.  These first-person reflections are woven through with a third person account that focuses on the six characters from the Midwinter Trust who have organised and are responsible for the Yuletide event.  The different narratives are skilfully managed alongside other text types that appear throughout the tale as past events begin to reach through fairy lights and tinsel to turn the seasonal Ho! Ho! Ho! into a communal No! No! No!

The concept of the novel is intriguing and unusual.  I thoroughly enjoyed pitting my wits against the brains behind this cosy crime mystery.  And, whilst I failed to solve the puzzle, it didn’t detract from the pleasure of being in the company of the Midwinter twelve and I rejoiced in my small successes along the way!

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife is unusual, engaging and very funny.  Characters who delight and deceive, an ever-increasing death toll, and red herrings galore, the perfect recipe for a Merry Christmas. 
Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent  

Martin Edwards is the author of 21 novels, including the Lake District Mysteries and the Rachel Savernake books, and also an acclaimed history of crime fiction, The Life of Crime. He received the CWA Diamond Dagger for the sustained excellence of his work. He has also won the Edgar, Agatha, CrimeFest H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards, the Short Story Dagger and Dagger in the Library, plus the Poirot award for his contribution to the genre.  

 https://martinedwardsbooks.com        
www.doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.  

‘The House at Devil’s Neck’ by Tom Mead

Published by Head of Zeus,
14 August 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83793262-7 (HB)

This is a book that you will love or you will loathe: you feel as you finish it that you have just escaped from a maze lined with angled mirrors lit by a single flickering torch.

For a variety of reasons, a group of ill-matched visitors, allegedly innocent spirit-seekers, descend by unreliable transport on a haunted house almost immediately cut off by floods. It’s not just any old house: once a family mansion, it was transformed in the First World War into a military hospital, not all of whose patients survived.

And not all of the guests will survive either, though whether this will be at the hands of a mischievous ghost or those of living guests remains to be seen.

Mead’s wonderful series protagonist, an illusionist turned amateur sleuth, has naturally turned up to uncover the truth, though his old police ally, Inspector Flint, is not with him. He’s busy investigating what looks like a murder in London – though with Mead, what looks like something rarely is.

This is a novel to engage not your emotions but what another amateur sleuth called one’s ‘little grey cells’: It is a masterpiece of plotting, of wilful misleading, of period detail and even period language, coruscating in polysyllabic vocabulary tormented into complex sentences (see, it’s catching!).  Yes, it’s a Golden Age pastiche – but what a breath taking piece of writing it is.

Amazing – and strongly recommended.
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Reviewer: Judith Cutler

Tom Mead is a UK-based author specializing in crime fiction. His stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Litro Online, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Lighthouse, Mystery Scene and Mystery Weekly (among others). Several of his pieces have also been anthologized, most recently “Heatwave” in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 (ed. Lee Child). He is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the International Thriller Writers’ Organization.  

https://tommeadauthor.com  

Judith Cutler started writing while she was at the then Oldbury Grammar School, winning the Critical Quarterly Short Story prize with the second story she wrote. She subsequently read English at university. It was an attack of chickenpox caught from her son that kick-started her writing career. One way of dealing with the itch was to hold a pencil in one hand, a block of paper in the other - and so she wrote her first novel. This eventually appeared in a much-revised version as Coming Alive, published by Severn House. Judith has eight series. The first two featured amateur sleuth Sophie Rivers (10 books) and Detective Sergeant Kate Power (6 Books). Then came two, books featuring Josie Welford, a middle-aged woman with a quick tongue, and a love of good food. The Lina Townsend books are set in the world of antiques and there are seven books in this series. There are three books featuring Tobias Campion set in the Regency period, and her series featuring Chief Superintendent Fran Harman (6 books).  Her more recently a series feature a head teacher Jane Cowan (3 books). Judith has also written three standalone’s Staging Death, Scar Tissue, and Death In Elysium. Her recent series is set in Victorian times featuring Harriett & Matthew Rowsley. In At the Death is the sixth book in this series, published in January 2025. 

http://www.judithcutler.com 

‘The Corpse With The Amber Neck’ by Cathy Ace

Published by Four Tails Publishing,
22 September 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-990550-49-2 (HB)

Renowned criminal psychologist Cait Morgan has been in Paris for five weeks, lecturing at the Sorbonne. The work has been so intensive that she has had no opportunity to enjoy her stay in Paris, but now the course is complete and she is free to enjoy herself. Cait has moved to a livelier, less conventional hotel than the one the university had chosen for her; and her husband, Bud Anderson, a retired homicide detective, has travelled from Canada to join her for a week of sightseeing and pleasure.

On their first full day in Paris, Cait and Bud are on the top deck of a tour bus, which is held up in traffic. Cait looks out of the bus window and sees a woman, in the adjacent building, who is being strangled. It is a scenario that Cait compares to a classic Agatha Christie novel, especially as she cannot see enough of the assailant to identify them, or even be certain of their gender. In a macabre twist, the victim appears to have a neck that glows like amber metal. At this point the bus moves on, but, as soon as they can get it to stop, Cait and Bud retrace their route to the place where Cait had witnessed the attack. They discover that the building where the strangling occurred is the Maison Églantine, a famous and innovative fashion house, and the doorman, Lucienne, tells them that the woman Cait describes resembles Madame Églantine, the genius who had founded the fashion house. He admits that Madame Églantine is present in the building and that she wears a necklace made from amber beads that covers her neck and chest. However, Lucienne insists that the presence of a catering team on that floor of the building means that it is impossible for anybody to have attacked Madame Églantine without being detected. In fact, the whole fashion house is buzzing with activity because it is preparing for a major exhibition, alongside all the other great fashion names in Paris, and Lucienne determinedly dismisses Cait’s concerns.

For most foreign tourists there would be no way to push this forward, and no way they would be believed if they tried to report it. However, Cait is not a person to walk away when she believes that a violent crime has been committed, and Bud trusts her powers of observation enough to back her to the hilt, so the couple report what she has seen to the police. Here good fortune comes to Cait’s aid when she encounters Pierre Bertrand, a young detective with whom she had worked five years ago, when he was a police lieutenant in Nice. Pierre has been inspired by Cait to study criminology and he has great respect for her extraordinary powers of observation and her eidetic memory. His recommendation means that Captain Francine de Gaulle (no relation to the great General) takes Cait seriously and makes the bold decision to include Cait and Bud in the investigation, although in an informal way.

The Maison Églantine is a lavish, elegant place, and the members of Églantine’s central team are a diverse, and yet closely bonded group: the doorman, business manager, original model and two seamstresses have all been with Églantine since early in her career; and the daughter of the model and manager, has known Églantine all her life. The only newcomer is the fashion designer that Madame Églantine has brought in as her own replacement, because she knows that she is old and her cognitive powers are failing. When the police search the Maison Églantine they can find no trace of Églantine. Those closest to her claim that at first they thought she had wandered away and they had searched the house and neighbourhood for her; and when this proved ineffective, they insist she must have been kidnapped. However, Cait is certain of what she saw, and, as the investigation continues, she remains in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Maison Églantine to use her extraordinary abilities to probe the history, personality and fate of a very remarkable woman.

The Corpse With the Amber Neck is the fifteenth novel in the series featuring Cait Morgan and Bud Anderson. It is an excellent addition to a superb series, with an engaging protagonist who has remarkable abilities, which she has to use great self-discipline to access. Cait and Bud are likeable, very human characters, whose personalities and relationship develop with each story. This is a completely stand-alone novel, but one of the interesting features of the series is that characters from earlier novels often make return appearances, which adds to the richness of the narrative. The setting is vividly drawn and the plot is cleverly constructed, with subtle homages to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, not least because it is a closed circle mystery, with a limited number of possible suspects, and the crimes have their roots in the secrets of the past. The Corpse With the Amber Neck is a page-turner, which I wholeheartedly recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Cathy Ace was born and raised in Swansea, South Wales. With a successful career in marketing having given her the chance to write training courses and textbooks, Cathy has now finally turned her attention to her real passion: crime fiction. Her short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies. Two of her works, Dear George and Domestic Violence, have also been produced by Jarvis & Ayres Productions as ‘Afternoon Reading’ broadcasts for BBC Radio 4. Cathy now writes two series of traditional mysteries: The Cait Morgan Mysteries (TouchWood Editions) and The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries (Severn House Publishers)

http://cathyace.com

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries, the series which began with The Fragility of Poppies.  

www.carolwestron.com

Interview: Jill Amadio in Conversation with Mary Keliikoa

Author of thrillers, two mystery series, and short stories,
Mary Keliikoa is a Silver Falchion finalist, and a
Foreword Indies award finalist. 
 She is also a Silver and Bronze Award winner. 
A Shamus and CLUE finalist, and Lefty, Agatha and Anthony nominee.
She lives in Washington, Hawaii, USA.

https://marykeliikoa.com

Jill:      What is your literary/publishing history?
Mary: It’s been a long road! I started writing when I was 27. Co-wrote a novel with a friend that didn’t go anywhere, but I had the writing bug from that point on and wrote 3 more.  When I was 35, however, I tucked my writing away so I could start a company with my husband. That consumed about 15 years. Although I’d dabble with my stories during that time, I didn’t have the energy to do much else. 

In 2015 we sold that part of the company and I took that last novel I wrote when I was 35 and entered it into a contest called Pitch Wars. I was picked up by two mentors, and in 2017 signed with my first agent and debuted with DERAILED twenty years after first drafting it. DERAILED went on to be nominated for Best First Novel in several arenas. After that, I wrote two more Kelly Pruett books, and then jumped to the Misty Pines mystery series which is ongoing, and had a standalone, Don’t Ask Don’t Follow, that published last year.  

Jill:     Why did you choose to write crime novels?
Mary: From early on, I’ve been drawn to the justice system. My favorite shows as a kid were Adam 12, Columbo, Kojak and Perry Mason, and later Moonlighting. Later, right out of high school, I went to work as alegal secretary and then became a paralegal. I did that for 18 years. About that time, I also found many of mystill-today favorite authors, including Mary Higgins Clark, Faye Kellerman, J.A. Jance, and Sue Grafton.So, when I decided I’d like to write a novel, it was just natural that it would be in the crime genre.

Jill:      How do you decide on a point-of-view?
Mary: Sometimes I just know because the character’s voice is so clear to me. But if there’s a question, I’ll write the first chapter in both first and then third to see which one feels right. 

Jill:      What draws you to the mystery genre?
Mary: Hands down, it’s the puzzle. It’s seeing all the pieces floating around and trying to figure out how they fit. Some things look like they should, but they don’t, and there’s such surprise in that which I enjoy. 

Jill:      What inspires your plots, antagonists, protagonists, and other characters?
Mary: Most of my books center around strong women who must overcome obstacles. As for the plot, I’m inspired by headlines and everyday news. Though sometimes it’s just a question I have that I need answered. Most of the time, the characters come to me with the story to tell and I’m just the transcriber.

Jill:      Are minor characters important to your stories?
Mary: Absolutely. They’re the color of the story and they’re often a reflection of the main character, or an obstacle to understand or overcome for the protagonist.

Jill:      Have any of your travel experiences crept into your settings?
Mary: My published novels are set in Portland and the Oregon coast, areas in which I’ve lived. My most recent draft of a novel I set on a cruise ship for part of the book and that was inspired by my travels as I do get to travel the world quite a bit. I also am currently looking to place a book that’s set in Hawaii. Definitely a travel destination, although I also have a home there.

Jill:      Is there an actual Misty Pines?
Mary: There is not, but it is based on a place I grew up on at the Oregon coast. It’s just when I went to write the novel, the community felt too small, and I wanted to utilize more of a stretch of beach there, so I put a few cities together and called it Misty Pines. Many of the places referenced though are real to that area.

Jill:      Kelly Pruett is a strong P.I. Is she modelled after anyone you know?
Mary: No one in real life, but I was a huge fan of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone, and she inspired the Kelly Pruett character.

Jill:      How many sub-plots do you create for each book?
Mary: I usually have at least a couple of things happening that relate to the character or the relationships. For example, in my Misty Pines series, there is a relationship between Jax and his FBI agent ex-wife. Their cases often overlap, so there’s that negotiation and butting heads happening throughout the series. There’s also issues with Jax’s ex-partner, a detective in Portland, and the father to Jax’s current deputy. That often creates some tension and other elements.  In the PI series, Kelly is juggling raising a deaf daughter and that creates all kinds of judgments and obstacles from her ex-mother-in-law and ex-husband, so that’s a subplot that plays along and intertwines with the main story as well.

Jill:     Which book was the most fun to write?
Mary: My most favourite that I’ve written isn’t published, yet. It’s set in Hawaii and it’s about a woman who for reasons she doesn’t understand is compelled to help find young girls when they are taken to be trafficked. She lets nothing stand in her way, including the men who dare try, or the detective determined to see her in prison. Of course I loved the setting, but more than that, I loved the drive of the character and that for me is everything when I write. Second would be Deadly Tides in the Misty Pines series. It centers around a missing surf shop owner. I really enjoyed being able to utilize the surf culture at the Oregon coast, but since my husband is Hawaiian and was an avid surfer, it was fun to work with him on the details of the plot. And of course to give a nod to the beautiful Hawaiian culture.

Jill:      How many drafts do you write on average?
Mary: It varies because I often work with an editor, but generally, three or four drafts before I let my beta readers have a peek. Then another couple after that.

Jill:      Were there pitfalls and challenges along the way of your writing career?
Mary: There’s a lot of waiting and that’s a challenge for me because I can write fairly quickly. But what I do work on is just enjoying the journey of this. My books are published, I have readers, and that is a blessing. As long as I can keep telling my stories, the one thing I can control, I can feel satisfaction in that.

Jill:      What keeps you in the chair?
Mary: I love story telling. I love coming back to my characters each day and seeing what trouble I can put them in and the strength that they’ll have to dig deep to get out. Writing for me is processing life, and I’m quite driven and goal oriented. I want to keep telling my stories, and I have to write them to make sure they’re available to be out in the world.

Jill:      Do you have a specific writing process?
Mary: I write every day. Sometimes it’s fresh new pages, other times it’s editing. But I always have a project in process that gives me something to work on.  When I’m drafting a novel, I basically write a chapter a day. That can be anywhere from 1200 words to 2000, but I do like to finish the chapter before I leave my desk for the day.

Jill:     Do glaring errors in other mysteries irritate you?
Mary: Since I know how hard it is to write a book, I am pretty forgiving about most things. The fact that a writer sat down and got it done is huge and should be celebrated. But we’re writing fiction, and sometimes it’s more important to be in the story and in the characters and the relationships than whether someone gets a procedural thing right or wrong. 

Jill:      How do you conduct your research?
Mary: Ah the internet is my friend! But I also have a wonderful local detective that I bounce my ideas off and fact check most of my procedural aspects through. If need be, I pick up a phone and call specific experts in a field if I need more details than the internet can provide. People love to talk about what they do, so that’s always fun. Also, if I need to know a place, I get in the car and go. No matter how wonderful the internet is, there’s nothing like walking around a town for the sights and smells and sounds of it. And, of course, meeting the people who make up the community.

Jill:      Are there lessons you hope readers will take from your books? 
Mary: I want my readers to enjoy and be immersed in the story. Sure, I do often address social issues—houselessness, sex trafficking, etc. - but it’s more to shine a light on the issues. I often have my characters seeking to understand the why of those situations and I’ve been told by readers that it’s a great approach because it’s like showing you something without beating you over the head with it. Maybe if I can get a reader to think differently about a situation that looks one way but has much more depth than what’s on the surface of it, that’s a win.

Jill:      Do you have a favourite marketing strategy?
Mary: Don’t be afraid to tell people you write and what you write. I’m an introvert, but I have the best time when I’m on a cruise ship or tour and people ask what I do for a living. I’m retired—so I could say that, but it’smuch more fun to say full-time author. I’ve had more invites to book clubs across the country just by telling people what I do and being excited about that. Word of mouth really is one of the best ways to sell your books. Also – have a nice website, so when you are talking about yourself, people have a professional place to go that makes you look like you are legitimate.

Jill:     Tips/advice for budding mystery writers?
Mary: Have plenty of red herrings in your book, but always make sure they tie somehow into the main plot. And you always want to play fair with the reader. It’s a balancing act, but leave enough bread crumbs so that the reader can look back and think, yeah, I must have missed that but oh what a great twist!

Jill:      What’s next for you?
Mary: Killer Tracks the third book in the Misty Pines mystery series will be out in September 2025. Beyond that, I’m contemplating a fourth book in that same series, and looking to get my other stories out in the world.

Thanks for chatting to us, Mary.

 Kelly Pruett Mysteries
Derailed
Denied
Deceived

Misty Pines Mysteries
Hidden In Pieces
Deadly Tides
Killer Tracks

Non Series
Don't Ask, Don't Follow

Jill Amadio hails from Cornwall, U.K, like the character in her crime series, Jill was a reporter in Spain, Colombia,  Thailand, and the U.S. She is a true crime author, ghosted a thriller, and freelances for My Cornwall magazine. She lives in Connecticut USA.  Her most recent book is

In Terror's Deadly Clasp, 

‘A Dark Death’ by Alice Fitzpatrick

Published by Stonehouse Publishing,
1 June 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-988754-62-8 (PB)

Kate Galway is a historical novelist and ex-teacher who has returned to Meredith Island after her marriage ended. The island is situated just off the Welsh coast, and it is home to a small, traditional community who always takes care of their own.

Bored with plotting her writing, Kate has walked to a rugged part of the island that she has not visited for years because she is curious about the archaeological dig that is taking place there. The dig is under the supervision of Professor Simon Penhaligon, who has brought five of his students to work there: show-off, arrogant Jude; forthright, sexy Myfanwy; quiet, hard-working Noah; whinging Poppy; and studious, responsible Tristan. Kate is especially eager to see Tristan again, because he is the son of a university friend and the nearest thing to a godson that Kate has. While Kate is at the trench, Poppy makes a discovery that is both exciting and confusing, as it makes no archaeological sense.

Meredith Island is usually a quiet place but, at the moment, it is receiving a high number of outside visitors. As well as the archaeologists, a self-proclaimed psychic, Griffin Blackstock, and his PA have arrived to do a television programme about Faraday Manor, which is the only large house on the island. Faraday Manor has been left empty, although not untended, since a tragedy generations ago caused the owner to move away, and Blackstock claims that he can contact the spirits of the dead that linger at Faraday Manor. For Blackstock’s initial performance he has invited three people to attend his demonstration: one of them is Kate; the others are the Reverend Imogen Larkin and Miss Sophie Sutherland, an elderly lady who is vulnerable to Blackstock’s tricks because of recent bereavement. The performance is very much what Kate expects, clearly drawing on things learned by the pseudo psychic and his PA through research beforehand. However, one thing that has no basis in truth or gossip is an evil slur on the reputation of a local man who had worked at Faraday Manor and whose descendant, Evan Cragwell, still lives on the island. To Kate’s surprise, Miss Sophie is comforted by what Blackstock tells her about her late sisters being happy and reunited; but Imogen Larkin, who had refused to stay in the room during the Ouija board performance, has been traumatised by something that occurred.

Blackstock has made himself very unpopular in the community, but everyone is shocked when his naked body is discovered, laid out in the archaeologists’ trench. After helping to investigate her aunt’s death, Kate has a local reputation as an amateur sleuth, but she has no intention of getting involved in this case, especially as the police officers in charge have made it clear that they object to amateur interference. However, Kate soon realises that the detective in charge is focusing his attention on people she cares about, such as Evan Cragwell and Tristan, whose family had some bad history with Blackstock. Kate and her friends plunge into the investigation, probing the secrets of both the newcomers and the villagers until she reaches a surprising conclusion.

A Dark Death is the second book in the series featuring Kate Galway and the inhabitants of Meredith Island. It is an intriguing book with an engaging protagonist and a likeable cast of characters who form a delightful community. The plot is multi-layered and cleverly constructed. This is a very enjoyable read, which I recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron  

Alice Fitzpatrick has contributed short stories to literary magazines and anthologies and has retired from teaching in order to devote herself to writing full-time. She is a fearless champion of singing, cats, all things Welsh, and the Oxford comma. Her summers spent with her Welsh family in Pembrokeshire inspired the creation of Meredith Island. The traditional mystery appeals to her keen interest in psychology as she is intrigued by what makes seemingly ordinary people commit murder. Alice lives in Toronto but dreams of a cottage on the Welsh coast.  

http://www.alicefitzpatrick.com

Carol Westron is a Golden Age expert who has written many articles on the subject and given papers at several conferences. She is the author of several series: contemporary detective stories and police procedurals, comedy crime and Victorian Murder Mysteries. Her most recent publications are Paddling in the Dead Sea and Delivering Lazarus, books 2 and 3 of the Galmouth Mysteries. The first book in this series is 
The Fragility of Poppies.  

www.carolwestron.com