Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: Related by Murder by Jo A Hiestand @JoHiestand @GoddessFish

 

Related By Murder

by Jo A. Hiestand

GENRE: British Mystery

BLURB:

From the moment ex-police detective Michael McLaren arrives at his friend’s house, he’s plunged into a nightmare of a case. Two men, hanged a year apart, each killed on a Good Friday. A barrister. A solicitor. Related careers. Related by murder. Related motives?

Pottery shards, a torn newspaper article, and biscuits are found in each man’s pocket. What do they signify? And the blackmail letters Melanie receives… Are they related to the murders, or are they separate, terrifying in their own way?

Professions, calendar date, McLaren’s attack. Could it all be entwined? Or is the motive for murder something else, something so secret that keeping it is worth attempting a third one?

NOTE: The book is on sale for $0.99.

Excerpt:

“I’ve an idea. Would you like to come visit? Would that settle you? I would’ve asked sooner, but I thought perhaps you were investigating another cold case.”

“Nothing’s reared its ugly head, thank God, but the day’s young.”

Melanie laughed, and McLaren envisioned her dark blonde hair falling over her shoulder. “Well, then, I’m elected to nudge you out of your… I forgot what you call your bad mood.”

“My sister calls it my growlings. And I’m not in a bad mood. I just can’t focus on anything.”

“You’re still keyed up about your recent case. Just a second. I have to put the phone down.” During the conversational break, he could hear metal sliding along something hard, like a baking sheet skimming across a granite kitchen worktop. Little scrapes, like an aluminum spatula scooting biscuits or scones off the sheet, convinced him he’d interrupted her work and he needed to let her get on with her day. He had just persuaded himself to tell her goodbye when her voice was back at his ear. “You need a break, Mike. Something different from your usual schedule. Why don’t you drive up here? May is shining in its colorful glory at the moment. My housekeeping’s not too shabby, either.” She seemed to add the last sentence as a joke, for her voice rose in an air of teasing.

“I didn’t ring you up to wheedle a trip, Melanie. I thought a chat would do me good.” And I wanted to hear your voice, he nearly added, but didn’t.

Interview with Jo A. Hiestand

What made you want to become a writer?

I grew up reading Dumas, Twain, duMaurier, Dickens and the Brontes. I loved the atmosphere of those books. Add watching the old Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movies and the moods of 1940s/50s movies like Brief Encounter, Night Must Fall, and The Thirty-Nine Steps, and I knew I wanted to write mysteries, and the books had to be set in Britain. It wasn’t so much telling a story that appealed to me as it was creating the landscapes and their moods these landscapes evoked, and then setting people into those places. That’s why scene is important in my books. As I progressed with my writing and the number of books published, the attraction of telling the story that involved these characters took hold. Oh, I still think place and its mood are very important, but I like to write about both aspects; I think they’ve both bewitched me.

What inspired you to write RELATED BY MURDER?

Prior to writing RELATED BY MURDER I’d been researching the Staffordshire Knot, a pretzel-looking three-loop knot. There’s a famous tale that it was invented to hang three criminals simultaneously by one rope! Obviously, it’s a myth, but it intrigued me and I came up with the idea of two men hanged from the same tree on the same holiday, though separately. I thought it would be interesting if they were somehow connected, either by murder motive or something in each man’s past or perhaps their careers. So, McLaren investigates the two murders—that’s what the series is based on: him investigating cold cases on his own. Obviously, I can’t use the Staffordshire Knot in any future book since I have used the rope idea in RELATED BY MURDER, but I’m sure something else will present itself for another book!

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in RELATED BY MURDER?

Michael McLaren is my protagonist. He’s an ex-police detective with Staffordshire Constabulary. He quit his job due to a great injustice involving an older friend of his. He now repairs/builds dry stone walls in Derbyshire and investigates cold cases on his own for people who ask his help. His best mate is Jamie Kydd, a working police detective, who sometimes joins McLaren in the investigations. These are two on-going characters in the series.

In this book, Craig Roe and George Poyser are the murder victims. Both were discovered hanged on Good Fridays, a year apart, hanging from the same tree. Their careers are related: one was a barrister and the other was a solicitor. So there’s speculation that some case they both were involved with holds the clue to the case solution.

Melanie Travers owns the B&B in which McLaren stays when he comes to the village and conducts his investigation. This is the third book in which Melanie appears (Arrested Flight and Black Moon are the other two), and she’s fast becoming McLaren’s love interest. She admires his intelligence, honesty and determination; he’s drawn to her intelligence and her independence.

Another great character in the book (and in Arrested Flight) is Barry Grady. He’s the church sexton. He unfortunately had an accident years ago, and that damaged his mental faculties. He’s a sweet, endearing man who sees fairies and believes Uther Pendragon is about to return. He’ll tell you what he sees, which is helpful—the trouble is that he mixes fantasy with fact, so McLaren has a difficult time unraveling the truth from him.

A character I also had fun with is Scott Woodhouse. He’s the publican of The Hanging Dragon in the village where McLaren is working on his case. Since the village is in Cumbria, I thought I’d try my hand at giving Scott a Cumbrian dialect and his vocabulary was fun to research. I toned down word spellings for the book, otherwise it would be too hard for us to read and understand! But I wanted to at least give the flavor of his Cumbrian speech. I hope I’ve struck a happy medium.

There are other characters in the book, but I’ll let those be a surprise.

You know I think we all have a favorite author. Who is your favorite author and why?

The Golden Age mystery writer Ngaio Marsh is my idol. Her writing is beautiful, her characters well drawn and full of detail, her plots ingenious. I think her superb character development stems from her years of working in the theater as an actress and directing plays both in her native New Zealand and in London. She’s accustomed to characters acting out their emotions and thereby strengthening the storyline. Her theater experience has also given her a great ear for dialogue, which she used quite well. When I read her books, I can so easily feel and hear and see what her characters feel and hear and see. They are real people moving in their own world, not mere props used to convey a story.

Can you tell us a little bit about your next books or what you have planned for the future?

Well, just a few days ago I began plotting the next McLaren book, HAUNTED WATER. McLaren investigates the cold case of a young man drowned in a lake in Cheshire, England. The lake is associated with the myth of a morgen, a Welsh water spirit who drowns men. In the past few days I’ve created my characters (names, ages, occupations) and given them relationships to each other and to the victim. I’ve invented my fictional village and located it near Congleton, Cheshire. It’s a place I actually visited once, so that will help with my description of the area. Now I’m working on motive and whodunit!

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I do enjoy the research. I had to learn about Shap Abbey and the villages of Kirby Stephen and Ravenstonedale so I could describe them. I learned a lot about the Falklands War—the dates and battles and regiments involved. I learned about barristers and solicitors, what work each does, and the court system and how court reporters are assigned their cases. I learned about a curious Cumbrian tradition and plopped that into the book. Too bad cocktail parties are a thing of the past: I’d love to drop bits of some of this into the conversations!

Perhaps the other thing I really enjoyed about writing RELATED BY MURDER is reuniting McLaren and Melanie, and developing their burgeoning mutual attraction. This is just the third time they’ve been together, so I didn’t want to plunge them into a serious relationship or even engagement just yet, but I needed to show their deepening affection. I found it a challenge but also enjoyable because McLaren needs to love someone!

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I grew up reading Dumas, Twain, duMaurier, Dickens and the Brontes. I loved the atmosphere of those books. Add the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movies and the moods of 1940s/50s movies like Brief Encounter, Night Must Fall, and The Thirty-Nine Steps, and I knew I wanted to write mysteries, and the books had to be set in Britain. That was a must even though I knew only what I’d seen in the movies and read in the novels. But the British pull was tenacious. Three years ago I discovered that I have literally centuries and centuries of English, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Do genes mean anything?

My first visit to England was during my college years and that cemented my joy of Things British. Since then, I’ve been lured back nearly a dozen times, and lived there for a year during my professional folksinging stint.

What do I write? Well, at the moment, I write two British mystery series: the McLaren Mysteries and the Peak District Mysteries. The McLaren novels feature ex-police detective Michael McLaren, who investigates cold case murders on his own. The Peak District books feature a different British custom/tradition that is the backbone of each book’s plot. These are a combo cozy/police procedural, and members of the Derbyshire Constabulary CID Murder team work these cases.

I combined my love of writing, mysteries, music, and board games by co-inventing a mystery-solving treasure-hunting game, P.I.R.A.T.E.S.

I founded the Greater St. Louis Chapter of the international mystery writers/readers organization Sisters in Crime, serving as its first president.

In 2001, I graduated from Webster University with a BA degree in English and departmental honors. I live in the St. Louis, MO area with my cat, Tennyson, and way too many kilts.

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