Today Richard Atwood is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about Treasure Most Deadly, the latest novel in the Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast mystery series.

Welcome, Richard. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

My name is Richard Atwood and I’m the owner of the Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast. Treasure Most Deadly is the fifth Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery. Once again, my eleven-year-old daughter and I are dragged into the middle of a murder that rocks our little town. This time, the victim is a known treasure thief who my daughter and one of our guests caught stealing artifacts from an archaeological site.

What’s odd isn’t the murder itself, but all the other things going on in town. Someone sent a tip to the press that the archaeologist in charge of the excavation is corrupt. Our little town is teeming with reporters chasing that story. There’s also been an attempt to sabotage the vessel being used by the archaeologist in charge. As a former reporter who covered the crime beat, I can tell you this whole mess has well-organized stamped all over it.

The thing that annoys me most about this series is that I’m always in a race against my daughter to solve the crime. No matter how many times I ground her, she never stops sticking her nose in a police investigation, someplace where it definitely doesn’t belong.

Does the writer control what happens in the story or do you get a say too?

I have a lot of empathy for our writer. He’s got all these characters with their conflicting demands, and it’s his job to keep it all moving in one direction. I can remember those days and nights in New York when I had to make sense of what was happening on the crime beat. But he chose the job, so he just has to suck it up and get it done. He does a lot of planning to make sure things don’t slow down and that the murder gets solved, so unless he really messes up, I let him do his thing.

How did you evolve as the main character?

Well, I suppose that’s because I’m the dad. I’m the guy with the news-writing background. Of course, if you ask my daughter Alex, she’ll tell you she’s the main character. It’s another one of those parent-child differences of opinion.

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?

I do like sharing the story with Alex. She has a very different perspective, and sometimes all those wild theories of hers actually turn out to be something. And let’s face it, I’m partial to her because she’s my daughter.

What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story?

My writer likes to call Seaside Cove ‘the little town where murder meets the sea.’ I prefer to think of it as a good place to raise Alex, run my business, and deepen the relationship with the love of my life. After all, who wants a lot of drama in a small town on the California coast? We have a couple of excellent restaurants, friendly people, and moderate weather. We get a lot of fog in the spring, something I didn’t realize when we moved here. And we do seem to have had an inordinate number of murders. You know what? Maybe my writer’s got the description correct. Just don’t tell him I said that or he’ll get a swelled head.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about you and the book?

I’ve found a place where I want to settle down for the long run and enjoy life. That would be a lot easier to accomplish if it wasn’t for all these murders. I mentioned the love of my life. Her name is Marquetta Weiss, and she’s our cook here at the B&B. I fell head-over-heels in love with her the first time we met, but it took almost a year before we had our first kiss. This is another case of a parent-child difference of opinion because if you ask Alex, she’ll say she’s the one who brought us together. You know what? Maybe I’ll let Alex take the credit for that one. After all, she did a lot to help me avoid getting snared in the town’s marriage competition. That, however, is another story.

Thank you for answering my questions, Richard, and good luck to you and your author, Terry Ambrose, with Treasure Most Deadly, the latest book in the Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Richard and his author, Terry Ambrose by visiting the author’s website and his Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and LinkedIn pages. You can also follow him on Twitter.

The novel is available online at  Amazon 

About Terry Ambrose: Once upon a time, in a life he’d rather forget, Terry Ambrose, tracked down deadbeats for a living. He also hired big guys with tow trucks to steal cars-but only when negotiations failed. Those years of chasing deadbeats taught him many valuable life lessons such as-always keep your car in the garage. Today, Terry likes fast, funny mysteries and cool photography. He writes the Trouble in Paradise McKenna Mysteries and organized an anthology to benefit Read Aloud America. He fondly likens his efforts to those of a blind man herding cats.