Kate Tessler is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about Something Prowling in Paradise Park, the latest novel in the Accidental Detective mystery series.

Welcome, Kate. 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.

I’ve been solving mysteries for a while now. I became an “accidental detective” in Something Shady at Sunshine Haven. Before that, I was a journalist specializing in covering wars and natural disasters. I spent thirty years traveling the world, especially the Middle East, reporting dangerous stories. Then I got too close to a bomb. Shrapnel damaged my leg, and I discovered I didn’t bounce back as quickly at age 49 as I did when younger. I returned home to the Phoenix area and moved back in with my father. I expected to be there a couple of months while I recuperated, but it’s been a year and a half.

I can’t really claim to be an accidental detective anymore, since I’ve solved quite a few mysteries now. My sister, Jen, is partly to blame. My return home to Arizona coincided with her midlife crisis, so she decided we should become detectives. Turns out getting a PI license is more challenging then we’d realized, but that doesn’t stop us from meddling unofficially when people want help. My journalism background is helpful in investigations.

In Something Prowling in Paradise Park, I tackle three cases: Squatters who took over a snowbird’s house while the owners were away for the summer, the thefts of local pedigree dogs, and smash and grab burglaries at local pot shops.

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

What are you talking about? I am the story. Okay, maybe the writer lives out her alternate reality fantasies through my actions. She likes to pretend she could have been me if she’d chosen a slightly different path in life. Let’s leave her to that delusion.

How did you evolve as the main character?

I thought I’d be bored staying in Arizona, living in my childhood home with my father. I thought I’d miss the excitement of being a war correspondent. Turns out there’s plenty of drama here. I’ve faced down everyone from Russian mobsters to human traffickers. And those villains were easy compared to dealing with some of my friends and family.

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

I have Jen, who’s desperate for adventure and determined to drag me with her. My father’s friends Clarence and Arnold are chaos personified. They’re more like rambunctious toddlers determined to get into everything. Eighty is the new three? I complain, but the truth is I adore the three of them and appreciate the excitement.

They make it easier for me to enjoy the quieter times. I have my boyfriend, Mayor Todd Paradise, and his sweet teenage boys. My father has turned out to be an ideal roommate. We had to negotiate a bit in the beginning, but now I love his company and the fact he’s not constantly pestering me to investigate some bizarre crime he’s uncovered, like Clarence does.

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

Phoenix is a huge city. That has its advantages, like any type of food you could possibly want, and disadvantages, like crime. Or maybe for our group, that’s another advantage, since we won’t run out of people who need our help. We also have our smaller community within the greater Phoenix area, which has more of a small town feel. It’s warm in winter and hot in summer, and everything in the desert wants to stab you.

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

In Something Prowling in Paradise Park, my senior pals introduce me to the Standishes, snowbirds who came home early and found strangers living in their house—with forged lease papers. Legal eviction can require months and money, so my found family and I start investigating the squatters to find any dirt we can use as leverage.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend’s teenage sons bring me a case of their own: a rash of dog thefts sweeping the neighborhood. Then one of my friendly computer experts introduces me to neighboring business owners at a marijuana dispensary. They suffered a burglary when the thieves crashed the car through their front wall.

Things really heat up when a late-night stakeout ends in a shocking discovery—a dead body. Was it a freak accident… or a murder?

As the publisher says, “Filled with twists, humor, and heart, Something Prowling in Paradise Park delivers the perfect blend of cozy mystery, female sleuth suspense, and found-family crime solving. Fans of J.A. Jance, Elly Griffiths, and Ann Cleeves will love this page-turner set against Arizona’s sunbaked secrets.”

Thank you for answering my questions, Kate, and good luck to you and your author, Kris Bock, with Something Prowling in Paradise Park, the latest book in the Accidental Detective mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Kate and her author, Kris Bock by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads, Bookbub, Instagram and Tiktok pages. You can also follow her on BlueSky and Mastodon.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

Amazon    B&N     Apple     Google Books   Kobo
Publisher with links to all retailers    Universal link      Series universal link

About Kris Bock: Kris writes mystery, suspense, and romance, often with smart, snarky heroines finding adventure (sometimes against their will) in the Southwest. Learn more at KrisBock.com. Sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter and get short stories from the Accidental Detective and the Reluctantly Psychic series, a cat café novella, aSweet Home Alabama romantic comedy story, and other freebies. Then every two weeks, you’ll get fun content about pets, announcements of new books, sales, and more.

In the Reluctantly Psychic Mystery series, a quirky loner who can read the history of any object with her touch gets drawn into mysteries at the museum of oddities where she works.Kris’s romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. Readers have called these novels “Smart romance with an Indiana Jones feel.”

The Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series stars the employees and customers at a cat café. Watch as they fall in love with each other and shelter cats. In the Accidental Billionaire Cowboys series, a Texas ranching family wins a fortune in the lottery. Who wouldn’t want to be a billionaire? Turns out winning the lottery causes as many problems as it solves.

Kris also writes a series with her brother, scriptwriter Douglas J Eboch, who wrote the original screenplay for the movie Sweet Home Alabama. The Felony Melanie series follows the crazy antics of Melanie, Jake, and their friends a decade before the events of the movie.