Today I’m featuring an excerpt from a new amateur detective novel, Semblance of Guilt, by Claudia Reiss.
Here’s the publisher’s summary of the story:
Ellen Davis’s husband left her for another woman. Post-divorce, she’s trying to reassert her independence and lands a job as a reporter for her local newspaper. One of her assignments is covering weekly items on the police blotter, which is how she gets to know Lieutenant Pete Sakura—a handsome, witty Japanese-American Ellen is drawn to immediately.
Another of Ellen’s assignments is interviewing for the paper’s “Around The Town” column, and in this capacity, she meets Graham and Sophia Clarke, newcomers to the community. He’s an administrator at Columbia; she’s his beautiful Greek wife. Ellen and Sophia become fast friends, so it comes as a great shock when Sophia ends up dead.
Sophia Clarke is found murdered, and to all appearances, Ellen is the last person to have seen her alive. When Ellen’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon, she’s arrested, and evidence steadily mounts against her. Ellen takes matters into her own hands as her romantic feelings for Pete intensify. Closing this case could either save Ellen or lead to her destruction.
Two excerpts from the novel:
After navigating past the desks, she knocked on the door of the cubicle. No response. The second, more deliberate, rap was answered with an impatient “Come!”
Ellen entered the office and was somewhat taken aback by the sight of an attractive Asian man in shirt-sleeves awkwardly poised by the side of his desk, arms out, legs spread one behind the other, the front one slightly bent, the rear rigidly locked. He looked, she thought, as if he were trying to keep his balance on a skateboard. His attention was fixed on an open book sitting at the edge of his desk. “Give me a second,” he said testily, without taking his eyes off the book and at the same time adjusting the position of his front foot to a more pigeon-toed angle.
“I won’t ask what you’re doing,” Ellen said.
“Smart.” There was a sound of raised voices coming from the outer room. “The door!”
She closed it. “However, maybe you’d like to know what I’m doing?”
He ignored her question. “Damn, I’m not getting it.” He glanced up. “Do me a favor, take a look at number fifty and tell me what the hell is wrong here.”
Ellen approached the desk and peered down at the open book. A two-page spread of photographs showed a man in what looked like an usher’s uniform demonstrating a series of exercises. “Is this tai chi?”
“This is a pain in the ass. Could you look at the picture, tell me where I’m off, please?”
“‘Fair Lady works at Shuttles,’” she read aloud. She looked up from the page at him then back down again. “I see where you are. Figure fifty-A. It says: ‘Elbow bent, your right hand comes to your center line, fingers pinched together…’” She looked up. “For starters, your fingers aren’t pinched together.”
“Just hold the book up so I can see it from a better angle, okay?”
She held the book, show-and-tell style. He went through a variety of disconnected motions, clearly becoming more frustrated. “Shit.”
Ellen had formed a perception of the Japanese male as meditative, controlled, mysterious, soft-spoken, one who quietly went about transcending the material world while politely manipulating it. She had never realized she harbored this fully defined and fallacious stereotype until that moment, as she was looking at what appeared to be its antithesis. “If your phone rings, should I answer it?”
“Forget it.” He dropped the pose, took the book from her and put it back on the desk. “I’m all out of sync.”
“Now I’ll ask. What are you doing?”
“Getting my goddamn yin and yang together. My doctor tells me I have an ulcer and prescribes pills, but I don’t like pills. I’m taking up the eastern approach.”
“But isn’t tai chi Chinese?”
“Yeah, so?”
“‘Sakura’ sounds like a Japanese name.”
“Let me ask you a question. You ever eat chow mein?”
“Well, yes.”
“I rest my case.” He waved her toward the chair on the other side of the desk and dropped down into his own. “Sit.”
She remained on her feet. “I’m Ellen Davis. I was told you had the data for the Chronicle’s ‘Blotter’ column. I’m just here to collect it.”
He threw up a hand. “What’s the point of that column? All it does is stigmatize the poor saps who appear in it. There’s no investigation of circumstances, no disclaimers stating charges could be erroneous. Just a cold-blooded list of citations.”
“It’s supposed to serve as a deterrent,” she said without conviction. “Actually, I don’t particularly like the column myself, but I don’t make up the rules. I’m sorry I messed up your exercise routine. May I have the material, please?”
She became aware of herself as an unattached, uncompromised individual as she once was at Penn. She sensed the boundaries of her being as clearly as she felt the hem of her knit dress pull tightly against her legs with each step she took. It was as if she had never been married, had instead dressed for an interview and walked straight out of west Philadelphia into Morningside Heights.
***
Mid-block between 109 and 108 Streets, as she was passing a shoe store and scanning the view across the way, her attention was drawn to the bright blue awning of Charlie’s Snack Bar. At that moment the door to the restaurant opened, and a tall young woman with cropped red hair and wearing a tight black turtleneck sweater, clingy black pants and black cowboy boots, stepped out into the daylight. The girl stood aside to allow the man behind her to pass, and as he emerged completely into the sunlight, Ellen recognized Graham. She was about to hail him, when he took a step toward the redhead and Ellen realized he was with her. Unable to tear her focus from the scene or insinuate herself into it, she backed up into the shadow cast by the overhanging eave of the shoe store.
While Graham snapped down and adjusted the removable sun-visors of his eyeglasses, the young woman reached into the breast pocket of his blazer, drew out a pair of sunglasses he must have been holding for her, and put them on, in the process grazing her breasts against his left elbow. The act defined them as intimate friends, yet the distance springing up between them immediately afterward seemed devised to refute it. They stood apart talking to each other, their postures stiff and formal, their not touching as conspicuous as an open embrace.
Ellen watched them as her years at Penn were sucked into a black hole, and all she could remember was her husband Kevin dropping the bomb, telling her he was leaving her. Watching Graham and the redhead across the street was like catching the discovery scene she had missed, seeing it replayed for her benefit, like a burlesque in which she was both captive audience and object of scorn.
Almost at once she felt a connection with Sophia.
Sophia pulled her hands away and struck out at Ellen in one continuous movement, throwing herself off balance and stumbling sideways. She stared in horror at the gouge one of her nails had made on Ellen’s chest, and Ellen, stunned by the violence and not yet feeling the pain, gazed in disbelief at the drop of blood tracking toward the scalloped edge of her white satin bustier.
“Go—get out of here,” Sophia rasped. “I’m afraid what I might do to you. Get out, get out.”
The blood trickled onto the rim of smooth white fabric, forming a small, irregular stain. Ellen looked up at Sophia. The woman she thought she knew had become a trapped animal, her eyes wary-wild.
A sharp pain from the nick in her chest jolted her from her numbing inertia. She moved quickly from the room, feeling the tears coming, holding them back, postponing them as she ran silently down the hall. She descended the steps with blazing deliberation, her pace quick and even, her focus on reaching the door and disappearing into the sheltering night. She could feel her eyes, static-wide in bewildered alarm, betraying her attempt to appear in total control. Still, she focused straight ahead, concentrating on her goal, hearing Anna calling her name but moving through the sound, pacing herself to simulate haste without flight as she sliced through the clear zone of the foyer and pushed open the storm door. Midway across the porch she collided with an incoming guest, all pearls and black silk, the woman’s staccatoed “Shit!” like a gunshot in an open field of combat.
Picking up speed, she hurtled down the bluestone drive, anticipating the sound of the engine starting up even before she could spot her car.
Readers can learn more about the author and her novel by visiting her website, Facebook and Goodreads pages and Twitter. The ebook version of the novel is available at a reduced price (£1.49) on Amazon throughout July.
About Claudia Riess: A Vassar graduate, she has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker and Holt Rinehart and Winston. On her first novel, Reclining Nude, Oliver Sacks, M.D. commented: “exquisite—and delicate.” Her second, art suspense Stolen Light earned: “complex and intriguing” —Kirkus Review.
Here’s how the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, describes the novel: “England, 1185. John is a prince without prospect of a crown. As the youngest son of Henry II, he has long borne the hated nickname ‘Lackland’. When warring tribes and an ambitious Anglo-Norman lord threaten Henry’s reign in Ireland, John believes his time has finally come. Henry is dispatching him there with a mighty force to impose order.
About E.M. Powell: E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers The Fifth Knight and The Blood of the Fifth Knight have been number-one Amazon bestsellers and on the Bild bestseller list in Germany.
hemisphere, winter for those in the southern hemisphere. It’s more or less, half way through the year.
As a Private Investigator, Jenna Preston had been hired to help solve murders, insurance fraud, cheating spouses and more. This was a new one for her.
“Jenna, you’ve seen how difficult and fussy they can be, and their egos—they’re constantly seeking confirmation of how beautiful they look. They want to come to a high-end salon, expecting to be treated like royalty. And believe me, we do.”
About M. Glenda Rosen: She is the author of The Woman’s Business Therapist: Eliminate the MindBlocks and RoadBlocks to Success, and award-winning My Memoir Workbook. For over fifteen years, she helped numerous authors develop and market their books, and presented writing programs in New York, The Hamptons, New Mexico and Carmel, California, on “Encouraging and Supporting the Writer Within You!” She’s the founder and owner of a successful marketing and public relations agency for twenty-five years.
JA: Against the background of Chicago history in the last half of the 19th century, The Gilded Cage tells the story of Potter and Bertha (Cissy) Honoré Palmer. He was a prominent businessman and builder of the city, owner of the still-operating Palmer House Hotel; she was one of the first socialites to believe that wealth carried an obligation to philanthropy and to put her belief into actions beyond monetary donations. Her greatest accomplishment came as president of the Board of Lady Managers at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
About Judy Alter: She is the award winning author of fiction for adults and young adults. Other historical fiction includes Libbie, the story of Elizabeth Bacon (Mrs. George Armstrong) Custer; Jessie, the story of Jessie Benton Frémont and her explorer / miner / entrepreneur / soldier / politician husband; Cherokee Rose, a novel loosely based on the life of the first cowgirl roper to ride in Wild West shows; and Sundance, Butch and Me, the adventures of Etta Place and the Hole in the Wall Gang.
AKR: Promised to the Crown tells the story of three very different women who chose to accept Louis XIV’s offer to travel to his colony in Canada, then known as New France, in order to choose husbands from among the legion of bachelor settlers. The King needs women to help increase the population to hold the colony from the British menace and to tie the men to the land. France was in a time of relative prosperity, yet 770 brave women answered the call to go to the frozen north. Elisabeth, Rose, and Nicole face hardships and triumph in the new world, and the friendship they forge on their crossing sees them through it all.
About Aimie K. Runyan: A member of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Women’s Fiction Writers Association, she has been an avid student of French and Francophone Studies for more than fifteen years. While working on her Master’s thesis on the brave women who helped found French Canada, she was fortunate enough to win a generous grant from the Quebec government to study onsite for three months, which enabled the detailed research necessary for her work. Aimie lives in Colorado with her husband and two children.
NE: Camelot’s Queen is the second book of my Arthurian legend trilogy that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view. This one focuses on the story we think we all know – Guinevere’s time as queen. (Her early life before King Arthur is told in Daughter of Destiny, the first book in the series.) All the familiar elements are there – the battles, the infamous affair, the Holy Grail – but they are told in a way that’s different from the medieval legends we’re familiar with. Guinevere is a battle queen who rules side-by-side with Arthur, rather than being in his shadow; her affair with Lancelot doesn’t happen simply out of lust – it’s actually Arthur’s fault; and the Grail is different than you’ve ever seen it. Plus, Morgan is a disrupting influence in a way I don’t think any other author has ever shown her. And I delve into the dark side of Arthurian legend surrounding Guinevere’s kidnapping which is something many authors have shied away from. No matter the situation, this is a Guinevere with agency, perfectly willing to rescue herself.
romantic comedy writer. Her debut novel, Daughter of Destiny, the first book of an Arthurian legend trilogy that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view, has been short-listed for the Chaucer Award in Early Historical Fiction. Camelot’s Queen is its sequel.
Gathered at their childhood home to mourn their father’s death, Ally D’Aplièse and her five adoptive sisters receive tantalizing clues to their distinct heritages. Ally soon finds herself in Norway where she begins to make sense of her elusive past in the second part of an epic new series by #1 internationally bestselling author Lucinda Riley.
About Lucinda Riley: She was born in Ireland and wrote her first book aged 24. Her novel ‘Hothouse Flower’ (also called ‘The Orchid House’) was selected for the UK’s Richard and Judy Bookclub in 2011 and went on to sell 2 million copies worldwide. She is a multiple New York Times bestselling author and has topped the bestseller charts in four European countries.
SC: A Death Along The River Fleet opens with Lucy Campion, 17th century printer’s apprentice and bookseller, on her way to deliver some books to a customer several miles from her shop. As she crosses the River Fleet and enters the vast wasteland created by the Great Fire of London of 1666, she encounters a strange woman who speaks of being chased by the Devil. The woman is barefoot, clad only in a shift, covered in blood that is not her own, and unable to remember her identity. Worried that the woman will be set upon by fearful villagers, Lucy brings the woman to the home of a physician she knows. When they suspect that the woman may be a noblewoman, the physician does not wish to throw her out of her house and presses Lucy to tend the woman while the woman’s family is being located. To make matters more strange, the body of a murdered man is found in the ruins nearby, and the odd woman may well be the murderess.
SC: This time period in British history fascinates me generally. King Charles had only been restored to the throne for several years (following two decades of more repressive Puritan rule) when the plague struck, followed soon after by the Great Fire. Those events completely disrupted families and communities in London, as people died, or fled from the area. Not only was there a great deal of identity theft (servants could become masters and appropriate titles, property and wealth) but there were also unheralded job opportunities. Lucy was able to avoid some of the patriarchal strictures of her time, by finding a way to become a printer’s apprentice (even if the stationer’s guild does not formally accept her).
SC: I try to balance accuracy and authenticity. I try to be as accurate as possible, using period maps and primary sources to help me with details, and scholarly secondary sources to help me make sense of the larger social, cultural, religious and political trends. But there were certainly a few things that I had to simplify—for example, there was no police force at this time period, so I had to give my constable a broader range of duties and powers that were probably a bit exaggerated.
SC: I created every character in my book. I do reference historical figures like King Charles II or the diarist Sam Pepys, but those details just serve to enhance the larger historical backdrop. I made the decision a long time ago not to use real historical figures, because I think I would feel too limited in what I could let the character say or do or act. I would want to be scrupulous in the way I portrayed this person, and that just seems very challenging.
About Susanna Calkins: Susanna became fascinated with seventeenth-century England while pursuing her doctorate in British history and uses her fiction to explore this chaotic period. Originally from Philadelphia, Calkins now lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two sons. A Death Along the River Fleet is her fourth novel.
Today I’ve been chatting with Vanessa Couchman on her blog about how to meet wartime fiction readers’ expectations, even when your story isn’t set in one of the places where they expect to find themselves when they open the book and turn to the first page. Since I’m writing the Second World War saga series, The Yankee Years, set in Northern Ireland during the war, I’ve had a bit of experience with this quandary.
dianneascroft.com 