A Dash of Murder
Book
Genre-Cozy Mystery
Publisher -
Tightwad Tess Press
Release
Date-September 2011
A Mystery for
Ghost Hunters!
When Betsy's
Aunt Maggie wants to drag her along on a ghost hunting excursion at the local
abandoned tuberculosis hospital she isn't sure if she quite believes in ghosts.
When she comes upon a fresh spirit in the form of a body, she starts to rethink
about what really is haunting the hospital.
Betsy must
solve the murder in spite of her father, who is a lieutenant on the Pecan Bayou
Police Force, town citizens worried about the effect of the occult on their
children, and handsome stranger from Dallas. How do you get blood out of a silk
blouse? Betsy Livingston can tell you in her newspaper column, "The Happy
Hinter". When she's not writing, or taking care of her young son, she's
busy solving mysteries in the tiny Texas town of Pecan Bayou.
A Dash of Murder Excerpt
“Watch out, Betsy, some of these old
floorboards may be treacherous.” I followed Aunt Maggie through the rooms full
of cracked plaster, floor debris and the ever-present graffiti sprayed on the
walls of the former tuberculosis hospital.
Aunt Maggie was a tiny woman at
four-foot-eight, and the world often towered above her. Her height was the only
part of her that was small. She had the strongest will and the biggest heart in
Texas.
“This is going to be great when we
film here on Halloween, the scariest night of the year. I’m so glad you decided
to help us out and took a few hours away from your tip-writin’ column. The
Pecan Bayou Texas Paranormal Society thanks you, and if we find a ghost – boy
howdy – I thank you.”
“Well, I can spare a few hours here
and there.”
“So, what are you writin’ about now? “
“Um, I’m working on my pre-Thanksgiving
columns. Hey, I have a question for you. What would you say is the best way to
get red wine out of a tablecloth?”
“You know, Aunt Ida had an unusual way
of doing that.”
“You mean the one that used to bring
the chocolate pecan pie when she came to Thanksgiving?” I had not seen Great
Aunt Ida much since she moved to the retirement center near Austin.
“That’s the one. She used to put her
tablecloth over a bowl with the wine stain in the middle of it. Then she would
pour salt on the stain, and then pour boiling water over into the bowl.
Darnedest thing. Took it right out.” Maggie said.
For our other-worldly walk-through
today, Aunt Maggie dressed for the occasion with a black cap on her head
adorned with glow-in-the-dark letters that read “Paranormal Investigator.”
“You like it?” she asked, noticing my
gaze. “I ordered one for everyone on the crew and a few extras. I thought we
ought to look official, bein’ on TV and all.” My aunt’s honey-colored bouffant
hairdo was all crammed up in the cap with sprayed curls poking out in places.
“Can’t wait to wear mine.” I was not
someone who looked terrific in a ball cap. At least that was what Barry had
said. Funny how after all these years I still felt rejected by him.
Maggie crunched around on the fallen
trash in the main hallway. As we came to the end of the hallway, her voice
lowered slightly. “This up here was what they called the ‘dead tunnel.’ I saw
it in the blueprints Howard had.” Howard was the head of Aunt Maggie’s
paranormal group. Even though sometimes he looked like a person mental health
officials might be interested in observing, he was extremely intelligent and
had a doctorate in paranormal psychology. I didn’t even know a person could get
a degree in ghost hunting, but Howard had achieved this greatness.
Maggie continued her story. “It was
the tunnel they used to wheel the bodies to the morgue. That way the patients
wouldn’t see someone had died.” I never was one to get too frightened by horror
movies, but coming into this part of the hospital certainly had me qualifying
for an official case of the heebie-jeebies. The dead tunnel was windowless and
grimy, and I felt as if we were walking into a mineshaft, not a morgue.
“So here we are.” Aunt Maggie’s voice
took on a softer tone as if we had just entered a funeral home. “Looks a little
longer than it did in the blueprints.”
We stepped gingerly through the open
door with a sign hanging askew that read, “Hospital Personnel Only: No One
Beyond This Point.”
Unless you’re dead, I thought. Then
you are welcome to come on in and sit a spell.
“Aunt Maggie, we can still go get
Howard. He’s roaming around somewhere here.”
“What are we? Chickens? We can do
this, Betsy.” With that, she shined her red plastic heavy-duty flashlight down
the tunnel. The tunnel seemed to go on and on, leading into absolute darkness.
A million things could be down that hall. They could have stuffed it all with
furniture or antiquated medical equipment that we would banging into at any
moment, and that was my rational expectation. I wasn’t even acknowledging my
irrational side. My aunt’s calling me a chicken did not quite raise my
confidence and charge me up about getting down the dead tunnel.
I nodded my head dully in agreement as
my eyes tried to lock onto anything solid in the dark.
“You’re making fun of me, I know, but
it is true, Betsy. I sense something here. I just hope we can get this on tape
when we have a thermal energy camera pointed at it.” According to Howard, a
thermal energy camera would capture cold and hot spots that the human eye
couldn’t see. We stepped forward, our footfalls now echoing against the chilled
stone.
As Maggie spoke, I felt a cold breeze
hit me. I clenched my bare arms as I felt goose bumps raise up on my skin. It
seemed as if we had phantom air conditioning in this part of the hospital. Down
at the end of the blackness I could hear a faint, high, chirping, clicking
sound. Somehow I hadn’t imagined a ghost clicking at me. Maybe there were some
tap-dancing spirits floating around.
“It has arrived,” Maggie whispered.
“No,” I said trying to squelch the
shake that had come into my voice. “A … draft has arrived, that’s all.”
“Think what you want, my dear.”
She angled the wavering beam of light
into the black recesses of the tunnel. From the other end of the tunnel, I could
hear a distinct rustling sound as something headed our way.
“The apparition is coming near us,”
Maggie sounded delighted.
“What should we do, Aunt Maggie?” I
asked, the volume of my voice rising as the rustling became an increasing
cacophony of noise.
Maggie looked down the passage and
then yelled, “HOLD YOUR GROUND!” She stood with her hands placed firmly on her
rounded hips as the wind started blowing her hat off, releasing the many
stuffed strands of hair that had been under it. She looked like Medusa as the
glow of her flashlight highlighted the snakes of hair surrounding her face.
The rustling sound increased. A
thousand little clicking noises came at us as a cloud of pulsating blackness
came out of the pitch black.
“This is dangerous, Aunt Maggie!” I
shouted. “I’m not standing here, and neither are you!” I grabbed Maggie by the
shoulders, preparing to lift her off the ground and carry her out if that was
necessary.
“It might be a spirit of the dead!”
she warbled above the din.
“Or it might be the spirit of
something alive.” I turned her around, and we ran as the flashlight beam bobbed
against the walls. I could feel something pulling at my hair and reached up to
grab it. When I did, I could see the wingspan of a Mexican bat as it flapped
out of my grasp. We careened out the door and slammed it behind us. We could
hear the thud of a few bats hitting the door and then what sounded like the
wings of hundreds of bats flapping as they turned back down the tunnel.
I turned around to see Maggie, leaning
against the wall, holding her hat, trying to push the hair out of her face as
her breath came out unevenly. “Are you all right?” I asked as we both panted at
each other.
“Yes, a little jittery, but I’ll be
fine.”
Bio:
Teresa Trent
wasn't born in Texas but after a few glasses of sweet tea and some exceptional
barbecue she decided to stay. With a father in the Army, she found herself
moved all over the world, settling down for a while in her teens in the state
of Colorado. Her writing was influenced by all of the interesting people she
found in small towns and the sense of family that seemed to be woven through
them all. Teresa is a former high school teacher and received her degree from
The University of Northern Colorado.
Teresa is presently working on the third book in her Pecan Bayou
Series. Her second book, Overdue For
Murder, came out in June of 2012.
Other Books by Teresa Trent:
Writing Can
Be Murder!
When local
writers present their books on romance, vampires, chick lit and alien
abductions at the Pecan Bayou Library, one author gets a killer review. Betsy Livingston, there to talk about her
book on helpful hints, finds herself point at for the murder. Join Betsy in her second mystery as she tries
to clear her own name in this hilarious tale of small town Texas life and
murder.
In Ebook Form
In Print
My Review:
I really enjoyed this book and it was a quick read so I read it in just a couple hours. I loved the little town of Pecan Bayou. It was the kind of town were everyone knows everyone. The story was based on Betsy Livingston who wrote a daily column on helpful hints and also recently wrote a book with helpful hints - which a few are included in the book along with a couple good recipes.
Betsy and her Aunt Maggie along with a few other interesting characters from the community are going to be doing a bit of paranormal work at a long closed down hospital. Their plan is to film on Halloween at the hospital. While just taking a walk through of the hospital a terrible smell is noticed in one of the upper rooms. A body is discovered and Betsy decides to do a bit of investigating on her own to find out who murdered the victim.
From here the story gets interesting and I did not figure out who the murder was until they were revealed. I think anyone who enjoys reading mystery would relish spending the afternoon reading A Dash of Murder.
Stop by some of the other stops along the Virtual Book Tour:
I really enjoyed this book and it was a quick read so I read it in just a couple hours. I loved the little town of Pecan Bayou. It was the kind of town were everyone knows everyone. The story was based on Betsy Livingston who wrote a daily column on helpful hints and also recently wrote a book with helpful hints - which a few are included in the book along with a couple good recipes.
Betsy and her Aunt Maggie along with a few other interesting characters from the community are going to be doing a bit of paranormal work at a long closed down hospital. Their plan is to film on Halloween at the hospital. While just taking a walk through of the hospital a terrible smell is noticed in one of the upper rooms. A body is discovered and Betsy decides to do a bit of investigating on her own to find out who murdered the victim.
From here the story gets interesting and I did not figure out who the murder was until they were revealed. I think anyone who enjoys reading mystery would relish spending the afternoon reading A Dash of Murder.
Stop by some of the other stops along the Virtual Book Tour:
September 30 - Introduction at VBT
Cafe' Blog
October 2 - Review, Book Feature & Ebook Giveaway at Books, Books, and More Books
October 4 - Interviewed at Reviews & Interviews (Lisa Haselton)
October 9 - Review, Guest Blog & Ebook Giveaway at The Bunny's Review
October 11 - Guest Blogging at Cindy Vine's Blog
October 15 - Guest Blogging at Book Reviews by Dee
October 17 - Interviewed at MK McClintock's Blog
October 18 - Review & Interview at Kaisy Daisy Corner
October 19 - Reviewed at Self Taught Cook
October 23 - Book Feature & Ebook Giveaway at Blogzine
October 25 - Interviewed at Turning The Pages
October 2 - Review, Book Feature & Ebook Giveaway at Books, Books, and More Books
October 4 - Interviewed at Reviews & Interviews (Lisa Haselton)
October 9 - Review, Guest Blog & Ebook Giveaway at The Bunny's Review
October 11 - Guest Blogging at Cindy Vine's Blog
October 15 - Guest Blogging at Book Reviews by Dee
October 17 - Interviewed at MK McClintock's Blog
October 18 - Review & Interview at Kaisy Daisy Corner
October 19 - Reviewed at Self Taught Cook
October 23 - Book Feature & Ebook Giveaway at Blogzine
October 25 - Interviewed at Turning The Pages
Thank you for hosting Teresa today.
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