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Sleuthing Women
By Lois Winston, Jonnie Jacobs, Judy Alter,
Maggie Toussaint,
Camille Minichino,
RP Dahlke, Susan Santangelo, Mary Kennedy,
Heather Haven, and Vinnie Hansen

GUEST POST

The Wild and Wacky World of Talk Radio

By Mary Kennedy

Can five words change your life? Or at least, your career? In my case, they can and they did! I wrote a proposal for a fun, light-hearted cozy series called The Talk Radio Mysteries and sent it off to my agent. It was partly autobiographical and mostly sheer entertainment.

The Talk Radio Mysteries are based on the exploits of Dr. Maggie Walsh, a New York psychologist who closes up her private practice and moves to sunny Florida to become a radio talk show host. Dr. Maggie admits she’s “sick of the cold, sick of Manhattan real estate prices and tired of hearing other people’s problems.” She snares a job as a radio shrink on WYME-Radio in the fictional town of Cypress Grove, Florida. Oh, and she takes up amateur sleuthing and solves a murder in every book. Yes, she is one busy lady.

Here’s a bit of backstory. Like most writers, I draw material from my own background. My very first job was writing copy for a rock radio station in Nashville. The station was full of zany characters and I recreated them for my fictional radio station in south Florida.

I’m currently a psychologist in private practice on the east coast. And I’m an avid mystery reader. So I decided my main character should be a radio talk show host and a devoted crime-solver. My agent took one look at the proposal and said, “I love it! I know exactly how to pitch it.”

Here is her pitch. Five magic words. “Frasier meet Murder She Wrote.” And she sent it off to Penguin, who offered me a three-book deal.

The crew at the radio station figures in every book, and Dr. Maggie’s star-struck mother, Lola, is a favorite character. Along with Vera Mae, Dr. Maggie’s irreverent producer and Rafe Martino, a hunky detective, no criminal is safe in Cypress Grove. I had great fun writing this series and I’m so happy that readers enjoy it. Dead Air is the first book, followed by Reel Murder, Stay Tuned for Murder and Talking Can Be Deadly, coming out in summer, 2016. Dead Air is also one of the ten mysteries featured in Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries.

Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries is a collection of full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem by ten critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling authors. Each novel in the set is the first book in an established multi-book series—a total of over 3,000 pages of reading pleasure for lovers of amateur sleuth, caper, and cozy mysteries, with a combined total of over 1700 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4 stars.

Bio: Mary Kennedy has written over forty novels, including the Talk Radio Mysteries and the Dream Club Mysteries for Penguin-Random House. She is a clinical psychologist in private practice on the east coast where she lives with her husband and six neurotic cats. She has tried unsuccessfully to psychoanalyze both husband and cats but remains optimistic. You can visit her at www.marykennedy.net.

Synopsis

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Sleuthing Women is a collection of 10 full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem by 10 critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling authors. Each novel in this set is the first book in an established multi-book series—a total of over 3,000 pages of reading pleasure for lovers of amateur sleuth, caper, and cozy mysteries.

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ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN, an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery by Lois Winston—Working mom Anastasia is clueless about her husband’s gambling addiction until he permanently cashes in his chips and her comfortable middle-class life craps out. He leaves her with staggering debt, his communist mother, and a loan shark demanding $50,000. Then she’s accused of murder…

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MURDER AMONG NEIGHBORS, a Kate Austen Suburban Mystery by Jonnie Jacobs — When Kate Austen’s socialite neighbor, Pepper Livingston, is murdered, Kate becomes involved in a sea of steamy secrets that bring her face to face with shocking truths—and handsome detective Michael Stone.

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SKELETON IN A DEAD SPACE, a Kelly O’Connell Mystery by Judy Alter—Real estate isn’t a dangerous profession until Kelly O’Connell stumbles over a skeleton and runs into serial killers and cold-blooded murderers in a home being renovated in Fort Worth. Kelly barges through life trying to keep from angering her policeman boyfriend Mike and protect her two young daughters.

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IN FOR A PENNY, a Cleopatra Jones Mystery by Maggie Toussaint—Accountant Cleo faces an unwanted hazard when her golf ball lands on a dead banker. The cops think her BFF shot him, so Cleo sets out to prove them wrong. She ventures into the dating world, wrangles her teens, adopts the victim’s dog, and tries to rein in her mom…until the killer puts a target on Cleo’s back.

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THE HYDROGEN MURDER, a Periodic Table Mystery by Camille Minichino—A retired physicist returns to her hometown of Revere, Massachusetts and moves into an apartment above her friends’ funeral home. When she signs on to help the Police Department with a science-related homicide, she doesn’t realize she may have hundreds of cases ahead of her.

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RETIREMENT CAN BE MURDER—A Baby Boomer Mystery by Susan Santangelo—Carol Andrews dreads her husband Jim’s upcoming retirement more than a root canal without Novocain. She can’t imagine anything worse than having an at-home husband with time on his hands and nothing to fill it—until Jim is suspected of murdering his retirement coach.

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DEAD AIR, A Talk Radio Mystery by Mary Kennedy—Psychologist Maggie Walsh moves from NY to Florida to become the host of WYME’s On the Couch with Maggie Walsh. When her guest, New Age prophet Guru Sanjay Gingii, turns up dead, her new roommate Lark becomes the prime suspect. Maggie must prove Lark innocent while dealing with a killer who needs more than just therapy.

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A DEAD RED CADILLAC, A Dead Red Mystery by RP Dahlke—When her vintage Cadillac is found tail-fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask aero-ag pilot Lalla Bains why an elderly widowed piano teacher is found strapped in the driver’s seat. Lalla confronts suspects, informants, cross-dressers, drug-running crop dusters, and a crazy Chihuahua on her quest to find the killer.

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MURDER IS A FAMILY BUSINESS, an Alvarez Family Murder Mystery by Heather Haven—Just because a man cheats on his wife and makes Danny DeVito look tall, dark and handsome, is that any reason to kill him? The reluctant and quirky PI, Lee Alvarez, has her work cut out for her when the man is murdered on her watch. Of all the nerve.

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MURDER, HONEY, a Carol Sabala Mystery by Vinnie Hansen—When the head chef collapses into baker Carol Sabala’s cookie dough, she is thrust into her first murder investigation. Suspects abound at Archibald’s, the swanky Santa Cruz restaurant where Carol works. The head chef cut a swath of people who wanted him dead from ex-lovers to bitter rivals to greedy relatives.

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About Lois Winston

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

Website:www.loiswinston.com

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog:www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Twitter:https://twitter.com/Anasleuth

Pinterest:www.pinterest.com/anasleuth

Newsletter signup:https://www.MyAuthorBiz.com/ENewsletter.php?acct=LW2467152513

Check out the Webpages of the other Authors:
Jonnie Jacons – http://www.jonniejacobs.com/
Judy Alter – http://judyalter.com/
Maggie Toussaint – http://maggietoussaint.com/
Camille Minichino – http://minichino.com/
RP Dahlke – http://rpdahlke.com/
Susan Santangelo – http://babyboomermysteries.com/
Mary Kennedy – http://marykennedy.net/
Heather Haven – http://heatherhavenstories.com/
Vinnie Hansen – http://vinniehansen.com/