Journal entry from an 11-year-old amateur sleuth - A Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Alexandra Atwood to Cozy Up With Kathy today. You can find Alex on the pages of the Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery series by Terry Ambrose. Treasure Most Deadly is the fifth book in the series and was released last month.

Journal entry from Alexandra Atwood, 11-year-old amateur sleuth

Hey Journal,

I totally love these blog tours. They’re like super fun ‘cause I get to meet all kinds of new people. (Hey, people! My name’s Alexandra Atwood, but you can call me Alex.)

The blog tours are kinda like the B&B. We have new guests all the time and I get to meet all of them. Most of our guests are super nice, especially ‘cause I’m only eleven and they don’t wanna be mean to me. But Adela Barone is different. She’s twenty-four and dresses like a fashion diva. She told me she makes her own clothes, and she’s totally into frilly dresses. Her hats are awesome, too, and she says girls should never go outside without one. That might be her rule, but she learned it was a rule that was made to be broken when we got caught doing surveillance on a treasure thief.

My dad was super mad ‘cause the guy was stealing four-hundred-year-old artifacts and he thought it was super dangerous for me to be there. My dad’s probably right. Anyway, he was even less happy when he found out Adela had to leave me alone to watch the thief. But what were we gonna do? We were in an area with like no cell service, and we didn’t want to lose track of the thief.

Super big problem, Journal. The treasure thief guy is dead and my dad’s working with Chief Cunningham to find the killer. What’s bothering me is Adela. She totally knows more than she’s admitting, so I’m gonna spy on her and find out her secrets.

I don’t think Adela’s dangerous, but I’m sure she’s up to no good. It looks like it’s up to me—again!—to help my dad and the cops solve the case. If this keeps up, the chief is totally gonna have to give me my own badge. There’s like this stupid rule that says you can’t be a cop until you’re eighteen. Seriously? That is so lame. I mean, when you’re good, you’re good. Right?

Got a murder to solve! Bye for now!

Xoxo

Alex 

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 Treasure Most Deadly (A Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery) by Terry Ambrose

About Treasure Most Deadly

Treasure Most Deadly (A Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery)
Cozy Mystery 5th in Series
Satori (April 28, 2021) 

Print Length: 265 pages

Seaside Cove amateur sleuths Rick and Alexandra Atwood are back!

Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast owner Rick Atwood is again called on to assist his friend, Chief of Police Adam Cunningham, with a murder investigation. The case seems straightforward enough. Clive Crabbe, who has a quick temper and a strong jealous streak, was found hunched over the victim after the man made advances toward Clive’s ex-wife.

A murder investigation is the last thing Rick wants right now. The B&B is booked solid. The town is inundated with tourists and news reporters chasing stories about treasure thieves. And Rick’s wedding to Marquetta Weiss is just weeks away. As if that wasn’t enough, Rick’s eleven-year-old daughter Alex is not only itching to help the cops solve another murder, but she’s forming an unhealthy friendship with a B&B guest.

As the murder investigation progresses, Rick realizes Alex’s new friend could be at the center of everything. The worst part is that Alex may be the one person capable of cracking the case.

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.

Author Links:  

Website: https://terryambrose.com  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terryambrosewriterguy  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suspensewriter  

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6447968.Terry_Ambrose  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/terryawriterguy 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troubleinparadiseinc/  

Purchase Link – Amazon –

McKenna’s Skip Tracing Secrets - A Character Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome Wilson McKenna to the blog today. You can find him on the pages of the McKenna Mystery series by Terry Ambrose. The Scent of Waikiki is the ninth book in the series and was released earlier this month.

Hey, McKenna here. Before I became an amateur sleuth, I was a skip tracer. For those who don’t know, that’s a person who finds people who don’t want to be found. Primarily, I tracked down deadbeats who had skipped out on their bills.

Let me clue you to something about that kind of job—it’s not easy. Especially back in the days when I was doing it. We didn’t have all these fancy databases where you could push a button or two and find your skip halfway across the country. No, we had to do things the hard way.

Call it old-fashioned, but it was a fact of life. To get good at my job, I developed what I call McKenna’s Skip Tracing Secrets. After I tell you about them they won’t be very secret anymore. The fact is, I don’t expect any of the readers here on this blog to be visiting Hawaii just to murder someone. That makes sharing a few of these a safe move.

Without further ado, here’s the first one. Be flexible and go with the flow. That means when you’ve got a source talking, don’t interrupt him. And if he won’t talk, consider using Secret No. 2.

When in doubt, lie. That’s right. In the old days when we called a house looking for someone, we didn’t say, “Oh, hey, this is McKenna and I’d like to find your brother because he owes my employer a five thousand dollars and we want to force him to pay his obligations.” Seriously? That would be a no-go.

There was this one time I had my assistant, a very sweet sounding young lady, call up my skip’s mother. I’d tried calling the mother before and she’d shut me down. But I had a feeling she knew more than she was letting on. So I decided we needed a woman’s touch and set my assistant up with a story about how she’d met the mom’s son at a bar the night before and it had been love at first sight.

To my delight, my assistant was a natural. She ad libbed and convinced the mom she was dying to hook up with the son because they were destined to be together. The performance was a home run. Mom gave up her boy. We nabbed our guy. And I wanted to give my assistant a big fat raise.

Along those same lines, another of my secrets is if you lied, make a note to avoid screwing up your “facts” later on. I learned that one the hard way. Unlike my assistant, who had only a single cover story to deal with, I was weaving different tales all day long.

Now, I’m not saying I did a lot of lying in The Scent of Waikiki, but there were a few times I needed to call up the old skills. There was that one when my partner and I were dealing with a scammer who stole money from my tenant. So I don’t give away anything, let’s just call it a twist on the old “good cop, bad cop” routine.

How about you? Are you a good liar? If you want to lie about it, that’s okay. You can just invoke Secret No. 1.

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The Scent of Waikiki (Trouble in Paradise) by Terry Ambrose

About the Book

The Scent of Waikiki (Trouble in Paradise) 

 Cozy Mystery 9th in Series  

Satori (July 19, 2018) Print Length: 330 pages 

Honolulu landlord Wilson McKenna can smell a scam from across the room. So when one of his tenants loses everything in a work-at-home scam involving a new perfume, he’s shocked. With his wedding just weeks away, McKenna has to make a tough decision. Does he evict a woman who’s down on her luck? Or take time out from wedding planning to help his tenant?

Turning the case over to his PI-in-training friend Chance Logan seems like the perfect solution—until Chance tells McKenna he needs a wingman for a visit to fragrance entrepreneur Skye Pilkington-Winchester. McKenna’s sure he can keep everyone happy by helping Chance this one time. But nothing is ever as easy as it seems, and soon McKenna’s up to his board shorts in hot water. His tenant’s simple fragrance scam might involve industrial espionage, Skye’s assistant is murdered, and McKenna’s bride-to-be accuses him of having cold feet.

As McKenna and Chance dig deeper, it seems so much of what they’re being told doesn’t pass the sniff test. And the only way to get his life back is to find the dead girl’s missing boyfriend, unmask a killer, and finish up in time for the wedding. Other than that, it’s just another day in paradise.

About the Author

Terry Ambrose is a former skip tracer who tracked down deadbeats for a living. He’s long since turned his talents to writing mysteries and thrillers. Several of his books have been award finalists and in 2014 his thriller, “Con Game,” won the San Diego Book Awards for Best Action-Thriller. He likes cool photography, funny mysteries, and finding the oddest things while walking on the beach.

Author Links:  
Website: http://terryambrose.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/suspense.writer  
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6447968.Terry_Ambrose

Purchase Link: Amazon B&N

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Male Protagonists in Cozy Mysteries

I saw a post the other day on one of the cozy mystery pages I follow. It was from a male cozy reader who was wondering about male protagonists in cozy mysteries. The majority of cozy mysteries are written by women and feature female protagonists. However, some female authors have male protagonists, and there are male cozy authors who have both male and female protagonists.

So who are some of these male leads?

One of my favorite series is The King Harald Mystery series by Richard Audry. King Harald is actually a dog (male at that) and the human protagonist is Andy Skyberg. Andy is a laid back, ordinary guy whose lovable dog keeps finding trouble in Minnesota. Grab some Biberschwanz Pilsners and settle in for a fun time.

Jeffrey Cohen writes a few mystery series using a few names. I first was introduced to him via his Double Feature Mystery series. Elliot Freed owns the Comedy Tonight cinema in New Jersey where he only shows comedy films. I loved this laugh out loud series, which sadly, is only comprised of three books. Some of his other series feature female protagonists, but he has another male protagonist in his current Asberger's Mystery series.

Tim Myers is another prolific mystery writer. Writing under the names Time Myers, Elizabeth Bright, Melissa Glazer, Casey Mayes, Jessica Beck, and Chris Cavender, Tim features both male and female protagonists. The Lighthouse Inn Mystery series (Tim Myers) first introduced me to this author. I really enjoyed Alex Winston. I also liked both his Candlemaking series with Harrison Black, and Soapmaking Mystery series with Benjamin Perkins.

I love John J. Lamb's Bear Collector's Mystery series. It features retired homicide detective Brad Lyon who now makes collectable teddy bears with his wife.

Miranda James in actually Dean James who pens a few mysteries. As Miranda James he features librarian Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel, in the Cat in the Stacks Mystery series while as Dean James he has the Simon-Kirby Jones Mystery series set in England.

Terry Ambrose writes a few series including the Seaside Cove Bed and Breakfast Mystery series. These feature single dad Rick Atwood and his precocious 10 year old daughter. Jeffrey Allen writes the Stay at Home Dad Mystery series set in Texas with Deuce Winters. Tim Cockey's protagonist is undertaker Hitch Sewell, featured in the Hitch Sewell Mystery series while Stephen Kaminski has Damon Lassard in his Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective series.

There are several female authors who chose male protagonists for their series. Of course, we have our founding traditional mysteries which include Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael. Lilian Jackson Braun features Jim Qwilleran, a journalist, in her long running Cat Who Mystery series. The Barnabas Tew Mystery series features a male Victorian private investigator who investigates in the Egyptian Underworld in his first outing by female author Columbkill Noonan. Nupur Tustin features Kapellmeister Joseph Haydn in her historical mystery series while Sheri Cobb South features bow street runner John Pickett in her Regency Mystery series.

I haven't really touched on the traditional mysteries, many with well known male protagonists such as Father Brown and Hamish Macbeth, and I'm sure I've left out many other male cozy protagonists. Have you read any of these mysteries? Do any of these men rank as a favorite protagonist for you? Feel free to share your favorites in the comments below.

A Clues in the Sand Interview & Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome Terry Ambrose to the blog today. Terry writes the Seaside Cove Bed and Breakfast Mystery series. Clues in the Sand is the second book in the series and was released March 15th.

Kathy: Your Seaside Cove Bed and Breakfast Mystery series features a single dad and his young daughter. How did you decide on a father/daughter pair for a crime solving team?

TA: Thanks for having me as a guest on your blog! I seem to be drawn to the idea of male-female pairs in my writing. The dynamics between men and women fascinate me and lend themselves to so many subtleties. But I also enjoy writing about kids. I’ve paired a child with an adult in previous books. When I do that, there’s always an undercurrent of a challenge between the two. After all, kids frequently test their boundaries, which is one way they learn how society works. I had not, however, used a father and daughter. Because I wanted to create something different from the normal single-mom sleuth mystery, I chose to reverse the roles and make my protagonist a single dad.


Kathy: In Clues in the Sand, the primary suspect is an archaeologist. Do you have an interest in archaeology?

TA: I studied archaeology in college and was constantly bombarded with the same question from my parents while taking classes. “What are you going to do with that degree?” The answer turned out to be—not much. I ended up in business, but always felt the insights I’d gained in studying other cultures gave me the ability to understand human motives just a bit more than I might have if I’d have gotten a degree in business. When I started working on the first Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery, I realized it was an opportunity to revisit my early interest in archaeology.


Kathy: What first drew you to cozy mysteries?

TA: I started out writing thrillers and suspense, but could never bring myself to write lots of blood and gore. In my reading, I grew tired of the constant cycle of murder and mayhem in the genre. With that said, I did enjoy the faster pacing of a thriller, and so I attempt to keep that pacing in my stories.


Kathy: Do you write in any other genres?

TA: I write the Trouble in Paradise McKenna Mysteries, which are set in Hawai’i. I also have written the first two books in my License to Lie thriller series. I’ll be bringing out the third in that series in early 2019.


Kathy: Tell us about your series.

TA: I chose the tagline “Mysteries with Character” for my blog and my writing because I believe a good story is all about the characters. Like many cozies, the town itself is integral to the Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mysteries. It’s a quaint little place that has built its reputation based on hunting for buried treasure. With the discovery that there may be a sunken Spanish galleon off the coast, the once peaceful Seaside Cove is now known as a quaint little town where murder meets the sea.


Kathy: Do you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?

TA: For this series, my favorite character is Rick’s daughter Alex. She’s young, precocious, and fearless. It’s those very traits that get her into trouble. You see, Alex has a habit of overstepping her boundaries, something she does far too often for her dad’s liking. Alex also has taken to writing in her journal—something I’ve never done—but that process somehow feels kind of natural when I make her entries. Oh, and did I mention she has a habit of sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong? Yeah, that’s why I love Alex.


Kathy: Did you have a specific inspiration for your series?

TA: I don’t know that it was inspiration as much as it was serendipity. I’d been working on the first book and had written thousands of words, but wasn’t satisfied with where it was going. My wife made a comment, something like, “You need a treasure hunt. Everybody loves a treasure story.”

The idea intrigued me almost immediately, so the little town of Seaside Cove became the center of a search for the San Manuel, a Spanish galleon that sank in the 16th Century. The other factor came about during my research into treasure hunters. It turns out treasure hunting is a cutthroat business, which is a mystery writer’s dream. Oddly enough, having a serious subject as the background for the series also freed my characters up to be much more fun.


Kathy: What made you decide to publish your work?

TA: I’m a very challenge-oriented person and publication is the ultimate test for a writer. I say it’s the ultimate test because publication is the only way to get truly impartial reviews. Your friends and relatives will always gush over the great story you’ve written. But, once it goes to people who don’t know you, everything changes.


Kathy: If you could have a dinner party and invite 4 authors, living or dead, in any genre, who would you invite?

TA: Jana DeLeon, who writes the Miss Fortune Mystery series—her first book kept me in stitches almost the entire time I was reading. Sue Grafton because I loved those early Kinsey Millhone mysteries. Dorothy Sayers because I would love to hear about what it was like to blaze new ground as a writer. Isaac Asimov, who wrote in several genres, though primarily in science fiction. I was a huge fan of his Foundation Series.


Kathy: What are you currently reading?

TA: I’m currently reading an advance copy of Plum Tea Crazy by Laura Childs. The next book I’d like to read for pleasure is Andrew McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which was the first in that series.


Kathy: Will you share any of your hobbies or interests with us?

TA: I’m very interested in photography and publish a weekly photo on my blog. I also enjoy cooking, but am not nearly as talented as some of my culinary mystery writer friends. Because writing is such a sedentary activity, I also enjoy walking and try to do a minimum of a mile a day. Just like my writing goal, that’s a minimum and if my day permits, I’ll go much further.


Kathy: Name 4 items you always have in your fridge or pantry.

TA: Dark chocolate, coffee, almond milk, sugar!


Kathy: Do you have plans for future books either in your current series or a new series?

TA: I typically try to plan my writing about a year in advance. The next Trouble in Paradise McKenna Mystery has the working title of The Scene of Waikiki. It will be out in July. The next Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast Mystery will be coming out in November — it’s a Christmas mystery. After that, I’m going to complete the License to Lie series. That book is still in the early planning stages, which means I have no clue what it’s about. You might say I’m “actively waiting” for the theme to bubble up in my daily life.


Kathy: What's your favorite thing about being an author?

TA: I love the process of creating a story. To me, it’s a very cathartic process. When I don’t get the time to write, I get cranky. My goal is to write a minimum of 500 words a day, but I usually do more than double that. It’s a comfortable goal that lets me be creative for the first couple of hours of my day, forget the surrounding craziness, and then approach my day with a fresh perspective.


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