New Mexico small towns filled with eccentric characters (in fiction and in real life) and a new paranormal mystery #books #mystery

After publishing six books in The Accidental Detective humorous mystery series, I’m writing a new series. In the Reluctant Psychic Mysteries, 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. Book 1, A Stone Cold Murder, comes out April 28.

Reviews are coming in, and several mention the setting:

“The depiction of the small-town environment is so vivid that I could almost sense the dust in the museum and feel the heat of the desert. The mystery itself is exceptionally well-crafted.”

“The murder mystery is fantastic. The idea that a museum curator was killed with a rock (how chillingly ironic) and that Petra is the only one who knows? Genius. And the small-town setting? So atmospheric. The Banditt Museum feels like a character itself, full of hidden corners and whispered history.”

The museum, town, and characters in the novels are fictional, but New Mexico has plenty of similar small towns – ones filled with eccentric characters.

In some parts of the West, the Old West is alive and well – at least for a day or two each year. Magdalena is a small town in central NM. Magdalena was known as Trails End, because cowboys used to drive thousands of cattle and sheep there to meet the railroad spur that would take the livestock onward.

Today Magdalena features small shops with artists and plenty of historic buildings. It sponsors the Old Timers' Festival, which typically includes a mini-cattle drive, a rodeo, western dance and song, a fiddlers contest, and sometimes a mock battle between lawmen and gunslingers.  

 
Kelly, a few minutes away, was once home to around 3,000 people. Now all that's left is a small church, still in use, and ruins of the old Kelly mine.

 
One reason I like setting novels in the southwest is that it gives me a chance to get out hiking and exploring!

The Reluctant Psychic Mysteries: Petra Cloch studied geology because rocks rarely ‘talk’ to her, and she’s dodged friendships so she won’t need to explain her gift or feel like a voyeur. She’s starting work at a private museum in a small New Mexico town. When she picks up a jagged crystal in her new office, she's flooded with flashes of rage, fear and death. Everyone says her predecessor died in a car crash, but what if he was murdered? Petra normally avoids involvements, but if the previous curator died because of the job, she could be next …

Learn more The Reluctant Psychic Mystery series or preorder Book 1, A Stone Cold Murder, for delivery April 28. Available in ebook and print at all major retailers.

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Kris Bock writes mystery, suspense, and romance, often with Southwestern landscapes. In the Accidental Detective humorous mystery series, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. 

The Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series features 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 and find out winning the lottery causes as many problems as it solves. Kris’s romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. 

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. Sign up for the romantic comedy newsletter to get a short story preview, or find the books at Amazon US or All E-book retailers.