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No one warned her hot flashes could lead to death…
Forced to leave her celebrated career as an international war correspondent after an injury, Kate Tessler now dabbles in detective work in her Arizona hometown along with her sister, Jen. When Jen's old college friend asks them to investigate suspicious activity at a motel he inherited, it sounds like a free vacation with a little surveillance thrown in.
But when Kate's hot flashes wake her in the middle of the night, she wanders outside to cool off and stumbles into a crime scene.
Kate and Jen can’t trust anyone at the motel or the local police force they suspect of corruption. The lies pile up, the villains multiply, and the motel is hiding more secrets than they ever imagined. Good thing they have their eclectic senior sidekicks to share the undercover work.
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Readers say: “A page turning read... I have enjoyed this series so much.”
“What’s great about this series is the easy, affectionate relationship between the amateur investigators, ranging from very young to senior people. I love that everyone has something to do and to contribute to the general investigation goals. The humor and teasing are also stupendous.”
“This book was really entertaining. This is such a fun series to read. I like the characters as they are all so quirky, yet genuine... I highly recommend this book and the whole series. Another 5 star book by Kris Bock!”
Excerpt:
We found the lobby roughly opposite where we’d parked. The automatic door opened with a blast of cool air, refreshing on this May afternoon with temperatures over ninety degrees. The woman behind the counter flicked one glance at us when the doors opened and went back to whatever she was doing on her computer. We stood at the counter, waiting for half a minute without her acknowledging us.
Jen glanced at me, eyebrows raised. The poor customer service wasn’t a good sign for the new owner, but not necessarily a clue to the problem worrying him.
Finally, Jen said, “Is Nathan in?”
The woman looked up, unsmiling, and studied Jen. Before she spoke, faint sounds came from the half-open door of the office behind the counter. A man appeared in the doorway. His mouth smiled, although his eyes looked tired and sad. “Jen! Please come on back.”
I knew he was about Jen’s age, so forty-eight or forty-nine, a year or two younger than me. He looked older, with a drooping face like a hound dog’s, thick glasses, and strands of hair trying vainly to cover his bald pate. I often found bald men sexy and couldn’t understand why some men tried so hard to hold on to the remnants of their hair instead of shaving off the rest of it. Though, granted, I didn’t think shaving his head would make Nathan sexy to me.
We went around the counter, eliciting an offended look from the woman, and into his office. He closed the door behind us and offered a hand. “And your sister. I remember you. I’ll try not to call you Kitty.” He chuckled.
I didn’t. “Kate will do.” I’d grown up as Kitty, but changed to Kate in college, feeling that it was more suitable for a serious journalist. A lot of things had been strange and even unpleasant about returning to my childhood home in Arizona, but reuniting with people who still wanted to call me Kitty might be the most annoying.
And that was coming from someone who’d recently had a man fall to his death in front of her, not to mention a Taser and several guns pointed her way. Facing a gun was merely scary. Hearing the name “Kitty” gave me a weird time-warp feeling, like I’d never left Arizona and my thirty years overseas had never happened. The past year might not have been my best ever, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be a—shudder—teenager again. I might be living in my childhood home with my father and dating one of the cutest boys I knew in high school—and, come to think of it, dealing with irregular periods and occasional acne due to perimenopause ...
Huh. Maybe fifty is the new fifteen.
We sat down in the cramped office. Jen pulled out her notebook and pen.
“Why don’t you explain the situation from the beginning?” I said.
Jen had gotten the basic story on the phone, but I wanted to hear it for myself and watch his face while he told it. The fact that he was our client didn’t ensure he’d be honest or tell us everything we needed to know. His expressions might give clues to where we needed to ask follow-up questions or double-check his information.
He shifted some items around on his desk and finally began. “I inherited this place from my father recently—he died almost a month ago. Dad and I weren’t close. We had a falling-out years ago, so I never worked here. To be honest, I doubt he would have left the motel to me by choice, but he didn’t leave a will. So here we are.” He smiled with his lips closed.
I glanced at Jen’s writing to make sure she’d noted the lack of a will. Plenty of people died without one, either because they never got around to it, or because they had a subconscious superstition that acknowledging the potential of death would hasten that death.
On the other hand, hidden wills were a staple of the Nancy Drew stories I’d read growing up. Not that I’m claiming those were the embodiment of realism, but “we don’t have his will” was different from “he never made a will.”
Find the Accidental Detective humorous mystery series at all major retailers.
In the Reluctant Psychic Mystery series, 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.
Kris’s romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. Readers have called these novels “Smart romance with an Indiana Jones feel.”
The Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series stars 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. Who wouldn’t want to be a billionaire? Turns out winning the lottery causes as many problems as it solves.
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