This week I’m welcoming back another of my favorite authors,
Anna Celeste Burke.
Thanks, Evelyn, for inviting me back to your lovely blog. It’s an honor to be in such good company with you and the other authors you’ve hosted.
I publish as ANNA CELESTE BURKE and write three Cozy Mystery Series all focused on “Snooping into life’s mysteries with fun, fiction, & food–California style!” Each series is set in a different part of this lovely state where I’ve retired with my husband. The Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery series is set in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, the Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery series set on California’s Central Coast, and The Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery series set in Orange County, California–the OC.
You can find out more about the Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery Series, The Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Series, and the Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery Series on my website: http://www.desertcitiesmystery.com
Murder at Sea of Passenger X
It’s another Georgie Shaw cozy mystery for you from USA Today bestselling author, Anna Celeste Burke!
Welcome aboard! Georgie Shaw and her handsome new husband, Detective Jack Wheeler, are living it up on Marvelous Marley World’s luxurious cruise ship when trouble strikes. “The screaming came in bursts followed by shouts of man overboard, just like in a movie.” Who is passenger X? Did he fall or was he pushed? Does it have anything to do with the rash of jewelry thefts or the murdered man found near the spot where Passenger X went overboard?
With a killer on the loose, Georgie and Jack are soon enlisted to help solve the case. It’s a non-stop scramble to unravel the mystery before Georgie’s eccentric boss, “Mad” Max Marley, arrives in Tahiti demanding answers. That won’t be easy since Passenger X isn’t the only one with a dubious identity as the list of suspects grows.
That list includes Georgie’s old friend Chef Gerard and his striking blond, blue-eyed Sous Chef, Paolo. Masters of five-star cuisine and wizards with chocolate, are they cooking up more than sumptuous feasts and banquets of desserts? How about the guy in the Perroquet suit or “Monster Marston,” a standout in the fitness center?
It’s all hands on deck to figure out whodunit. Even Georgie’s cats get involved in the action on board this cruise that comes with a boatload of mystery!
RECIPES INCLUDED!
Here is an excerpt:
The Purrloined Note
The screams didn’t wake me. I was already up by then. I’m not sure what had stirred me from my sleep. Maybe I sensed the sparkling blue eyes gazing intently at me. Two sets since Miles and Ella sat side-by-side in Sphinx mode. Their chocolate ears pointed straight up—radar on!
“What has put you two on high alert?” I had asked my super-sensitive pair of Siamese cats. Talking to my cats was an old habit, usually rewarded by a bellow in return. Not this morning. It was quiet in our lovely suite on an upper deck of the MMW Fantasy of the Sea, one of the newest ships in my megalomaniacal boss’s cruise line. That grandiose streak in him isn’t all bad. Max Marley had paid for our honeymoon cruise to the South Sea Islands, and arranged for our cats to go along on the adventure, as a wedding present. I’m not ungrateful, just realistic about the gentleman genius who runs Marvelous Marley World, the entertainment conglomerate where I work.
The drapes in our suite were still drawn, but the sliders to the balcony were partly open. A sea breeze blew in, and the fabric billowed. Jack must have opened it, I thought, stretching, lazily, as I sank back into the comfy bed.
We both loved the salty air as we ventured from island to island during our ten days at sea. The siren song of adventure was carried along on those breezes for my handsome new husband who spent his life fighting crime as a police detective. For me, they are a reminder of home in Orange County where the Pacific Ocean is a walk away. That’s where Jack would live, too, when we returned to California.
As I had discovered during our week of cruising, Jack is an early riser. I enjoy my mornings, too, but I prefer to start my day slowly if I can get away with it. Perhaps that’s because I have a harder time than he does falling asleep at night. My anxious spirit wrestles with worries of the day. Jack nods off at the drop of a hat, a defensive strategy he picked up to survive decades as a cop.
“Grab your forty winks when you can,” he said. “Crime may not pay, but it doesn’t sleep either. You never know when you’ll get a call in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn.” That admonition was right up there with another of his favorite guidelines: “eat dessert first.”
Murder at Sea of Passenger X, Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery #5 https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Passenger-Georgie-Shaw-Mystery-ebook/dp/B01MYH77FW/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
COMING SOON! MURDER OF THE MAESTRO, GEORGIE SHAW COZY MYSTERY #6
