Marja McGraw – One Adventure Too Many

This week, I’m delighted to host one of my favorite mystery authors,

Marja McGraw.

Marja McGraw has worked in both civil and criminal law, state transportation, and for a city building department.  She has lived and worked in California, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska, Arizona, and Washington.

She wrote a weekly column for a small town newspaper in Northern Nevada, and conducted a Writers’ Support Group in Northern Arizona. A past member of Sisters in Crime (SinC), she was the Editor for the SinC-Internet Newsletter for a year and a half.

Marja writes two mystery series, The Sandi Webster Mysteries and The Bogey Man Mysteries, which are light reading with a touch of humor. She also has two standalone mysteries.

Marja says that each of her mysteries contains a little humor, a little romance and A Little Murder!

Thank you for having me as a guest, Evelyn. It’s good to be back and talking about “One Adventure Too Many – A Sandi Webster Mystery.”

One Adventure Too Many

Taking a vacation can lead to an unexpected case for private eye Sandi Webster-Goldberg. Taking a vacation with your menopausal mother, an eccentric aunt, a pregnant friend and her husband, and a flustered husband can lead to total chaos – especially when you find a young woman and her baby hiding from unknown danger in an abandoned house.

Here’s an excerpt:

(Sandi’s mother and aunt have disappeared while on a trek through the forest)

A wind had come up and the tops of the trees swayed.

Thunder boomed in the distance again. As Stanley had said, sound didn’t carry as far in the forest. Maybe the storm was closer than I imagined.

I had visions of driving out of here in the rain and on muddy roads.

“Mother!” I hollered.

I thought I heard something ahead of us, but there was no verbal reply.

“Stan, look at the sky. We’ve got to find them and get out of here.”

He glanced skyward and started power walking down the trail.

It seemed that nothing involving my mother and my aunt was ever easy. Oh, that the day would come when I’d call out and they’d simply come running.

Be careful what you wish for – words to live by.

Before I could form another thought in my mind, Aunt Martha came barreling down the path and almost ran into Stanley.

“Come quick,” she said, turning and running back in the direction she’d come from. “Your mother is…”

I couldn’t hear the rest of what she said, but Stanley and I ran after her. I’d heard something unsettling in her voice.

She rounded a curve in the trail and disappeared again.

“Hurry,” she yelled.

“We’re coming,” I yelled back.

We rounded the corner and saw my aunt standing and staring at a clump of bushes.

My mother’s head popped up out of the bushes. Her face was pale and drawn, not a good sign.

“What…?”

I had an overwhelming sense of dread.

“Mother?” I hurried the rest of the way and stood by my aunt.

My mother was bending over, studying a man’s dead body.

The first thing I noticed was that he only wore one shoe. The second thing I noticed was my mother holding her stomach and running to the other side of the path to toss her cookies.

Marja’s website: https://www.marjamcgraw.com/

Buy book at: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=marja+mcgraw

Blog: http://marjamcgraw.blogspot.com/

Join her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marja.mcgraw

Contact her at: mystery@marjamcgraw.com

Marja and I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment.