Ace blends Golden Age-style writing with contemporary characters, settings, and plots; the resulting novels feel like a modern version of an Agatha Christie mystery.
This fast-paced read will keep you on the edge of your seat with each turn of the page.
3rd in Series
Cozy Mystery
Publisher: TouchWood Editions (April 15, 2014)
Paperback: 240 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1771510639
Synopsis
Criminologist and foodie Cait Morgan was looking forward to her dream vacation in Mexico with her boyfriend Bud Anderson. She wasn’t anticipating a fresh corpse on the floor of a local florist’s shop, and she definitely wasn’t expecting Bud to become the prime suspect.
With Bud’s freedom, and maybe even his life, at stake, Cait has to fight the clock to work out which member of the small community living in the seemingly idyllic municipality of Punta de las Rocas might have killed the locally respected florist, and why. Needing to investigate under the watchful gaze of the local police, Cait has to keep her relationship with Bud a secret, and she soon discovers she’s not the only one with something to hide. Peeling back layers of deceit to reveal even more puzzles, Cait struggles with a creeping sense of unreality, desperate to save Bud . . . and, ultimately, herself.
In the third book in the beloved Cait Morgan Mysteries, The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb, travel to the idyllic Mexican countryside as Cait Morgan works against the clock to clear her wrongly accused partner of murder.
Amazon:
About This Author
Welsh Canadian mystery author Cathy Ace is the creator of the Cait Morgan Mysteries, which include The Corpse with the Silver Tongue, The Corpse with the Golden Nose, and The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb. Born, raised, and educated in Wales, Cathy enjoyed a successful career in marketing and training across Europe, before immigrating to Vancouver, Canada, where she taught on MBA and undergraduate marketing programs at various universities. Her eclectic tastes in art, music, food, and drink have been developed during her decades of extensive travel, which she continues whenever possible. Now a full-time author, Cathy’s short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies, as well as on BBC Radio 4. She and her husband are keen gardeners, who enjoy being helped out around their acreage by their green-pawed Labradors.
Interview
How much of a story did you have in mind
before you started writing?
I am one of
those writers who needs to know where they are going before they begin. I make
a detailed outline, voluminous notes about characters and locations, the book
is thoroughly plotted and all my
research is done ahead of my writing time. For THE CORPSE WITH THE EMERALD
THUMB, as in the case of all my writing, the plot was fully formed before I
began to write.
Can you tell us what genre you write?
I write
traditional, closed-circle mysteries. Some might call them “cozies”, though I know
that term can mean different things to different people. I don’t use foul
language, there is no sex in the books, or even gore or gratuitous violence,
but there’s a winding plot, a closed circle of suspects, and, I hope, a good
sense of place – though, unlike many cozies, the place changes from book to book,
the common element being that, wherever they are located, the books inhabit a
world where there are close links between all the players. My Welsh Canadian sleuthing
protagonist is a very bright, judgmental, bossy, yet somewhat insecure, professor
of criminal psychology at the University of Vancouver. She’s also a bit of a foodie, though she has
gourmet tastes on fish and chips money! There’s usually a light element wound
into my tales, though, of course, murder is never entirely a laughing matter. Margaret Cannon in The Globe and Mail said of my work that it has “touches of Christie
or Marsh, but with a bouquet of Kinsey Millhone”. I can only say that I hope
readers agree, because I take her comment that as a great compliment.
How (or when) do you decide that you are
finished writing a story?
With the
first Cait Morgan Mystery I found the need to “add a bit on” to allow for the
opening of a door to a series. That approach has pros and cons, but now, with
this being the third book in the series, I feel more able to conclude the
mystery surrounding the death of the person in the title, then finish up pretty
swiftly, with just enough attention to the ongoing arc of the life-stories of
my main characters to allow readers to feel excited to know “what happens next”
to them….I hope!
What are you working on right now?
As I
mentioned, this is Cait Morgan’s third mystery. Her fourth, THE CORPSE WITH THE
PLATINUM HAIR, will be published on September 9th 2014 – yes, this
year! I have some final copy edits to wrap up for that book, and I have also
just finished writing Cait’s fifth mystery, which is due to come out in the
spring of 2015, so edits for that will kick off very soon.
At what age did you discover your love of
writing?
To be
perfectly honest I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love to write, but I
suspect that many of us feel that way at school. As an adult I have been lucky
enough to write a great deal as an integral part of my professional life as a
marketing communications specialist and trainer. Sometimes, writing to a
deadline makes it less fun, other times it’s the spur one needs to get going,
so I even love deadlines!
What was the first story that you wrote?
“Dear
George” was my entry into a short story competition in 1989. It was a competition
called “Murder and be Published” run by Company
magazine in the UK, the prize being to be published in an anthology with
established authors. I was fortunate enough to be judged a winner, and was then
blown away when the story was further anthologized into a book that was a set
text for the UK’s 16-year-old national examinations in English Language. In
2007 the story was recorded for BBC Radio 4’s series “Murder She Thought”
showcasing female crime writers.
When were you first published? How were you
discovered?
My short
story “Dear George” was first published in 1988, but then I was caught up for
almost 20 years running my business. As a part of my marketing career I had
nine marketing textbooks published, but I didn’t “get back to crime” until
“Dear George” was produced for radio. That was the spur I needed. I
self-published a volume of twelve short stories, MURDER: MONTH BY MONTH, in
2007, then a volume of four novellas, MURDER: SEASON BY SEASON, in 2008, and I
was fortunate enough to get some pretty good sales. In 2010 I packed up one
copy of each book and mailed them, with a ransom note I made up with letters
cut out from a newspaper begging the publisher to “release my characters”. I
know that many authors say they could paper the walls of their homes with
rejection letters, but I only ever got one - from a publishing company which I
really shouldn’t have approached in any case. My second package worked, and
TouchWood Editions invited me to submit a manuscript for a novel featuring Cait
Morgan, who appeared in three of the short stories and one novella that I’d
sent them! I was very lucky to be offering the right sort of book to the right
publisher, at the right time. My first novel, THE CORPSE WITH THE SILVER
TONGUE, was published in 2012, my second, THE CORPSE WITH THE GOLDEN NOSE, in
2013.
What is the most difficult part of the
whole writing process?
I see the
whole process as, essentially, this: thinking, researching, planning, plotting,
making detailed notes, writing, content editing, copy editing, promoting,
meeting readers. Each part is a joy. Each part presents challenges. If I had to
choose a least-favorite part it would be final line-by-line copy editing, but,
to be honest, I totally love the whole thing! I am so very lucky to be doing
this rather than anything else.
What writer influences you the most?
This is very
difficult to answer. I read a great deal, and I’m pretty sure that everyone I
read has some influence on my own writing. That said, I very much admire Agatha
Christie’s work, not just because it was ground-breaking and genre-making, but
because it is enjoyable. I hope I write books that people enjoy reading,
because I see them as an entertainment. If I had to give a short-list it would
be: Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Sue Grafton.
Where can people learn more about you?
My website
is www.cathyace.com and I try to keep it
up to date with information about where folks can meet me face to face, or what
I’m writing and doing. Of course my website has links to all my books, and I
make sure that there’s access to some questions and talking points about each
book for book clubs.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell
us about yourself?
I’ve stopped buying lottery tickets because I
believe I’ve already won…if this isn’t my dream life, then I don’t know what
is.
Author Links
Twitter = @AceCathy
