Kern Kapers Mystery Series
Body in the Orchard
It wasn’t unusual to find a dead body in the orchards surrounding Bakersfield, California. So when Vermilion Blew reads in the local paper about yet one more corpse dug up by a backhoe, she dismisses the discovery. That is, until the revelation that the man had a ticket in his pocket for a movie that she had attended with her fiancé, thirty-seven years before. And that movie was the last time she had seen Frankie Monroe, the evening before her nuptials. Very has gone on with her life, or so she believes, until a slippery slope of events pushes her into a painful and mostly repressed past. A return to the emotional roller-coaster of the days and weeks that followed the spoiled wedding causes Very to face a horde of questions that she had longed to bury. Why was Frankie so secretive about his origins? Does the clue of the movie ticket solve anything or open a swarm of meddlesome queries? When new evidence emerges about the body in the orchard, Very plunges into the murky world of identifying and tracing missing persons, and she discovers a new profession, skip-tracing private investigator.
Killer Kern
“Killer Kern Strikes Again” read the headlines in the Bakersfield morning paper. Vermilion Blew, in sorrow and disbelief, reads of the late spring icy waters that have claimed three new victims. And exposed a decades old body in the riverbank. Could this be her long missing fiancé, Frankie Monroe, who had left the day before the wedding, 38 years ago? Before Very can ask any questions, she is plunged into an investigation foisted on her by her PI partner. One of the victims is deemed a suicide, but the family refuses to believe this conclusion. Then, Very finds herself deep in neighborhoods she’d rather avoid, questioning the family of the other two victims. Is something askew with the story of the teenage girl and her older male cousin who tried to rescue her? Did they see the suicidal woman at Hart Park moments before she killed herself? Can Very extricate herself from these layers of lies and survive to tell the truth?
This is the second of the Kern Kapers Mysteries, featuring Vermilion Blew, a retired school librarian and English teacher. In the first mystery, Body in the Orchard, Very faces the possibility that instead of being abandoned at the altar, her fiance was murdered. In this second mystery, she again must grapple with the possibility that Frankie Monroe is no longer among the living. She has also been sucked into helping a local private investigator and now is asked to help with a new case.
Hot Tub Homicide
Vermilion Blew has moved on from her mother’s house, so she thinks, and has acquired a new house, and a new cat that she names Cleopatra. She also has a new set of friends at Five Points, one of Bakersfield’s newest retirement communities and various new acquaintances invite her to join the pickle ball crowd, the crafter’s club and insist she needs to gather with the right people in the book club. But when Very’s new acquaintances keep moving on to the marble forest, she begins to doubt that her move was a wise one, especially when she is the one to discover the body floating in the hot tub. Was the hot tub death just another older man on his last legs, or was it homicide? Very holds tight to her new circle of friends, but reaches out to her PI partner and her oldest friend, whose husband is a deputy sheriff, to solve the latest mystery. This is the third in the Kern Kapers Mysteries series.
Cuyama Cold Case
The murder of the six-year-old girl from the small town of Cuyama had mesmerized the media for months. Vermilion Blew, just a few years older, was traumatized, mostly because she had known AnnaRose. Now, more than fifty years later, Very becomes embroiled in the investigation of the cold case. Along with Bradley Parker, aka the White Stetson, she prowls the small town of New Cuyama, remembering the places, the atmosphere and the claustrophobia of small-town life. While interviewing those witnesses who are still alive, she tries to tease out the truth. She wants to clear the name of AnnaRose’s biological father, but he is keeping secrets, as are a number of witnesses. In the meantime, she has put on hold her planned trip to Canada to search for her missing fiancé.
Teachers Abroad Mystery Series
Revolution Revenge
The thrilling events of the Egyptian Revolution are hiding nefarious revenge. When English teacher Barbie discovers her mobile phone is dead and the internet shut off, she realizes that the demonstrations in Tahrir are more grave that any had thought. While chasing her runaway cat, she discovers the body of twelve-year-old Ahmed, the assistant doorman, in the alley with a cheap souvenir knife plunged deep into his chest. The next day, another mysterious death is revealed, that of a colleague at the university. She and the fellow teachers join the millions who daily flock to the iconic Tahrir Square to demand the resignation of their ‘pharaoh.’ Barbie mourns the death of her student Ahmed and vows to investigate the seemingly related deaths. But there is no one in authority, as the police have disappeared. Barbie must decipher her dead student’s diaries, enlist the aid of a mysterious Egyptian antiquities dealer and sift through the rumors that swirl around the close-knit university community. Her investigations take her through the supposedly safe streets of Zamalek, the crowded alleys of the Kahn el Khalili, and the treacherous neighborhoods around the teeming, seething anger of the crowds in Tahrir Square.
Oasis Assassin
The sleepy oasis of Siwa in the Egyptian desert hides an assassin. English teacher Barbie, along with the faculty of an American college in Egypt is taking a respite from the tumultuous events of Cairo by going on a week-long trip to the desert. However, they bring their squabbles and hatreds with them, resulting in the death of one of their own. Barbie and friends are caught in webs of suspicion, outdated grudges, obfuscation, and inappropriate frivolities. As they explore the ancient monuments, visited by Alexander the Great, lived in by Romans and ancient Egyptians, and visited over the years by pharaohs, kings and armies, they attempt to solve the mystery of the death of the Head of the History Department. Did he drown, or was he poisoned? And which of his past misdeeds inspired his killer? Barbie also reconnects with her lost love, only to lose him again.
Turkish Delight Gone Sour
A hot-air balloon ride that soars high above the fairy chimneys of Goreme Turkey reveals the mangled body of the missing English teacher. The rest of the teachers’ group, headed by continent-hopping Barbie, believes their ill-tempered colleague has caused their Turkish holiday to go sour. Did the missing teacher find his way to the ditch by himself, or was the body dumped there by an assassin? After bubble-headed Barbie allows her meddling nosiness to carry her to the scene of the disaster, she is pursued by the possible murderer through the
breath-taking countryside in the heart of Cappadocia. Why did someone want the secretive and irascible man erased? Who is wearing the multi-hued shoes of Barbie’s pursuer? The group of teachers has little interest in Barbie’s hare-brained ideas until an innocent is kidnapped.
Singapore Fling
Squeaky clean Singapore does a poor job hiding its sins, and sinners. Like the pursuit of the Maltese Falcon, everyone wants a piece of the stolen gold from China’s past. Barbie, a continent-hopping English teacher with shadowy talents, becomes enmeshed in the chase. It starts with her friend’s missing boyfriend, whose murky past and dubious acquaintances confound the search. As well as catching up with her friend, Barbie reunites with her son Jon, whom she hasn’t seen in eight years. Together they relive and explore their troubled relationship, exposing family puzzles and betraying decades-old secrets. The pursuit of clues by the three detectives leads to more than the quest for the missing boyfriend, as the alleyways of Singapore cough up improbably shady players in the game. Is everyone someone else? Who can our heroes trust? And, is the gold real, or only an ephemeral stand-in for a forbidden treasure?