Sunday Book Review with D.G. Kaye – Over My Dead Body – cozy mystery by Christoph Fischer

Sunday Book Review – Over My Dead Body: Murder at Eurovision by Christoph Fischer

Source: Sunday Book Review with D.G. Kaye – Over My Dead Body – cozy mystery

dgkaye

 

Today’s book review is for Christoph Fischer’s – Over My Dead Body: Murder at Eurovision. Christoph is another of my favorite authors who took the plunge into writing cozy mysteries with Book 1 in this series, The Body in the Snow. Christoph is also a prolific historical fiction writer, one of my favorite genres to read, and he never disappoints, not matter what genre he writes in.  What a gift to be able to write as a multi-genre author. If you’re looking for a fun, easy read with colorful characters and a whodunit that will keep you guessing til the end, you will enjoy this book.

 

Blurb:

On her return from a cruise ship gig Bebe Bollinger learns that fellow Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler has decided to enter a European Song comptition for the UK. While Bebe jealously watches the pre-publicity trail for ‘Eurovision’ in Malmö, a string of ‘odd accidents’ endangers several participants of the competition. This stirs her desire for playing detective again but also a curiosity to check out the suitability of Eurovision for her own career.
Follow Bebe’s continued search for fame and a comeback before it’s too late, step into the weird world that is Eurovision fandom and see how Bebe gets on with her naughty daughter and deals with those evil TV presenters.

 

My 5 Star Review:

Another fun read in this cozy mystery series, Book 2 of the Bebe Bollinger series. Although this book is part of a series, both books could definitely be read as standalones. Each of the books takes us into the life of flamboyant almost ‘has been’ singer Bebe Bollinger, looking to make her musical comeback after the peak of her fame began to fade.

In Over my Dead Body, that’s exactly what Bebe plans to avoid when she decides to kill two birds with one stone by going to visit the annual Eurovision music contest being held in Sweden. When Bebe’s friend Tom the blogger, convinces her to join him in Malmo for the event to put herself back in the limelight and gossips to her that mysterious accidents have been occurring on the set, Bebe decided it would be a great idea to get herself some publicity while getting another chance to put her amateur detective skills to work.

Fischer has a fun writing style in this book and brings us some wonderfully painted colorful characters and descriptions of the goings on, enlightening us to what Eurovision represents. As well as being introduced to some of the characters taking part in the competition, Fischer brings back Beth, ex-cop and friend who she invites into her private investigation, as well as her troublesome daughter Helena who seems to know where to find her mother no matter what country she is in.

This book is a quick-paced. fun read and I do hope Mr. Fischer will be coming out with a new story about Bebe again. Bebe could probably have her own TV series with the no shortage of pickles she gets herself into.

Get the book at: https://amzn.to/2K4GRcy

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Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Sunday Interview – Getting to Know You with Author N. A. Granger

A lovely Sunday interview with one of my favourite mystery writers and a truly lovely lady. N.A. Granger aka my friend Noelle.

New Release: “The Yiddish Gangsters Daughter” by Joan Lipinsky Cochran

#TheYiddishGangsters Daughter was just released on #Kindlebooks and #Amazon print.

A woman’s life is endangered when she learns her father was a member of the #Jewishsyndicate.

https://tinyurl.com/ya59vhap 

Since separating from her philandering husband, Boca Raton writer Becks Ruchinsky has struggled to build a closer relationship with her quirky and contentious father, Tootsie, who lives in a retirement home. One evening, as she and her father are relaxing on the home’s front porch, an elderly woman accuses Tootsie of having murdered her husband fifty years earlier.

Tootsie admits to ratting on the man, who’d cheated their Jewish syndicate boss out of thousands of dollars, but denies killing the widow’s husband. He also admits to having friends in the Jewish mafia and shares stories about his experiences. But the more time she spends with her father, the more convinced Becks becomes that Tootsie is lying about his involvement. Determined to discover the truth about her dad’s past, she sets out on a journey to undercover his darkest secrets. She learns he worked for the Jewish mafia –running numbers for the Cuban lottery, beating up Nazi sympathizers, and smuggling arms to Israeli independence fighters. When she learns that he murdered his best friend and, possibly, his own brother, she must decide if she can accept his criminal past – or cut him out of her life.

The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter also explores the impact our parents’ relationships have on our own. Throughout the book, Becks challenges her father on his infidelity toward her mother and becomes frustrated by his refusal to acknowledge that what he did was hurtful to his entire family. She’s upset when Tootsie minimizes her husband’s affair and encourages her to take him back. Ultimately, Becks realizes that she cannot forgive her husband for cheating until she comes to terms with her father’s infidelities…and her mother’s willingness to put up with them.

A gripping and thought-provoking murder mystery, this award-winning novel explores the colorful and precarious world of the 1940s and 1950s Jewish mafia . . . and the limits of familial love.

Praise for The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter

Whatever you might think you’ll find in a book entitled The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter, forget it. Joan Lipinsky Cochran has crafted an engaging, multi-layered family saga cum mystery where a fifty-something woman and mother of two grown sons suddenly discovers that the comfortable, predictable life she has been living is nothing but a sham. Her attempts to make sense of her impossible new reality are both touching and gripping, making for a truly unique literary experience.
Les Standiford, author of Center of Dreams and Last Train to Paradise

A compelling and well-written family drama. Cochran beautifully captures a daughter’s angst and frustration with a father who’s determined to hold onto his secrets even when his family members’ lives are at risk. These are characters you want to be friends with . . . and a few you hope never to run into in a dark alley.
Sharon Potts, award-winning author of The Other Traitor

A gripping family drama in which a daughter has to confront the mystery of her father’s criminal past. Gritty and realistic and hard to put down. Well done!
Deborah Shlian, author of Florida Book Award Gold Medal Winner for Rabbit on the Moon

A fascinating and engrossing read. The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter examines questions of trust and loyalty through the dual eyes of a father with a hidden past and a daughter who is gradually discovering her father’s secrets – and wishes she hadn’t. It’s a story of heartbreak and loss told with humor and grace.
Rabbi Ilene Schneider, award winning author of the Rabbi Akiva Cohen Mysteries and of Talking Dirty – in Yiddish

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About Joan Lipinsky Cochran

Joan Lipinsky Cochran is a former journalist who now focuses on writing crime-related novels that explore subcultures of American Judaism. 

Her most recent book, The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter, is about a woman whose life is endangered when she discovers her father was a member of the Jewish mafia. It was one of three 2011 Claymore Award finalists and an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarter-finalist. Her first book, Still Missing Beulah: Stories of Jews and Blacks in Mid-Century Miami, explores the racism and anti-Semitism that tarnished Miami’s past and informed the relationship between the two minority groups. Three of the short stories in that collection have won literary awards. When she’s not working on a novel, Joan is testing recipes and writing food columns and articles, playing classical and Irish violin, reading, sailing, and bicycling. She lives in Boca Raton with her husband and ungrateful cat.

Guest Post: “In The Shadow Of The Gallows” by Helen Hollick

Here is a guest post by the wonderful Helen Hollick, award winning author and a great supporter of other writers.

Pirates have fascinated people for several centuries. They were the  terrorists of their age, these sailors of the early eighteenth century who went ‘On the Account’ hoping to gain a fortune  often led a short, but exciting life. Albeit one supplemented by rum and debauchery. Theirs was a harsh life, overshadowed by the presence of death by injury, illness or the hangman’s noose. But the lure of gold, the excitement of the Chase – and the freedom that life aboard a pirate ship offered, was worth the risk.

Or was it? 

Helen has written a series of nautical Voyages based around her fictional pirate, Captain Jesamiah Acorne and his ship, Sea Witch, but her latest UK release in paperback is a non-fiction book – Pirates: Truth and Tales published by Amberley Press, which explores our fascination with the real pirates and those who are favourites in fiction. Today, Helen drops anchor for another interesting addition to her on-line two-week Voyage around the Blogs with a pirate or two for company…

 

The ‘Golden Age’ of piracy. The early 1700s, the Caribbean, the Spanish Main and the get-rich-quick lure of treasure. Not via the illusive map with ‘X marks the spot’, however, as very few pirates buried their ill-gotten-gains on deserted islands. Most of the profit from what they plundered from their unfortunate sea-going victims was frittered away in the brothels and taverns of Tortuga, Port Royal and Nassau, the most popular harbours to drop anchor. At least until the hangman came along.

Not all pirates were successful, a few were downright inept, a couple retired with an amassed fortune, although even they had their hopes of a quiet life ashore as a Gentleman thwarted. Henry Morgan among them, (yes he of the Rum Label fame.) Morgan was, in theory, a privateer – which meant he had a government-granted license to plunder the Spanish, or whomever England happened to be at war with, so basically, the Spanish! Eventually, Morgan was made Governor of Jamaica and he raked in a nice little earner from taxing the goods the pirates brought in to sell. There was so much wealth in Port Royal – known for a time as the ‘wickedest place in the world’ – that even the humblest servant could afford to buy trinkets and luxuries. Morgan fell out of favour with the government though, and ended his days as a ‘has been’, although many mourners who remembered those bygone better days lined the route of his funeral procession. Several years later an earthquake struck Jamaica and an entire section of the town sank beneath the sea. Morgan’s grave along with it.

Captain William Kidd claimed he had been commissioned as a privateer, originally as a pirate hunter, although evidence against him showed otherwise and he was hanged at Wapping on the River Thames. The evidence seems circumstantial and was probably brought about because Kidd failed to bring home a fortune for his sponsors.

The crew of a ship known as Bachelor’s Delight amassed a good bit of wealth between them, but again their claim of being privateers was challenged and the wealth was confiscated by King William and Queen Mary. They put it towards building a college in Williamsburg, Virginia. Although not the original building, the William and Mary College is still there today – founded on pirate loot.

Several of the famous pirates we know of hanged: Charles Vane, ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham and his crew – although not the two women who sailed with him. Anne Bonney and Mary Read had their execution delayed because they were pregnant. Mary died in gaol, but we don’t know what happened to Anne. Stede Bonnet hanged, as did the captured crew who sailed with Edward Teach – Blackbeard. Teach himself died in a ferocious battle with the Royal Navy. After the fight, his corpse was found to have several gunshot and cutlass wounds. The body was decapitated then flung overboard, with the head displayed aboard as a trophy. He is said to haunt the area of the Ocracoke where he died. Apparently, his ghost is looking for its head.

 

Hanging, back then in the eighteenth century, was regarded as a family day out, a festival day where traders could guarantee good sales from the people who came to gawp at the victim: man or woman, pirate, thief, murderer – or alas a poor soul caught for ‘indecency’. Homosexual men were hanged along with the criminals, their sexuality regarded as a crime.

The one to be hanged was expected to put on a good ‘show’. Any quivering cowards were booed and pelted with detritus, those who had an air of swaggering bravado were cheered and heartily applauded.

Hanging was not a pleasant way to die; until the ‘long drop and short stop’ was introduced it could take anything up to twenty minutes to slowly strangle to death, a process quickened if family or friends hanged on to the victim’s legs and torso. And yes, that is where the term ‘hangers on’ comes from.

 

What the condemned wore was also important. Many a pirate headed for the gallows dressed in style and finery, with French lace at cuff and throat, plumed hat and colourful ribbons braided into the hair. The better quality these clothes and trinkets, the better advantage for the executioner, for he would later sell them for a handsome profit. One woman, Hannah Dagoe, arrested for stealing in 1763 cheated the hangman out of his extra money by stripping off her clothes as she was taken to the gallows, tossing bits of finery to the admiring crowd and arriving at the place of execution with very little on. She then further insulted the hangman by kneeing him in the groin as he put the noose in place and jumped out of the cart, breaking her own neck.

 

The rope itself, after it had done its job, would be cut into short lengths and sold as souvenirs by the hangman, who was more often than not a criminal himself, reprieved with the condition that he executed others. For this reason it is very rare to have the hangman’s name or identity recorded.

 

The sixth Sea Witch Voyage of my nautical adventure series (or the seventh if you count a prequel e-format novella, When The Mermaid Sings) featuring ex-pirate Captain Jesamiah Acorne is in process of being written. (Mid-2018, publication intended by early 2019.) It is entitled Gallows Wake. But which character is to face the threat of the noose, I am not revealing…

 

Trouble follows pirate captain Jesamiah Acorne like a ship’s wake. Can a white witch tame him, or will the sea or the noose claim him first?

 

© Helen Hollick

Pirates: Truth And Tales published in paperback in the UK July 2018 and November 2018 in the US – but available for pre-order.

 

Buy the Books: Amazon Author Page (Universal Link)
http://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

Sign up for Helen’s Newsletter and be entered for an annual prize draw.

One name ‘picked from the hat’ in December will win a £10/$10 Amazon gift voucher.

Subscribe here: http://tinyletter.com/HelenHollick

 

LINKS:

Website: www.helenhollick.net

Main Blog: www.ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/HelenHollickAuthor

Twitter: @HelenHollick

Discovering Diamonds: https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Follow Helen’s Tour:

These links will take you to the Home Page of each blog host – Helen says thank you for their interest and enthusiasm! For exact URL links to each article go to Helen’s website:  www.helenhollick.net  which will be updated every day of the tour.

 

30^th July: Cryssa Bazos  https://cryssabazos.com/ Dropping Anchor to Talk About Pirates

31^st July: Anna Belfrage https://www.annabelfrage.com/my-blog/ Ships That Pass…

1^st August: Carolyn Hughes https://carolynhughesauthor.com/blog/ Pirates of the Middle Ages

2^nd August: Alison Morton   https://alison-morton.com/blog/ From Pirate to Emperor

3^rd August: Annie Whitehead https://rwranniewhitehead.blogspot.com/ The Vikings: Raiders or Pirates?

4^th August: Tony Riches http://tonyriches.blogspot.co.uk/ An Interview With Helen Hollick (and maybe a couple of pirates thrown in for good measure?)

5^th August: Lucienne Boyce http://francesca-scriblerus.blogspot.com/ Anne and Mary. Pirates.

6^th August: Laura Pilli http://fieldofbookishdreams.blogspot.co.uk/ Why Pirates?

7^th August: Mary Tod https://awriterofhistory.com/ That Essential Element… For A Pirate.

8^th August: Pauline Barclay http://paulinembarclay.blogspot.com/ Writing Non-Fiction. How Hard Can It Be?

9^th August: Nicola Smith http://shortbookandscribes.uk/ Pirates: The Tales Mixed With The Truth

10^th August: Christoph Fischer https://writerchristophfischer.wordpress.com/ In The Shadow Of The Gallows

11^th August: Debdatta http://www.ddsreviews.in/ What Is It About Pirates?

12^th August: Discovering Diamonds https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.co.uk/ It’s Been An Interesting Voyage…

13^th August: Sarah Greenwood https://www.amberley-books.com/blog Pirates: The Truth and the Tales

14^th August: Antoine Vanner https://dawlishchronicles.com/dawlish-blog/ The Man Who Knew About Pirates

 

ABOUT HELEN:

Helen moved from London in 2013 and now lives with her family in North Devon, in an eighteenth century farmhouse. First published in 1994, her passion now is her pirate character, Captain Jesamiah Acorne of the nautical adventure series, The Sea Witch Voyages. Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (UK title A Hollow Crown) the story of Saxon Queen, Emma of Normandy. Her novel Harold the King (US title I Am The Chosen King) explores the events that led to the 1066 Battle of Hastings. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy, set in the fifth century, is widely praised as a more down-to-earth historical version of the Arthurian legend. She has written three non-fiction books, Pirates: Truth and Tales, Smugglers in Fact and Fiction (to be published 2019) and as a supporter of indie writers, co-wrote Discovering the Diamond with her editor, Jo Field, a short advice guide for new writers. She runs the Discovering Diamonds review blog for historical fiction assisted by a team of enthusiastic reviewers.

Helen is published in various languages.

Trump’s most important reminder

As a writer of historical fiction I couldn’t agree more. For me, too, this is
“a reminder of how quickly history can change course and how quickly masses can be mobilized to do what seemed unthinkable a year or so earlier.”

shakemyheadhollow

Who would have thought two years ago that a U.S. president would publicly side with a Russian leader against NATO, the EU, and the intelligence communities of the U.S.? And that tens of millions of Americans (mainly Republicans who had long been hawkish on America’s global rivals) would immediately back him up?

Let this be a reminder of how quickly history can change course and how quickly masses can be mobilized to do what seemed unthinkable a year or so earlier.

        

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