Celebrating Debut Novelists at Crime Bake 2015

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the New England Crime Bake for the very first time. It was an incredible experience on so many levels, as I discussed in a blog post the other week.  One of the highlights was getting honored with fellow debut mystery novelists on Friday evening.

Debut novelists at the New England Crime Bake 2015. Photo by Mo Walsh.

I have to say, I feel like I am in some incredible company! Check out this list of the debutantes* and their novels, listed alphabetically by author’s last name.

THE TRAIL by Ray Anderson

A killer wanted for rape and murder escapes onto the Appalachian Trail. As he hikes north to refuge in Canada, he loses weight, grows a beard, and becomes unrecognizable. He weakens and begins killing women on the trail. A Gulf War vet with PSTD is also hiking the trail to try and walk off a tragedy he was responsible for in Iraq. He collides with the villain. The reader is taken on a frightful chase along the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.

COVER STORY by Brenda Buchanan

In Cover Story, Maine newspaper reporter Joe Gale’s vigorous coverage of a murder trial involving a member of a high-profile political family leads to a relentless campaign of intimidation by a shadowy force determined to keep the truth buried.

NO VIRGIN ISLAND by C. Michele Dorsey

Sabrina Salter traded a high-pressure job as a Boston meteorologist for life as an innkeeper on St. John. But storm clouds roll in when Sabrina finds Carter Johnson, her most attractive guest, tucked up in a hammock way past check-out time… and he’s not just dead to the world, he’s just plain dead, with a bullet hole in his chest. This isn’t the first time Sabrina has seen a dead body, and the island police are well aware of that. Thanks to her checkered history, not to mention the fact that she was the last person who saw Carter alive and far from entirely clothed, she finds herself marked as the prime suspect.

EMINENT CRIMES: A LEGAL THRILLER by Adelene Ellenberg

Do you own your land free and clear?  Think again, my friend.  Eminent Crimes: A Legal Thriller”  shows how eminent domain can be used by unscrupulous politicians AGAINST ANYONE at any time. Here,  Robert Jaston’s dairy farm is “taken” to site a casino. He says, “over my dead body!” and hires the only attorney who dares to challenge the establishment. Together, they discover:  Small Town Politics Can Be Murder.

FASHION GOES TO THE DOGS By Peggy Gaffney

SUSPENSE FOR THE DOG LOVER describes the first book in the Kate Killoy Mystery series Fashion Goes to the Dogs, or as some refer to it, DIE HARD meets BEST IN SHOW. While in NYC to show both her fashions designs and exhibit her Samoyed champion, mistaken identity sends Kate running from murderers.  Harry Foyle, a former FBI math geek, finds himself in a struggle to keep this sassy dog nut alive. Skilled in solving most problems using his brain or his gun, he discovers that protecting Kate is an equation whose solution may lead to an unexpected variable—love.

IDYLL THREATS by Stephanie Gayle

In the summer of 1997, Thomas Lynch arrives as the new chief of police in Idyll, Connecticut—a town where serious crimes can be counted on one hand. So no one is prepared when Cecilia North is found murdered on a golf course. By chance, Chief Lynch met her mere hours before she was killed. With that lead, the case should be a slam dunk. But there’s a problem. If Lynch tells his detectives about meeting the victim, he’ll reveal his greatest secret—he’s gay.

FETA ATTRACTION by Susannah Hardy

Georgie Nikolopatos manages the Bonaparte House, a Greek restaurant and historic landmark in beautiful upstate New York rumored to possess ghosts and hidden treasure. But when her husband disappears and her main competitor is found dead, it’s up to Georgie to solve a big fat Greek murder.

TAGGED FOR DEATH by Sherry Harris

After a successful day searching for garage sale treasures, Sarah finds a grisly surprise in one of her bags: two bloody shirts — one belongs to her ex-husband, CJ, and the other to the woman he slept with. Sarah thinks CJ’s a schmuck but she knows he’s not a killer. She sets out to clear his name but may have to bargain for her life.

PANE AND SUFFERING by Cheryl Hollon

To solve her father’s murder and save the family-owned glass shop, Savannah Webb must shatter a killer’s carefully constructed facade…

JUST KILLING TIME by Julianne Holmes

Ruth Clagan may be an expert clockmaker, but she’s always had a tendency to lose track of time. And when trying to solve a murder, every minute counts…

THE ALCHEMIST’S DAUGHTER by Mary Lawrence

Set in the final years of King Henry VIII’s reign, the daughter of an infamous alchemist must prove her innocence in a friend’s murder and uncover its connection to a quarantined ship before she is hanged at the gallows and London succumbs to the plague

SWIMMING ALONE By Nina Mansfield

The Sea Side Strangler is on the loose in Beach Point, where fifteen-year-old Cathy Banks is spending what she thinks will be a wretched summer. Just when she begins to make friends, and even finds a crush to drool over, her new friend Lauren vanishes.  When a body surfaces in Beach Point Bay, Cathy is forced to face the question:  has the Sea Side Strangler struck again?

CARDIAC ARREST by Lisa Q. Mathews

In glitzy Southwest Florida, clueless twenty-something party girl Summer Smythe and feisty senior widow Dorothy Westin team up to solve the murder of a heartbreaker cardiologist.  Base of operations: the Hibiscus Pointe Senior Living Community, where Summer is camping out in her late grandma’s condo. First book in the quirky mystery series The Ladies Smythe & Westin from Carina Press.

COLD HARD NEWS by Maureen Milliken

When the snow in a small Maine town start to melt, the town’s secrets begin to emerge. Bernie O’Dea, the editor of the Peaks Weekly Watcher, is jazzed to finally have a big story to cover when a body is found in a melting snowbank. But as spring turns into a long, hot, explosive summer in Redimere, Maine, the story gets bigger — maybe too big for Bernie to handle.  As the town is ripped in half, secrets are revealed, friends are betrayed and the body count rises, Bernie is forced to question her part in the town’s series of tragedy, a part that may cost her and others their lives.

NIGHT LIFE by David C. Taylor

Life for NYPD detective Michael Cassidy is black and Red all over in this thriller set during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Mixing fictional and reality-based characters and providing a wealth of period detail, Taylor works in what has become time-honored fashion since Ragtime. But he works exceptionally well within that convention, and that of noir fiction, illuminating his characters and the times they’re living through in a lively, light-on-its-feet, agreeably no-nonsense fashion.

RED LINE by Brian Thiem

An authentic police procedural by a former homicide detective. When a teenager from a wealthy suburb is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It’s his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south… fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it’s the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed. And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up…and the killer is just getting started. Time is running out on Sinclair’s career, not to mention the people closest to him.

*I was unable to get in touch with all of the debutantes. If you were one of them, please contact me, and I will add your debut novel to this post.