Happy New Year from Maine Crime Writers
Here’s what will be coming your way from us in 2015:
Sarah Graves: New in 2015, WINTER AT THE DOOR, due out January 6, 2015. Ex-Boston homicide cop Lizzie Snow hunts her long-missing niece in the Allagash wilderness of northern Maine, while a backwoods predator of the human variety hunts, too — for Lizzie.
Lea Wait: New books in 2015 …. Twisted Threads: A Mainely Needlepoint mystery. Angie Curtis’ mother disappeared when Angie was ten, and her life went downhill from there. She headed west as soon as she was eighteen. But now her mother’s body has been found, and she’s back in Haven Harbor to find her mother’s killer – and confront her own past. publication date: January 6.
Threads of Evidence: A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery. An old Victorian
mansion, perhaps the scene of a murder forty years ago, has been empty for years. Who has bought it … and why? Publication date: August 25
Vaughn Hardacker: THE FISHERMAN: Mike Houston and Anne Bouchard agree to look for an elderly couple’s missing granddaughter. What they find was beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. To be released June 2, 2015 from Skyhorse Publishing.
Kathy Lynn Emerson: MURDER IN THE QUEEN’S WARDROBE, first in a new historical mystery series set in England and Russia in 1582-1583, will be out in hardcover in the U. S. in early March, followed soon after by the Kindle edition. The second of the “Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries” will be out in the UK in November. The title is MURDER IN THE MERCERY and it will show up in the U.S. in March of 2016.
There should also be a short story, “The Cunning Woman,” in a forthcoming 2015 issue of ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE, but I don’t have a date yet. The characters are the same ones who appeared in “The Blessing Witch,” my short story in ROGUE WAVE.
Kaitlyn Dunnett’s 9th Liss MacCrimmon mystery, THE SCOTTIE BARKED AT MIDNIGHT, will be out in hardcover and ebook editions on October 27. The paperback edition of #8, HO-HO-HOMICIDE, should be published a few weeks before this new one comes out.
Barbara Ross: The next book in the Maine Clambake Mystery series, Musseled Out comes out April 28, 2015. Here’s the description: The busy summer tourist season is winding down in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, but Julia Snowden senses trouble. Shifty David Thwing–the “Mussel King” of upscale seafood restaurants–is sniffing around town for a new location. When Thwing is found sleeping with the fishes beneath a local lobsterman’s boat, the police quickly finger Julia’s brother-in-law Sonny. Julia believes he’s innocent, but he’s lying about something, so proving it won’t be easy…
Meanwhile, the manuscript for the fourth book in the series, Fogged Inn, is due June 1. And of course,
in May, the editors will be reviewing a big pile of manuscripts to chose the stories for the next anthology in the Best New England Crime Stories series, exact title tbd. Submissions open in January.
Susan Vaughan: No pub date as yet, but early in the year, I’ll release the first book in a new series. The romantic adventures feature the Devlin Security Force whose mission is protecting and recovering art and artifacts. Here’s the description of the first book, ON DEADLY GROUND. Desperate to save her kidnapped brother, timid museum director Kate Fontaine must work with Max Rivera, the cynical ex-military guide she doesn’t trust to carry out the kidnapper’s demands and return a precious Mayan artifact to its temple. Soon Max and Kate find themselves outrunning international black-marketeers and a predicted earthquake in a race against time that takes them from Washington to England and into the steamy Costa Verde jungle.
Al Lamanda: I have a new mystery in the John Bekker series being released in hardcover in June.
Kate Flora: Well, it looks like my eighth Thea Kozak mystery, DEATH WARMED OVER, won’t be out until next fall. Disappointing, but I’ll get it to you as soon as I can. Hoping for some more good news soon, so stay tuned.
What feast of reading you all have ahead of you. And don’t miss this weekend’s update, when we each share some writing advice gleaned from our own many years in the chair. I haven’t done the math, but collectively we’ve probably got at least a hundred years of experience.
Kait Carson
Charlene D’Avanzo 
It’s looking like a very good year for reading! Thanks 🙂
Wow, what a prolific group we are!
Vaughn C. Hardacker
Thanks to all of the Maine Crime Writers for this fun and informative blog. I’ve enjoyed the posts all year.
The occasional mixed feelings expressed about life in Maine I read here and in your books leads me to a question for all of you. What do you all think of the premise behind the fantasy/drama Once upon a Time originally aired on ABC? The show is based on the concept that the worst curse an evil queen could come up with was to transport all her enemies to a small town in Maine where they must live unhappily ever after. I would have thought that some parts of Rhode Island would make better curses.
Hi, David,
Good question. Speaking only for myself, the only answer I can come up with is that the evil queen must have come across a copy of THE BEANS OF EGYPT, MAINE and seen only the dark side.
Fortunately, most of us see, if not a happier place, at least one with more variety and less angst.
Kathy/Kaitlyn
I haven’t read any of Carolyn Chute’s books about Egypt (just the reviews) but it sounds like her portrayal of rural poor was painfully accurate. Every state has similar stories to be told, but Maine had an apparently outstanding writer air its dirty linen–not a bad thing if considered thoughtfully and without snobbery or condescension.
Very funny, David. I’d never thought of Once Upon a Time quite that way.
All true … there are (as in all states) different sides to Maine. Some of Stephen Kings’s books also explore the under side of Maine … as do the books of Jim Hayman, Paul Doiron, and Kate Flora. Sometimes I think that side of Maine casts fascinating shadows on the mid-coast Maine communities that are (sometimes) wealthier and where more people from away live. But … all are part of what makes Maine the state those of us who live and write here love.
Exciting news. I have at least 3 of these already on my pre-order list. Cozy mysteries set in New England are my all-time favorites. Looking forward to the new releases. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you, too Bo.