When you wish upon a star, you get... Bailey Ruth? You do if you are a little girl whose mom needs help and you touch the soft heart of Wiggins, supervisor of the celestial Department of Good Intentions. Wiggins dispatches the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, an energetic redhead, to her hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, to help a single mom and struggling writer find some creative solutions to her challenges.
Deirdre Davenport writes mysteries, but doesn’t earn enough to support her two kids. Desperate for a job, she has her hopes pinned on getting a writing position at Goddard College. Jay Knox, who is in charge of the writers’ conference she is attending, will decide who gets the job, but he is more interested in her body than her body of work.
Not long after she shows him the door of her hotel room, resisting his advances, Knox turns up dead -- and Deirdre’s fingerprints are on the weapon. Bailey Ruth knows Deirdre is innocent and she’s sure Jay’s overbearing personality rubbed others the wrong way. Now she must find out who plotted his murder if a little girl who wished upon a star is to have a happy ending.
ALSO NEW!
WHAT GOES AROUND
Now in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: Devilish doings daunt five mystery five authors who thought they were clever to purchase a fine cliff side home as joint tenants with right of survivorship – until they start dying, one by one.
FROM THE QUEEN
a short story now available online for $1.99:
Everyone dreams of stumbling upon a long-lost treasure in the attic or inheriting a fortune from some distant relative. But for Ellen Gallagher, the impoverished owner of a thrift shop in South Carolina, that dream comes true. She finds in her possession a first edition of Agatha Christie’s Poirot Investigates that has been signed by the author . . . and inscribed to the Queen of England. When the book disappears from her shop, Ellen must call on her friend Annie Darling, owner of the mystery bookstore Death on Demand, to track it down.
--available from Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook