Virtual Book Tour: Real Murder by Lauren Carr

Title: Real Murder
Author: Lauren Carr
Publisher: Acorn Book Services
Pages: 302
Genre: Mystery
Format: Paperback/Kindle

Purchase at AMAZON

When Homicide Detective Cameron Gates befriends Dolly, the little old lady who lives across the street, she is warned not to get lured into helping the elderly woman by investigating the unsolved murder of one of her girls. “She’s senile,” Cameron is warned. “It’s not a real murder.”

Such is not the case. After Dolly is brutally murdered, Cameron discovers that the sweet blue-haired lady’s “girl” was a call girl, who had been killed in a mysterious double homicide.

Meanwhile, Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Thornton is looking for answers to the murder of a childhood friend, a sheriff deputy whose cruiser is found at the bottom of a lake. The deputy had disappeared almost twenty years ago while privately investigating the murder of a local prostitute.

It doesn’t take long for the Lovers in Crime to put their cases together to reveal a long-kept secret that some believe is worth killing to keep undercover.

Book Excerpt:

“Would you like another breast, Tad?”

Dr. Tad MacMillan studied the last two bites of white meat on the chicken breast in the middle of his paper plate before answering the robust woman standing over him with a foil pan in one hand and a pair of tongs clutching a fried chicken piece in the other. He was already on his third piece.

“Come on, Tad.” His wife, Jan, urged him from across the picnic table. Her attention was divided between her husband, their three-month-old son fussing in the baby carrier on top of the table, and her long blonde hair that had abruptly become too hot on her next. “You know you want it. That’s what church picnics are for. Eating until you bust.” She clenched a hair clip in her teeth and gathered her hair together with both hands.

Entertained by the funny looking object sticking out of his mother’s mouth, Tad Jr. giggled. 

Tired of waiting for his response, the woman plopped the plump breast onto his plate and moved on to the next table to foist the remaining chicken on other picnickers.

“I’m trying to save room for Cameron’s hot fudge lava cake,” Tad said while searching the parking lot for his cousin and his wife, “if she ever comes.”

After taking the clip out of her mouth, Jan continued to make funny faces at the baby, who giggled harder. “Not to mention the ice cream that Josh is supposed to bring.”

“Where are they anyway?”

“Cameron got a lead on a murder case she was working and took off this morning.” After securing her hair up on top of her head, Jan picked Tad Junior up out of the carrier. “Josh decided to work on an opening argument that he’s giving tomorrow. He didn’t want to come without her.”

“Just like newlyweds.” Tad dove into the next piece of chicken. “I remember when you refused to go anywhere without me at your side.

“Now I don’t even notice when you aren’t there,” she confessed. “I never thought we would get this old and settled.”

“Can you really picture me being settled?” Tad let out a laugh before peeling the crispy skin off the chicken piece on his plate.

“I just hope TJ takes after me instead of you in that regard,” Jan said.

“You’re not the only one.”

While hugging their son, Jan looked across the picnic table at her husband, Dr. Tad MacMillan, the town doctor and Hancock County’s medical examiner. His salt and pepper hair brought out his blue eyes heavily framed with laugh lines. They may have been old and settled, but his laid back style and charismatic ways still caught her off guard sometimes.

Taking in the their friends and family that littered the park for the church picnic, Jan  found it hard to believe that less than a decade earlier she had resigned herself to the fact that she would never marry, let alone have a journalism career, and a fussy baby, who just threw up down the back of her shirt.

While the older members of the church congregation were helping themselves to seconds and thirds of the picnic fare, the younger and more athletic picnickers were racing paddleboats across the park’s lake. Joshua Thornton’s sixteen-year old-son Donny, the only remaining child at home, was included in that group. The boys were racing the girls.

“Faster! Pedal faster!” Donny yelled at his friend Woody.

“I’m going as fast as I can!” The chubby teenager who rarely exercised anything except his fingers while playing computer games was put out with being coerced into this activity in the first place. At least since he was partnered with Donny, a linebacker on Oak Glen High School’s football team, he stood a chance of winning the race.

“Beat you!” the girls squealed from the shore where they turned their craft around.

With a curse, Donny kicked at the pedals and sat back to let the sun shine on his face.

The paddleboat rocked when Woody leaned over the side to peer into the water. “Hey, what’s that?”

“What?” Donny replied without opening his eyes.

“Down there.”

“Down where?”

Woody nudged him in the arm. “In the water. It looks like a car.”

Opening his eyes, Donny sat up. “So someone tossed their old car into the lake. Happens all the time.”

“Do the police dump their old cruisers in the lake, too?”

 About the Author

Lauren Carr is the best-selling author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. Twelve to Murder is the seventh installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series.

In addition to her series set on Deep Creek Lake, Lauren Carr has also written the Lovers in Crime Mysteries, which features prosecutor Joshua Thornton with homicide detective Cameron Gates, who were introduced in Shades of Murder, the third book in the Mac Faraday Mysteries. They also make an appearance in The Lady Who Cried Murder.

Lauren launched the Lovers in Crime (first introduced in Shades of Murder) mystery series in September 2012 with Dead on Ice. Real Murder is the second installment in this series.

The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This year, several books, over a variety of genre, written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services, which is currently accepting submissions. Visit Acorn Book Services website for more information.

Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.

She lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

For More Information

• Visit Lauren Carr’s website.
• Connect with Lauren on Facebook and Twitter.
• Visit Lauren’s blog.
• More books by Lauren Carr.

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