MYSTERY SHE WROTE...
FINE POINTS MALICE AND PAYBACK
My published mystery-suspense, number five won an award one full year before "The Count Of Baldpate, only because I submitted it for consideration first.
Finding the courage to send sample chapters to literary agents is nerve-searing enough, but sending off an entire book for a literary review and then a literary competition [that includes other books by your peers] almost requires medication...
An early, early version of my Fine Points project was two manuscripts with the second intended as a sequel.
However, since my main adult character was as a child, raised in foster care, an agent at a writers' conference pointed out that she thought 'his mystery' was truly the mainstay. So, my two novellas became one novel.
When [and only when] a suggestion or criticism rings true, writers should pay attention. Though this literary agent regretted that she could not take on additional clients, she liked this premise as something slightly different than the norm. [I chose to believe her. Though some nicely-worded literary rejections are perhaps the dating equivalent of: "It's not you its's me." this work did win a book award two years later.]
*****
With the affair suppressed Captain Fleming could return to his life as if nothing had happened--his wife no wiser and the Tucson Police Chief still at the helm of a respected career...
*Rookie Tucson Detective Andrew Coates who spent months going through cold-case files connects the investigative 'dots' of three unsolved murders. With a fourth victim discovered his captain assigns the new open case to a very nervous novice.
When the harried detective begins to fall for the sister of a fifth victim the mystery of his own life intrudes again. Abandoned at birth then raised in foster care, not knowing who he is continues to haunt him.
Author website: Patchwork Publishing, LLC
Read full chapters via: Sherrie Todd-Beshore | Substack
**Every writer's journey is the same, but different...In "FROM THERE TO HERE" a memoir, [of sorts] I share more detail of 'my' unique journey that may be of some help to others who find themselves compelled to write too...
