WATCHING THE DETECTIVES by Julie Mulhern

Watching The Detectives by Julie Mulhern

Cozy Mystery 5th in Series 
Publisher: Henery Press (May 23, 2017) 
Paperback: 234 pages ISBN-13: 978-1635112115 
E-Book ASIN: B06WWF1PWQ

USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR







Ellison Russell wanted a decorator, not a corpse. Too bad she finds Mrs. White in the study killed with a revolver. Things go from bad to worse when she finds Mr. White in the dining room killed with a candlestick. With so many bodies, is it any wonder Detective Anarchy Jones’ new partner considers Ellison a suspect?
With the country club gossips talking a mile a minute, an unexpected cocktail party, a visit from Aunt Sis, and a romantic decision, Ellison hardly has time to think about murder. Unfortunately, the killer has plenty of time to think about her.

  Books in the Country Club Murders Humorous Mystery Series:

THE DEEP END (#1)

GUARANTEED TO BLEED (#2)

CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE (#3) SEND IN THE CLOWNS (#4)

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES (#5)


 For me, character interviews aren’t easy. What if the questions are boring? What if no one cares? What if, what if, what if…

So, I asked my readers. What questions I should ask Aggie, Ellison Russell’s housekeeper? \The questions below represent some of what they wanted to know.

Aggie, do you have an interesting romantic past?

Me? Romance? Just one. I was eighteen in 1939. I’d graduated from high school and got myself a job at Southwestern Bell as an operator. I was a cut-up in high school and sitting in front of a switchboard all day wasn’t easy for me. At night, my friends and I would go to jazz clubs and let loose.

Those clubs—the Cherry Blossom, the Chesterfield Club, the Hi Hat, the Paseo Ballroom, and the Pla-Mor Ballroom. The music. I listened to Count Basie and Charlie Parker and Jay McShann.

And I met a man. Al. Al was fresh out of the police academy. His father and his uncles were cops and he was just following the family tradition. But what he really wanted was to blow a horn. He was good too. Not Charlie Parker good, but good.

It would be nice to tell you we saw each other and fell head over heels in love. The truth is I took some wooing. I was young and had my first taste of freedom and wasn’t ready to settle down.
But Al, he didn’t give up.

We dated for almost two years. We might be still be dating except the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Al enlisted in the navy.

It wasn’t until I considered losing him that I realized how much I loved him.

We got married before he shipped out. Those war years were the longest of my life. Thank heavens Al came home safe. We had almost thirty years together before the cancer took him.


Will you share your chicken salad recipe?

·        4 cups cooked chicken chopped (Mrs. Russell prefers white meat only)
·        2 cups celery chopped fine
·        ½ cups real mayonnaise
·        2 tbsp lemon juice
·        1/8 tsp ground black pepper

Mix together and chill


What books do you like to read?

I like adventure books. Thrillers I guess they’re called. And mysteries. This year I’ve read The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre, The Rhinemann Exchange by Robert Ludlum, and The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders.


As Ellison Russell’s housekeeper you do some investigating. Which do you like better, taking care of Ellison and Grace or investigating murders?

The two most boring things in the world are vacuuming and stake-outs. And I wouldn’t trade either. Mrs. Russell and Grace are like family to me. If they’re in trouble, I want to help them.

There’s a rumor floating around you may get your own story. Is that true?

It’s true. Look for a short story written in my point of view in February of next year.


You can read this novel as a stand alone but you'll enjoy the characters and visit to past days so much you'll want to catch up on the previous books.

Take a trip back in time, to when phone calls were made on public phones and only cost a dime (not per minute) and detectives wore plaid sports coats or rumpled trench coats. Visit with the country club crowd, those wives expected to put up a shining front displaying how successful their husbands are, where loyalty to families should be stronger than personal beliefs and only the men could bend and break rules without being outcast.

This cozy mystery revolves around widowed mother to a teenager, Ellison Russel, and the relationship Ellison has with her own intrepid mother. Mrs. Russell seems unable to go four days without discovering a murder victim, this time under her own roof! The only upside to murder is Ellison's continued interaction with the handsome Detective Anarchy Jones.

A well written cozy with a surprising victim count brings to light a serious problem. While this story takes place in an early 1970s setting, it is a problem that persists to this day and needs more awareness. This novel shares a creative action one woman took to do something to help other victims.

Besides the number of bodies Ellison trips over, her life is full of men desiring to spend time with her, a daughter on the verge of womanhood and dating, and a Mother who doesn't mind intimidation tactics to achieve her personal goals. How can she possibly find time to eat or sleep?

julie

About The Author

- Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders. She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean--and she's got an active imagination. Truth is--she's an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.
Author Links
  Webpage – www.juliemulhernauthor.com
  FB – https://www.facebook.com/juliekmulhern/?ref=hl
  Twitter – https://twitter.com/JulieKMulhern
  Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8573907.Julie_Mulhern

  Purchase Links Amazon Paperback Amazon Kindle kobo B&N


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