Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: m-louisa-locke

SPOTLIGHT on M&Ms – Mystery & Mayhem AWARDS CIBAs – Cozy Mysteries, Amateur Sleuths, and more!
Welcome to our SPOTLIGHT on the CHANTICLEER INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS (the CIBAs): the MYSTERY & MAYHEM Awards Deadline is upon us!

We are seeking the best novels featuring “mystery and mayhem,” amateur sleuthing, romantic suspense, light suspense, travel mystery, classic mystery, British cozy, hobby sleuths, senior sleuths, or historical mystery. We will put them to the test and discover the best among them. (For thrillers, action suspense, detective, crime fiction see our Clue Awards)

The APRIL 30th deadline for the Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem Awards (aka M&Ms) has been extended until May 31, 2020 due to many requests for an extension due to these unprecedented times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In just a few short days, we go to work to uncover the hidden secrets, the lost key, the answer to the question, Whodunit?

The 2019 Mystery and Mayhem FINALISTS were posted on April 30, 2020.

Congratulations to these authors whose works have advanced to this new achievement level of the Chanticleer International Book Awards in the Mystery and Mayhem Book Awards division.

Michelle Cox won the 2018 GRAND PRIZE for Murder and Mystery for A Promise Given (A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Series, Book 3)

The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2018 are:
- B.L. Smith – Bert Mintenko and the Minor Misdemeanors
- Becky Clark – Fiction Can be Murder
- Traci Andrighetti – Campari Crimson: Franki Amato Mysteries, Book 4
- C. A. Larmer – Evil Under the Stars: The Agatha Christie Book Club (Book 3)
- Nancy J. Cohen – Hair Brained
- Stone Winkler/Jessica H. Stone – Blood on a Blue Moon: A Sheaffer Blue Mystery
- Anna Castle – A Professor and Mrs. Moriarty Mystery: Moriarty Takes His Medicine, Book 2
Carl & Jane Bock are the M&M Grand Prize winners in 2017 for Coronado’s Trail: An Arizona Borderlands Mystery

The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2017 are:
- Michelle Cox – A Ring of Truth: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard Mystery, Book 2
- Amy Peele – Cut: A Medical Murder Mystery
- D.J. Adamson – Suppose: A Lillian Dove Mystery
- M. Louisa Locke – Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery
- Betty Jean Craige – Fairfield’s Auction
- Kim Hunt Harris – Unsightly Bulges (A Trailer Park Princess Cozy Mystery, Book 2)
Alice K. Boatwright is the MYSTERY & MAYHEM Grand Prize winner in 2016 for Under an English Heaven!

The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2016 are:
- Lucy Carol – Hot Scheming Mess, Madison Cruz, Book 1
- Kate Vale – Secrets Revealed, Cedar Islands Tales, Book 4
- Barbara Venkataraman – Engaged in Danger: A Jamie Quinn Mystery
- Michelle Cox – A Girl Like You: A Henrietta and Inspector Howard series
- Jennifer Kincheloe – The Secret Life of Anna Blanc
- Gay Yellen – The Body Next Door
Wendy Delaney is the 2015’s M&M Grand Prize Winner for There’s Something About Marty

The First in Category, First Place Winners for 2015 are:
- Leighann Dobbs – Ghostly Paws (Mystic Notch, Book 1)
- Cherie O’Boyle – Iced Tee
- M. L. Rowland – Murder Off the Beaten Path (A Search and Rescue Mystery)
- Lonna Enox – Blood Relations
- Nancy G. West – Fit to be Dead
- Michele Lynn Seigfried – Community Affairs, Jersey Shore Mystery
- Jennifer Mueller – Murder Beside the Salish Sea
- Michael Scheffel – St. Louis Affair: The Adventures of Herbert Falken
- Mark Vilela – The Long December
- Kate Vale – Crossing Paths
Bernadette Pajer of the Professor Bradshaw Series — Fatal Induction took home the 2013 M&M Grand Prize

Pamela Beason won GRAND PRIZE in 2012 for The Only Witness

Is your amateur sleuth suspicious of the little old lady who lives next door? Is there something wrong in Mayberry and your hero is going to find out what it is – no matter the cost? Are the stakes so high for your heroine, she succumbs to the hot, sexy delivery man who happens to be the guy with forty bodies buried in his basement? Is your character’s cat helping him solve the latest crime?

If so, have we got the contest for you!

Mystery & Mayhem

Your book could earn a place in our M&M hall of fame for 2020!

All you have to do is enter.

And due to these unprecedented times, we have extended the deadline from April 30, 2020 to May 31, 2020.

Unpublished Manuscripts and recently Published (Indie, Traditional, Hybrid) Novels (after Jan. 1, 2018) are accepted.

Our Mystery & Mayhem Awards are the Chanticleer International Book Awards search for today’s best cozy mystery fiction books!

Do not hesitate – or stop to solve a crime –

the M&M Awards extended deadline is MAY, 31, 2020!

Click here to enter – and good luck!
May 2, 2020
DEADLY PROOF: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, Book 4 by M. Louisa Locke – Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller/Suspense

Annie Fuller, a part-time clairvoyant/landlady, is determined to improve her life. As the daughter of a financial investor, Annie knows a great deal about bookkeeping and investments. Putting her knowledge to good use with her fledgling accounting business, the pretty widow seems on-track again since moving to San Francisco, opening her home to boarders, and transitioning from her former job as the fortune-telling Madame Sibyl.

Having agreed to marry attorney Nate Dawson, she can almost touch the happiness she deserves after her disastrous first marriage, but when Nate is hired to defend a woman accused of murdering her boss, Annie turns private investigator in an attempt to help her fiancé with his first solo criminal case. At first, Nate’s biggest obstacle is the client herself, Florence Sullivan, who refuses to even speak to him for several days. Soon the issue becomes the sheer number of suspects who wanted Joshua Rashers, the ruthless owner of a printing company, dead. But as Annie and Nate’s sister Laura begin to dig deeper into the lives of Rasher’s family and employees, they will soon face deadly dangers of their own.

Strong personas form the nexus of this series, which features many of the same characters in both novels and novellas. Most of the characters have elaborate backstories that really “flesh out” the novel’s plot, but a familiarity with the previous stories isn’t a necessity for the reader. Readers will fall in love with Annie’s intelligence, Laura’s tenacity, Nate’s devotion, and Florence’s fortitude. Throw in the eclectic boarders and one feisty Boston Terrier, an unforgettable cast emerges that readers will adore.

Though the dynamics between characters is interesting, the real value of the novel lies within its portrayal of the struggle for women in the late nineteenth century. Set in the 1880s, the events of the novel aren’t far removed from the Civil War that ravaged the country, and while that war was fought for the equality of all men, subjugation of women would continue for another fifty years. And though the plot makes use of actual suffragette Emily Pitts Stevens, the novel covers much more than women’s suffrage. It explores all aspects of prejudice against women, including the rights of female workers and business owners as well as a woman’s place in the marriage relationship. From Annie’s financial independence to Laura’s dream to become a lawyer, the women fight for a place in a literal man’s world. Even Annie’s upcoming nuptials bring questions of propriety over personal enjoyment, and every woman in the novel–married or single–feels the bite of mental bondage in some way and none more than Florence who is being tried in the media based in part because of the sensationalism of her gender.

Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, Book 4 won First Place in the 2017 M&M Awards.

February 6, 2019