Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: female sleuth

First Place Category Winners for the 2015 Mystery & Mayhem Awards
The Mystery & Mayhem Awards writing competition recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Cozy Mysteries and Not-So-Cozy Mysteries. The Mystery & Mayhem Awards is a division of the Chanticleer Awards International Writing Competitions.

We are pleased to announce the 2015 M&M Awards Official First Place Category Winners. Good Luck to them as they compete for the 2015 M&M Grand Prize Award.
- Animal Mystery: Leighann Dobbs – Ghostly Paws
- Small Town Cozy Mystery: Cherie O’Boyle – Iced Tee
- Adventure: M. L. Rowland – Murder Off the Beaten Path
- Classic: Lonna Enox – Blood Relations
- Amateur Sleuth: Wendy Delaney – There’s Something About Marty
- Hobby/Profession: Nancy G. West – Fit to be Dead
- Humorous: Michele Lynn Seigfried – Community Affairs
- Historical (PNW): Jennifer Mueller – Murder Beside the Salish Sea
- Historical: Michael Scheffel – St. Louis Affair: The Adventures of Herbert Falken
- Blended Genre: Mark Vilela – The Long December
- Romance: Kate Vale – Crossing Paths
Honorable Mention:

E. M. Graham – St. Jude Without

More than $30,000 dollars in cash and prizes are awarded to Chanticleer International Blue Ribbon Awards Winners annually.

The Mystery & Mayhem First Place Category award winners will compete for the Mystery & Mayhem Grand Prize Award for the 2015 Best Mystery Novel. Grand Prize winners, blue ribbons, and prizes will be announced and awarded on April 30, 2016 at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala, Bellingham, Wash.

The First In Category award winners will receive an award package including a complimentary book review, digital award badges, shelf talkers, book stickers, and more.

We are now accepting entries into the 2016 M&M Awards. The deadline is March 31, 2016. Click here for more information or to enter.

Congratulations to those who made the M&M AWARDS 2015 FINALISTS official listing.

More than $30,000 worth of cash and prizes will be awarded to the 2015 Chanticleer Novel Writing Competition winners! Ten genres to enter your novels and compete on an international level.

Who will take home the $1,000 purse this coming April at the Chanticleer Awards Gala and Banquet?
March 5, 2016
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARTY by Wendy Delaney – a Working Stiffs Mystery Series

Part-time Deputy Coroner and full-time Prosecutor’s Assistant, Charmaine “Char” Digby has a secret. Her childhood heartthrob, hunky Detective Steve Sixkiller, is back in her life, not to mention under her covers. But the relationship comes with a catch.

Char’s insecurities keep her from telling anyone about it, so it’s no surprise when her matchmaking best friend, Rox, works double time to fix her up with Port Merritt’s eligible and handsome ER doc, Kyle Cardinale. The good doctor goes out of his way to let Charmaine know that he’s up for the chase while Detective Sixkiller questions Char’s motives for keeping their relationship under wraps.

Charmaine’s problems multiply when her boss sends her to interview the bereaved family of Port Merritt’s wealthiest businessman, Marty McCutcheon, who rolled over dead at his 63rd birthday celebration. With a life-long diet of double cheeseburgers and a sultry new wife twenty years his junior it’s no wonder Marty’s heart stopped.

Health issues aside, his ex-wife, Darlene, is pointing fingers and crying “foul play.” Between his greed-driven progeny, a jilted girlfriend, and a last minute decision to change his will, Charmaine’s built-in lie detector is telling her it wasn’t the clogged arteries that took Marty out.

As she pieces together the circumstances surrounding Marty’s “last supper,” Charmaine realizes that nearly everyone in his close circle has something to gain from his death. And when the cause of his death looks more and more like poisoning she presses an unconvinced County Prosecutor to open a formal investigation.

Unable to make her case, and over Detective Sixkiller’s protests, Char takes it upon herself to dig into the McCutcheon family’s personal business. Her determination to learn the truth lands her smackdab in the middle of the killer’s radar, and as she mines the hidden corners of Marty’s past, the information she unearths may never see the light of day.

Tightly written and packed with small town innuendo and gossip, Wendy Delaney’s action-packed novel moves beyond the simple cozy mystery genre. With a wink and a nod to the Shakespearean complexities of a duplicitous, wealthy family, There’s Something about Marty exposes the insatiable cravings and rivalries that arise when blood ties go bad.

This third installment of Wendy Delaney’s “Working Stiffs” mystery series is an engaging, fast-paced read. Through her nimble use of wit and humor Ms. Delaney delivers rich, eccentric characters and clever plot twists that promise to keep the reader turning the page.

February 1, 2016
The Mystery & Mayhem Writing Contest Official Finalist List for 2015
The Mystery & Mayhem Writing Competition recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Cozy Mysteries and Classic Mysteries. The M&M Awards is a division of Chanticleer International Novel Writing Competitions.

More than $30,000.00 dollars worth of cash and prizes will be awarded to Chanticleer Book Reviews 2015 writing competition winners!

The M&M Awards FIRST IN CATEGORY sub-genres are: Amateur Sleuth, Romance, Animals, Cooking/Knitting/Hobbies, Blended Genre, Medical/Lab, Travel, Humorous, Historical, Classic British, Y/A, and Senior Sleuth.

The following titles will compete for the FIRST IN CATEGORY Positions and Awards Packages.

The Finalists Authors and Titles of Works that have made it to the Short-list of the M&M 2015 Novel Writing Contest are:

The Long December by Mark Vilela

The Returner by Mark Vilela

The Prince Charming Killer by R. Johnson

St. Jude Without by E.M. Graham

A Stitch in Time by Ann Yost

The Bleak by Keith Dixon

Iced Tee by Cherie O’Boyle

Blood Relations by Lonnie Enox

There is Something About Marty by Wendy Delaney

Not with My Brain You Don’t by Richard Tenney

Terror in Taffeta by Maria Cooper

Community Affairs by Michele Lynn Seigfried

Prosecco Pink and Limoncello Yellow by Traci Andrighetti

The Hut in the Woods by VLZ

Murder Off the Beaten Path by M.L. Rowland

Ghostly Paws by Leighann Dobbs

A Stitch in Time by Ann Yost

Stabbing in the Senate by Colleen Shogan

Brain Matters by JR Scott

Double Duplicity by Paty Jager

Murder Beside the Salish Sea by Jennifer Mueller

A Time to Love in Tehran by C. J. Fewston

St. Louis Affair by Michael Scheffel

Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Sword Princess by Suzette Hollingsworth

Endangered Eagle by Richard Carl Roth

Crossing Paths by Kate Vale

Organized for Murder by Ritter Ames

Fit to be Dead and Dang Near Dead by Nancy G. West
The M&M Finalists will compete for the M&M First In Category Positions, which consists of Four Judging Rounds. First Place Category Award winners will automatically be entered into the M&M GRAND PRIZE AWARD competition, which has a cash prize of $250 or $500 dollars in editorial services. The CBR Grand Prize Genre Winners will compete for the CBR Overall Grand Prize for Best Book and its $1,000 purse.
- All First In Category Award Winners will receive high visibility along with special badges to wear during the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala.
- First In Category winners will compete for the M&M Awards Grand Prize Award for the $250 purse and the M&M Grand Prize Ribbon and badges.
- TEN genre Grand Prize winning titles will compete for the $1,000 purse for CBR Best Book and Overall Grand Prize.
- A coveted Chanticleer Book Review valued at $345 dollars U.S. CBR reviews will be published in the Chanticleer Reviews magazine in chronological order as to posting.
- A CBR Blue Ribbon to use in promotion at book signings and book festivals
- Digital award stickers for on-line promotion
- Adhesive book stickers
- Shelf-talkers and other promotional items
- Promotion in print and on-line media
- Review of book distributed to on-line sites and printed media publications
- Review, cover art, and author synopsis listed in CBR’s newsletter
- Default First in Category winners will not be declared. Contests are based on merit and writing craft in all of the Chanticleer Writing Competitions.
As always, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, concerns, or suggestions at Info@ChantiReviews.com.

Congratulations to the Finalists in this fiercely competitive contest!
Good Luck to all of the M&M Finalists as they compete for the coveted First Place Category positions.

First In Category announcements will be made in our social media postings as the results come in.

The M&M Grand Prize Winner will be announced at the April 30th, 2016 Chanticleer Writing Contests Annual Awards Gala, which takes place on the last evening of the Chanticleer Authors Conference that will be held in Bellingham, Wash.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2016 M&M Awards writing competition. The deadline for submissions is March 30th, 2016. Please click here for more information.
November 13, 2015
THE DEVIL’S HOOK by Pearl R. Meaker, second book in cozy mystery series

Empty-nester Emory Crawford is more than just a dab hand at home-making and fiber art. As a newly-installed instructor for the Twombly College crocheting class, she’s also mother hen, mentor, and counselor to her eager students. So when a rash of mysterious gifts, all in the color red, start showing up in the girls’ dorm rooms, Emory’s intuitive radar system goes on alert. Then one of Emory’s students, a recipient of the unwanted gifts, turns up missing and Emory is tasked with piecing together the meager clues left behind.

In the spirit of calming frayed nerves, Emory consents to move the class from the college campus to the comfortable Twombly residence only to find that society maven Amy Twombly and her wealthy husband Jairus are locked in marital combat over Jairus’s new, and decidedly attractive, personal assistant. Between Amy’s erratic behavior and her shouting matches with Jairus’s assistant, Emory thinks things couldn’t get much worse – until she finds Amy’s custom-made, bloodwood crochet hook protruding from the eye of Jairus’s stone-cold dead assistant. With motive, means, and opportunity all pointing to Amy, Twombly’s antagonistic Police Captain Henry Schneider considers the case closed. But Emory’s gut tells her otherwise.

In the search for the truth, Amy’s daughter Madison plays Nancy Drew to Emory’s Miss Marple. Using the full powers of her “Gift of Knowing” and a little help from her forensic scientist hubby, Emory and her sleuthing partner Madison unlock the secrets of the past and learn that not everyone is who they claim to be.

In The Devil’s Hook, author Pearl R. Meaker delivers a fully-developed cast of rich, quirky characters that are sure to satisfy the discerning cozy mystery enthusiast. Her inquisitive and highly intuitive main character Emory Crawford, provides the perfect sounding board for all of the supporting characters and is a clever match to the brilliant young side-kick, Madison Twombly. The author also demonstrates a unique ability to illuminate the myriad facets of human relationships revealing, in the process, the similarities in all of us.

Twists and turns abound in this delightfully engaging second installment of Pearl R. Meaker’s Emory Crawford mystery series. With the down home small town feel of Murder She Wrote and the multi-layered complexity of an Agatha Christie mystery, The Devil’s Hook is a cleverly-crafted and enjoyable whodunit style cozy mystery.

September 1, 2015
The M&M Awards for Mystery & Mayhem Novels 2014 First Place Category Winners
Chanticleer Book Reviews is honored to announce the First Place Category Winners for the M&M Awards 2014 for Mystery & Mayhem Cozy Novels, a division of Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Writing Competitions.

The M&M Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of cozy mysteries novels. The First Place Category Winners will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala held in late September 2015.

The M&M FIRST PLACE 2014 Award Winners are:
- Amateur Sleuth: Wendy Delaney for SEX, LIES, and SNICKERDOODLES
- Romance: Janet Shawgo for FIND ME AGAIN
- Animals: Pamela Beason for THE ONLY CLUE
- Blended Genre: Winslow Elliott for SATI and the RIDER
- Classic Cozy: Stephen Kaminski for DON’T CRY OVER KILLED MILK
- Female Sleuth: Julie Mulhern for The DEEP END
- Humorous: Ann Philipp for GRAND THEFT DEATH
- American Mystery: Amy Beth Arkawy for DEAD SILENT
- Classic British Cozy: Marni Graff for GREEN REMAINS
- Y/A/New Adult: Julie Moffett for NO PLACE LIKE ROME
- Senior Sleuths: Mark Reutlinger for MRS. KAPLAN and the MATZOH BALL of DEATH
- Legal/Medical/Lab: Ken Malovos for CONTEMPT of COURT
CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations to all of the 2014 M&M Finalists Short List! This is a highly competitive writing competition and many of the calls were close. We invite you to enter your new works into the M&M 2016 Awards.

Congratulations to those whose works were selected for First Place Category positions. Good Luck to the M&M First Place Category Winners as they compete for the M&M AWARDS 2014 GRAND PRIZE position!

The 1st Place Category Winners compete for the M&M AWARDS 2014 GRAND PRIZE position. The 2014 M&M category winner was announced at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala in September 2015. See the Grand Prize Winners.
- The deadline for entries for the M&M Awards 2014 was March 31, 2014.
- The deadline for entries for the M&M Awards 2015 was March 31, 2015.
- The deadline for entries for the M&M Awards 2016 is March 31, 2016.
GRAND PRIZE Overall M&M Awards 2013 Winner was:

Berndatte Pajer, for Fatal Induction

To view the 2013 M&M Award Winners, please click here.

To compete in the 2016 M&M Awards or for more information, please click here.

CBR’s rigorous writing competition standards are the reason literary agencies seek out our winning manuscripts and self-published novels. Our high standards are also another reason our reviews are trusted among booksellers and book distributors.Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media, L.L.C. retains the right to not declare “default winners.” Winning works are decided upon merit only. Please visit our Contest Details page for more information about our writing contest guidelines.

Please do not hesitate to contact Info@ChantiReviews.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions about CBR writing competitions. Your input and suggestions are important to us.

Thank you for your interest in Chanticleer Book Reviews international writing competitions.
July 25, 2015
FIRE at WILL’S by Cherie O’Boyle, a West Coast Cozy

When a psychologist calls on her powers of observation to solve a murder, she uncovers a secret that some in her small eclectic Californian community would rather keep buried. Fire at Will’s by Cherie O’Boyle introduces Estela Nogales as an amateur sleuth with a wry sense of humor, a keen sense of observation, and two border collies as sidekicks in this engaging new cozy mystery series.

Estela prides herself on doing a good job of navigating the petty grievances and animosities of her Arroyo Loco neighbors. And if it weren’t for a few rule enforcing cranks she and her beloved dogs could enjoy all of the open space and clean air that her picturesque, coastal mountain community has to offer.

Will Rosenblum, the neighborhood’s biggest grouch, has made it a habit to stick his nose where it’s not wanted, going out of his way to ignite the ire of every one of his Arroyo Loco neighbors, so when his house goes up in flames suspicion lands in all directions, including at Estela’s feet.

As the ashes settle, a body—thought to be Will’s—is found at the back of the house. Also, Will’s memory impaired wife is missing. A round of finger pointing brings everyone’s actions into question causing Estela to realize that the only way to clear her name is to launch her own investigation.

With so many suspects Estela starts to wonder if Will’s demise could have been an orchestrated community effort. Armed with her knowledge of human behavior and sharp powers of observation Estela examines the motives and actions of each person in Arroyo Loco and discovers an ugly secret.

In this first installment of the Estela Nogales series the author uses a small, isolated location with a captive, vocal population to skillfully address the question of how well we really know our neighbors or, for that matter, our friends. Although some are locked into mistrust and others prefer denial, Estela’s unwillingness to allow wrong to prevail compels her to reveal the inconvenient details buried beneath the public facade.

With humor and keen insight into human nature, author Cherie O’Boyle offers up a clever cozy mystery filled with a varied and quirky cast of characters. From the strudel-baking Freda von Liesing to Arroyo Loco’s resident metaphysical hippie Sunshine Rainbow, each character is a classic slice of the diverse California lifestyle. O’Boyle’s inventive homage to the HOA rules-gone-crazy communities springing up all over the country makes Fire at Will’s laugh-out-loud fun!

June 17, 2015
DEAD in DUBAI by Marilynn Larew; an international spy thriller

Larew has found a comfort zone in describing exotic settings, and her perspicacity for honing in on minute details gives her work a sense of authenticity. Through the eyes of her intrepid, intelligent heroine, we are treated to an insider’s view of locales like Dubai and Istanbul.

In this second Lee Carruthers offering (The Spider Catchers provided the opening salvo), author Marilynn Larew again displays her prodigious knowledge of the international dealings in diamonds, deception and death that are hidden from the headlines.

Employing her wry wit (“I disapprove of assassination, particularly my own”), Carruthers, a woman of a certain age (“my long brown hair had a few strands of silver”) is looking for a dead man. After quitting the CIA and vowing she wouldn’t go to Dubai to look for CIA operative George Branson, she is inveigled into doing just that by the appeals of Branson’s wife Cynthia, and possibly equally, by the little brass key that Cynthia gives her. Figuring out what that key unlocks will consume Carruthers; finding out why Cynthia plunges off a balcony to her death, and others will die while the hunt is on, will provoke far more troubling questions.

Carruthers, a sort of female Bond, can identify a person’s borough of origin by his accent, and tell whether a man is an American or English by the way he takes his whiskey—with or without ice. She knows where to get the best pastry, what wine to order, and in which Islamic enclave she can walk around without a head covering. She bribes passport control agents and befriends charming crooks. And she’s tough, always carrying a Glock, with a knife in a sheath on her leg. She goes through several weapons in the course of this story, and uses a particular firearm to good effect occasioning one of the book’s better zingers: “Tears came to my eyes but they didn’t spoil my aim.”

Carruthers is a person of principle, so when she gets caught up in a spy vs. spy morass, she keeps her own counsel and tries to do the right thing, though with the CIA and the Russian mafiya trying to outfox each other, she knows she may be seen as expendable. In the end, she has her ethics intact, a small bag of rough diamonds as compensation for her troubles, and some disturbing conclusions about who George Branson was, or is?—and who’s playing footsy with whom under the big table.

In an age when national, ethnic and political identities and loyalties have blurred the lens of spy-craft, Larew’s heroine is right up to speed. And if the story line seems at times to move too fast and somewhat jerkily, it’s also true that there are few if any lulls in the action. Still, some readers may find the wrap-up final chapter rather mechanical, and may wonder why Carruthers, who keeps protesting that she quit the CIA in order not to be sent on dangerous assignments, hops on board for another missing-person case on the last page. But lucky for Larew’s readers that Carruthers accepts the assignments despite her better judgement.

A sequel seems to be brewing that may perhaps reveal a softer side of Lee Carruthers. In this story there is a hint, but just: someone named Kemel, and a bloodstained pearl.

Larew has built up steam with her fascinating femme-sometimes-fatale protagonist and her writer’s grip on the subtleties of international intrigue and double crossings that ratchets up the race against time in this spy vs. spy thriller.

June 2, 2015
CATHERINE’S CROSS by Millie West, a Southern Mystery

Mystery, romance, and the hunt for a long-lost artifact make Millie West’s second novel that is set in the South Carolina Low Country, an engrossing read.

Writing in a leisurely pace echoing that of the novel’s southern setting, West begins her story with Jenks Ellington who, while watering ferns at her house in North Carolina one afternoon, experiences the moment of her twin sister’s drowning miles away in South Carolina. Gigi, a strong swimmer and experienced diver, disappeared while diving with her partner Frank Hillier in an area the two had been salvaging for artifacts.

Jenks, who has always had a deep connection with her twin sister, can’t believe that Gigi’s death was accidental.

The detective on the case, the handsome Seth Mason, is equally suspicious. The initial investigation finds nothing wrong with Gigi’s diving equipment, and the autopsy reveals that she had no drugs or alcohol in her blood stream. Mason also finds it suspicious that Frank Hillier, an experienced ex-Navy diver, has no explanation for why he lost track of Gigi during the dive.

Almost immediately following the funeral, Jenks begins to have disturbing and inexplicable dreams about a woman wearing a golden cross. As Jenks begins to follow clues left behind by her twin, she finds herself drawn ever deeper into the history of the area and its inhabitants.

She discovers that Gigi had been in touch with Miss Meta, a local spiritual advisor, and that Gigi had been reading the old spiritualist’s family diaries. Those diaries mention a gold cross exactly like the one in Jenks’ dreams. Is her sister trying to communicate with her from the afterlife?

Each page of this romantic thriller is imbued with the natural beauty of the Carolina Low Country, its people, and its culture. Ms. West weaves its rich and intriguing history, along with the region’s distinctive manners and idiosyncrasies into her work. Readers (non-Southerners will need to remind themselves that they are immersed into the pacing of a good Southern tale) will find themselves unable to put down this intriguing southern mystery.

May 28, 2015
A Sawmill and a Few Gutsy Women: CHEATING the HOG by Rae Ellen Lee is on SALE for 99 cents

Gritty and humorous is what Rae Ellen Lee writes best! “Echo needs a miracle. She’s turning fifty, lives with her gun-toting mom, and her lover’s been killed in a logging truck accident. She made front-page news as a Salvation Army bell ringer, but that job ended and she’s digging for change to pay off debt. The local sawmill hires her to do cleanup and odd jobs, like ‘cheating the hog’….When tragedy does strike, she leads the other women mill workers to fight back with earthy humor, a few leveraged threats, and wit as sharp as band saw teeth—earning her respect on the job and the attention of a strong-hearted man.” Click here to download your copy from Amazon.

April 10, 2015
Can a Gorilla Identify the Criminal? Read the 1st in the NEEMA Mystery Series by Pamela Beason for 99cents – Left Coast Crime Special

Neema is a “signing gorilla” that is part of an animal communication research project (think KoKo). She is the only witness to a crime. Lives are at stake and the clock is ticking. Read Chanticleer’s review here. In honor of Crimelandia Left Coast Crime Scene in Portland, Oregon, Pamela Beason is putting her Chanticleer Grand Prize winner THE ONLY WITNESS on sale for 99cents.

March 13, 2015