Dying for Revenge: The Lady Doc Murders Book 1, the latest release from Full Quiver Publishing, is now available in print and ebook from Amazon.com. This complex mystery with a spiritual subplot kept this non-mystery reader’s rapt attention despite its length. I encourage you to follow along on the virtual book tour, which includes giveaways opportunities to win a paperback copy of the book!
Jump ahead for an excerpt, my review, book (blog) tour dates, and a chance to win a paperback copy!
Someone is killing the rich and famous residents of Telluride, Colorado, and the medical investigator, Dr. Jane Wallace, is on a collision course with the murderer. Compelled by profound loss and injustice, Jane will risk her own life to protect others from vengeful death, even as she exacts a high price from those who have destroyed her world. Dying for Revenge is a story of love, obsession and forgiveness, seen through the eyes of a passionate, beautiful woman trying to live her life — imperfectly but vibrantly — even if she won’t survive.
Dr. Barbara Golder is a late literary bloomer. Although she’s always loved books (and rivals Jane in the 3-deep-on-the-shelf sweepstakes), her paying career gravitated to medicine and law. She has served as a hospital pathologist, forensic pathologist, and laboratory director. Her work in forensic pathology prompted her to get a law degree, which she put to good use as a malpractice attorney and in a boutique practice of medical law, which allowed her to be a stay-at-home mom when her children were young. Her writing career began when she authored a handbook of forensic medicine for the local medical examiner office in 1984. Over the years she wrote extensively on law and medicine and lectured on medicolegal topics. On a lark, she entered a contest sponsored by the Telluride Times Journal and ended up with a regular humor column that memorialized the vagaries of second-home living on the Western Slope. She currently lives on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee with two dogs, two cats and her husband of 41 years. You can find Dr. Golder at her website, Facebook author page, and on Instagram (@ladydocmurders) and Twitter (@ladydocmurders). The series’ facebook page can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/Lady-Doc-Murders-1171887676163049.
An Excerpt of Dying for Revenge
John had just touched my face in his familiar way when the phone startled me out of my sleep. It was one of those vivid dreams, the kind that it takes a minute or two to realize you’ve passed from it into wakefulness. I was especially unhappy because, since his death five years ago, the only way I ever saw my husband or felt his touch was in my restless slumber. The phone rang again, insisting that I answer. In my line of work, a call in the middle of the night is never happy news. It means that death has come calling, unexpected, or violent, or both. It’s the time of night when teenagers run off the road, when drug deals go sour, when sick old men die, the man inside having given up the struggle to keep the man outside alive, when drunken spouses abuse each other to death. At the end of it all, somebody calls the medical examiner and I am pulled out of my orderly world into someone else’s dark night. I wondered idly what particular nightmare I was entering this time as I punched the keypad of my cell phone.
“Yeah?”
I am not particularly civil at three in the morning. Fortunately for me, the cops who are on duty at that hour — the ones most likely to call— aren’t too sensitive. This time it was the sheriff of San Miguel County himself who answered. His voice called up his lanky frame, thinning red hair, pockmarked face and crooked nose.
“Aren’t you just Dr. Mary Sunshine! Wake up, Jane Wallace, you’ve got a case.” His gravelly chuckle broke up a bit. Call reception isn’t always good in the mountains.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I rubbed my eyes and took another stab at civility. “What’s up, Tom?”
I sat up, stretching my neck and trying to come to consciousness.
Tom had used my first name, something he never did, preferring to alternate between Dr. Wallace when he was vexed with me, and Doc when he approved of the way I was executing the demands of my office as Chief Medical Examiner for the Western Slope of Colorado.
Telluride, CO Photo by Thomas Kelley (unsplash)
“Oh, big dealings right here in Mountain Village. We got ourselves a celebrity murder, we do.”
The words were flippant and out of context with the somber nature of such early morning calls. There’s a certain propensity toward inappropriate humor among those of us who work regularly among the dead and the degenerate. I wouldn’t put it past any of my law enforcement brethren, least of all Patterson with his avuncular style, to string me along for the sake of a little joke to liven up an otherwise routine death. I could jest with the best of them.
“Just as long as it’s not Mitch Houston, we’ll be fine.“
Houston, Hollywood’s current favorite leading man and a very hot commodity, had moved to town several months before, buying both a trophy home in Mountain Village and a remote cabin on a thousand acres in one of the basins in the Wilson Peaks, in a display of conspicuous consumption excessive even for Telluride, Colorado, my adopted home on the western slope of the Rockies. The silence at the other end of the phone did not bode well for my career on the comedy circuit. I sat upright, awake, my mind suddenly clear, and feeling dismayed.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked.
Any murder is a tragedy, but this one was going to be a pain in the ass to boot.
My Review
Dying for Revenge, gritty without being vulgar, is populated with richly-woven characters who drive a long and detailed narrative in which the murder mystery (or mysteries) will keep you guessing until the end.
Dr. Jane Wallace, mired in a destructive mixture of grief and vengeance, is written with such depth that by the conclusion, you’ll feel as if you are lifelong friends.
Brash, outspoken, and heedless of others’ opinions, the sharp but beleaguered medical investigator remains sympathetic because of her frailties, which are exposed where her family – her deceased husband and six adult children – is concerned.
Alongside the murders Dr. Wallace must solve before the Telluride citizenry dissolve into a panic, she must also unravel the bitterness that has strangled her zest for life. A charismatic Irish author with secrets of his own may be able to help, if only she’ll let him.
Dying For Revenge delivers not only a well-designed mystery, but a study in the way in which unresolved grief born of vengeance can murder our souls.
I love forward to reading the next installments of The Lady Doc series.
Seeking a well-designed mystery 2 solve? Try Dying for Revenge. #mystery #newrelease #KindleUnlimited Click To TweetBlog Tour Schedule
Wednesday, June 1
Ellen Gable Hrkach at Plot Line and Sinker
Thursday, June 2
Sarah Reinhard at Snoring Scholar
Friday, June 3
Patrice MacArthur at Spiritual Woman
Saturday, June 4
A.K. Frailey at The Writings of A.K. Frailey
Barb Szyszkiewicz at FranciscanMom
Sunday, June 5
Erin McCole Cupp at Erin McCole Cupp
Monday, June 6
Carolyn Astfalk at My Scribbler’s Heart
Tuesday, June 7
Theresa Linden at Things Visible & Invisible
Jean Heimann at Catholic Fire
Wednesday, June 8
Virginia Lieto at Virginia Lieto
Thursday, June 9
Christopher Blunt at The Yeoman Farmer
Michael Seagriff at Harvesting the Fruits of Contemplation
Friday, June 10
Therese Heckenkamp at Therese Heckenkamp
Saturday, June 11
Ellen Gable Hrkach at Plot Line and Sinker
Giveaway
To enter to win a paperback copy of Dying for Revenge, simply comment on this post.
Have you read any mystery series? You can go back as far as Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and even back to Nate the Great and Encyclopedia Brown. What are you favorites?
Contest open through June 12. I’ll pick a winner (using random.com) on Monday, June 13!
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! STAY A WHILE AND LOOK AROUND. LEAVE A COMMENT. SHARE WITH A FRIEND. IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY AUTHOR NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP-TO-DATE ON NEW RELEASES, EXTRAS, AND HOT DEALS.
I’m always looking for great suspense and mystery reads WITHOUT all the “junk” found in a lot of secular books! Can’t wait to read this one and recommend it!
I will be sure to check out this book and author. Living in Colorado, I tend to write stories which take place here. Telluride is a gorgeous place. I’d love to read a story set in that beauty.
I read an advanced copy and really enjoyed it. So I’m commenting to enter the contest! If I win, I’ll pass the book on to a friend who might like it too!
Theresa Linden, you are the winner! Thanks for entering Stella and Amy.