Elena Hartwell notes of her Private Investigator Edwina “Eddie Shoes” Schultz series, "each novel has its own mystery, allowing for readers to start with any book in the series. I work hard to create a stand alone book, though I hope it piques your interest to read the entire series. Each time you read a new Eddie Shoes story, there's a new victim, perpetrator, and crime to solve. The characters grow and change throughout the arc of the series, however, adding to the larger picture. While each novel has characters specific to that particular mystery, many characters reappear in other books." The numerically titled books also contain elements of suspense and romance; her most recent is Three Strikes, You're Dead.
Elena will be discussing the mysteries of writing with fellow novelists Christina Hoag, whose Skin of Tattoos is set in a world seeded with deceit and betrayal, where the only escape from rules that carry a heavy price for transgression is sacrifice; and Corey Lynn Fayman, whose unorthodox Rolly Waters noir novel, Desert City Diva, received a Bronze Award in the 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards. The Indiefab awards are judged by a select group of librarians and booksellers from around the country and honor the very best of indie publishing each year.
This event is free and seating is first come, first serve. To get a book signed during one of our events, a copy of the event book must be purchased through Mysterious Galaxy. Event purchases through Mysterious Galaxy not only keeps our bookstore doors open, but also makes author signings possible.
Private investigator Eddie Shoes heads to a resort outside Leavenworth, Washington, for a mother-daughter getaway weekend. Eddie's mother Chava wants to celebrate her new job at a casino by footing the bill for the two of them, and who is Eddie to say no?
On the first morning, Eddie goes on an easy solo hike, and a few hours later, stumbles upon a makeshift campsite and a gravely injured man. A forest fire breaks out and she struggles to save him before the flames overcome them both. Before succumbing to his injuries, the man hands her a valuable rosary. He tells her his daughter is missing and begs for her help. Is Eddie now working for a dead man?
Barely escaping the fire, Eddie wakes in the hospital to find both her parents have arrived on the scene. Will Eddie's card-counting mother and mob-connected father help or hinder the investigation? The police search in vain for a body. How will Eddie find the missing girl with only Eddie's memory of the man's face and a photo of his daughter to go on?
Book 3 in the Eddie Shoes Mystery Series, which began with One Dead, Two to Go.
Private Investigator Eddie Shoes is enjoying a rare period of calm. She's less lonely now that Chava, her card-counting mom from Vegas, is sharing her home. She also has a new companion, Franklin, a giant dog of curious ancestry.
Hoping for a lucrative new case, Eddie instead finds herself taking on a less promising client: her best friend from her childhood in Spokane. Dakota has turned up in Bellingham in jail, where she is being held on a weapons charge. Eddie reluctantly agrees not only to lend her friend money for bail but to also investigate who is stalking her. Soon after Dakota is freed, she disappears again, leaving Eddie to answer to the local cops, including her ex-boyfriend Chance Parker. Has Dakota been kidnapped? If not, why did she jump bail? What are Eddie's business cards doing on the bodies of two murder victims?
The key to these mysteries lies in Dakota and Eddie's shared history, which ended when Eddie left home after high school. As a person of interest in both murder cases, Eddie is forced to go in search of the truth, digging into the past and facing her own demons.
Book 2 in the Eddie Shoes Mystery series.
A darkly humorous noir mystery featuring laidback, guitar-playing private investigator Rolly Waters.
Rolly Waters has many reasons to regret going out for Mexican food at 2.30 in the morning. Not least because then he would never have met dance-club DJ Macy Starr - possibly the most infuriatingly unpredictable and secretive client he has ever taken on.
Macy Starr wants Rolly to find out what happened to the young woman she knew as Aunt Betty, the woman who rescued her as a child and who then disappeared without trace. The only clue she has to go on is a curious one-stringed guitar.
Rolly's investigation leads to a weird world of alien-obsessed cults, a strange desert hideaway known as Slab City - and to a 20-year-old unsolved murder case. But how can he solve the mystery if he can't even trust his own client?
