WELCOME DR. NORMAN ROSENTHAL

DR. NORMAN ROSENTHAL

The New York Times-bestselling author of Transcendence: Healing and Transformation through Transcendental Meditation, Winter Blues and How to Beat Jet Lag, Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., attended the University of the Witwatersrand in his native South Africa. He moved to the United States and was resident and chief resident at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Psychiatric Institute. He has conducted research at the National Institute of Mental Health for over twenty years. It was there that he first described and diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Dr. Rosenthal is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and has maintained a private practice in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for the past thirty years. Rosenthal is the author or co-author of over 200 professional articles and several popular books, including Winter Blues, the classic work on SAD. He currently serves as medical director and CEO of Capital Clinical Research Associates in Rockville, Maryland, where he directs clinical trials in both pharmaceuticals and complementary and alternative medicine. Dr. Rosenthal and his work have been widely covered in the popular media and he has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, National Public Radio and many other forums.
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Q&A with Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal

As a world-class psychiatrist, what have you found to be the most important tool your patients can armor themselves with when confronting adversity?
The most important tool is a clear head. Don’t panic. In most situations there is time to think; thinking is your friend, and impulsive action is your enemy. Analyze the situation, understanding what you’re up against and what resources you have at your disposal. Of course, in emergencies you will need to act quickly, but that’s when your primitive fight-or-flight responses will click into gear and – with a bit of luck and quick thinking – will save the day.

Our society seems paralyzed by fear of imperfection and adversity, yet you make the case that adversity can be a boon. How so?
Many of us hold up perfection as an ideal – and the media feeds this.  We are told how to get the perfect marriage, the perfect child, the perfect Christmas, the perfect vacation, the perfect job.  In reality, however, perfectionism can set you up for repeated disappointment and can sometimes be crippling. I learned this in a grade school art class where I produced a cardboard clown with no thumbs, but it worked out fine. The huge lesson to me then was that things don’t have to be perfect. That lesson has stood me in good stead throughout my life. So, from my years as a psychiatrist, I can tell you: imperfect marriages can be wonderful; imperfect children can bring boundless joy; an imperfect Christmas can be a time of giving and spiritual growth; that lousy vacation!   You will laugh and tell stories about that awful vacation for years to come; and finally, realizing that your boss and job are imperfect will make you less grumpy every working day.

Your previous New York Times bestseller, Transcendence, explored the benefits of Transcendental Meditation, and in The Gift of Adversity you also touch upon meditation. Is there research that shows how helpful meditation can be in overcoming adversity – and is this something you have experienced yourself?
In The Gift of Adversity I describe three individuals who overcame enormous hardship — homelessness, drug addiction, and imprisonment – and emerged successfully, drug free, employed, and happy. Although this transformation involved many elements, Transcendental Meditation (TM), was crucial to their success. Fortunately, I have not experienced adversity at this terrible level, but TM has helped me deal with lesser adversityies that was nonetheless important to me. For example, it helped me write again, and produce three books in three years – something I would never have been able to do before TM gave me the capacity to be alone with my thoughts and access deeper parts of consciousness then were formally available to me.

TM’s potential effectiveness in helping people deal with adversity is supported by research. Veterans with combat-related post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD) and Ugandan refugees who had suffered devastating trauma sustained in their native lands responded very well to TM in controlled studies. Middle school children in violent inner-city environments have shown improved attendance, morale, and better academic performance following the introduction of TM programs. Physical adversities – most notably that silent killer, hypertension, heart attacks, and strokes – all decrease in frequency after people start practicing TM. As I write this, I realize that these claims are hard to believe, but they are supported by dozens of peer-reviewed articles, which I summarized in Transcendence and revisit in The Gift of Adversity.

You’re well known for being the first to diagnose and develop a treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Can SAD amplify the effects of adversity – i.e., make an average challenge seem like a huge mountain to climb?
Whatever adversity you have, SAD will make it worse. The symptoms of SAD are low energy, low mood, difficulty concentrating and making decisions, overeating, oversleeping, and weight gain. These are the last things you need when you are trying to deal with adversity. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to overcome SAD, which I describe in my book, Winter Blues.

Reversing symptoms of SAD is just one example of attending to your physical and emotional needs as part of equipping yourself to handle adversity. In The Gift of Adversity I discuss many of the good habits that promote physical and psychological stability, which can put you in the best possible position for dealing effectively with adversity.

Your book draws on many experiences from your own life. How has adversity shaped you for the better?
I have often realized that, as a psychiatrist, I am most sensitive and in touch with my patients’ problems when I myself am undergoing my own difficulties. The reason for this is that adversity can sensitize people and help them tune in to the suffering of others. It can also harden people and make them mean. So we have a choice as to how adversity is going to shape us as human beings. As I looked through the lessons I have learned along life’s journey, I realized that the most valuable lessons came from difficult times – whether these were the result of bad luck, errors of judgment on my part, or self-imposed challenges. Adversity has made me more resilient and has helped me become a kinder, wiser, and better person.

You share a number of anecdotes in The Gift of Adversity – your own and those of others. Is there one anecdote or story that has been particularly inspiring to you?
There are so many inspiring stories in The Gift of Adversity, but one that stands out as unforgettable to me is a personal visit I paid to the great Viktor Frankl. For those who don’t know the name, Frankl is best known for his masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning. His book draws on his experiences during the Holocaust when he was imprisoned in concentration camps and narrowly escaped being murdered. He lost his wife and parents to the Nazis and emerged emaciated and in poor health. But he never lost his spirit of optimism. From this dreadful series of adversities Frankl developed key insights that he would turn into books that have helped tens of millions of people. One such insight is that when you are in a situation in which you have no control over the terrible things are happening around you, the one thing you can control is how you choose to view your circumstances. In The Gift of Adversity I describe the fascinating and terrifying years in Europe during World War II as related to me by a great eye witness and one of my all-time heroes – Viktor Frankl.

When life is hard, it can be challenging to see meaning or gifts in a given situation. What advice would you give to those who are experiencing hard times – are there specific things they should do or keep in mind?
I would say remember, other people have been this way before and have succeeded in overcoming these very same obstacles and, in many instances, have become stronger as a consequence. If they could do it, so you can you. Now you simply need to figure out what they did that worked and how you can implement a strategy that will work for you.

What is the most important lesson about coping with hardship that people should take away from reading The Gift of Adversity?
There is an old Eastern proverb: The fox has many tricks, but the porcupine has one big trick. When it comes to dealing with adversity you are better off being a fox than a porcupine. Here are some of the many tricks in dealing successfully with adversity

• Accept that the adversity has occurred
• Proportion your response according to the nature of the adversity
• Analyze the situation
• Regulate your physical and emotional state – for example, by keeping regular hours of sleeping and waking, eating regular meals, exercising and meditating
• Reach out for help – to family, friends or even kindly strangers
• Turn your predicament into a story – to help you process it
• Reframe the adversity – think about it in a different way

ABOUT THE BOOK

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Stress Management, Personal Growth – General
Publisher: Tarcher
Publication Date: August 29, 2013
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN-10: 0399163719
ISBN-13: 978-0399163715

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August is being hosted by Penelope @ The Reading Fever

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia of A girl and her books and is now on tour.

According to Marcia, “Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

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Wednesday:  Declan’s Cross by Carla Neggers from Media Muscle/The Book Trib

WELCOME ELAINE DRENNON LITTLE

ELAINE DRENNON LITTLE

Adopted at birth, Elaine lived her first twenty years on her parents’ agricultural farm in rural southern Georgia.  She was a public school music teacher for twenty-seven years, and continued to dabble with sideline interests in spite of her paid profession.  Playing in her first band at age fourteen, she seemed to almost always be involved in at least one band or another.  Elaine’s writing began in high school, publishing in local newspapers, then educational journals, then later in online fiction journals.  In 2008 she enrolled in the MFA program at Spalding University in Louisville, where upon graduation finished her second novel manuscript. Recently retiring after eleven years as a high school chorus and drama director, Elaine now lives in north Georgia with her husband, an ever-growing library of used books, and many adopted animals.
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ABOUT THE BOOK

A Southern Place is a moving book that is expertly written! Mary Jane Hatcher–everyone calls her Mojo–is beat up bad. She’s in the ICU of Phoebe Putney, the largest hospital in South Georgia, barely able to talk. How Mojo goes from being that skinny little girl in Nolan, a small forgotten town along the Flint River, to the young woman now fighting for her life, is where this story begins and ends.

Mojo, her mama Delores and her Uncle Calvin Mullinax, like most folks in Nolan, have just tried to make the best of it. Of course, people aren’t always what they seem, and Phil Foster–the handsome, spoiled son of the richest man in the county–is no exception.

As the story of the Mullinax family unfolds, Mojo discovers a family’s legacy can be many things: a piece of earth, a familiar dwelling, a shared bond. And although she doesn’t know why she feels such a bond with Phil Foster, it is there all the same, family or not. And she likes to think we all have us a fresh start. Like her mama always said, the past is all just water under the bridge. Mojo, after going to hell and back, finally comes to understand what that means.

Review by Guest Blogger, Crystal from Bring On Lemons

I knew her name was Mary Jane Mullinax and folks called her MoJo, but there had to be more to the story than that. Sherriff Purvis of Dumas County Georgia described Mo Jo and her family as good folds, quiet-like and said there was no one to call. Her mama had died years before and she had never known her daddy. As a reader, I immediately felt I didn’t want to leave her side until she was out of the ICU and on the road to recovery.

 

Little did I know that A Southern Place would take me back in time to the days when Mo Jo’s grandparents were working the land and the rich Georgia soil. Wherever this story was going, I was going with it. I wanted to know everything about this young girl, her parents, her grandparents, and especially her uncle Calvin (Cal for short). Cal had been important in Mo Jo’s upbringing and I was intrigued by a man who would selflessly sacrifice everything for the sake of his family. Cal had died years before Mo Jo found herself alone and near death in the ICU, but something tells me Mo Jo had the same love for her family that her uncle had. She managed to take quite a beating and somehow protect her unborn child and that just seems like the same sort of family value that Cal showed when he selflessly put everyone else before himself.

 

Mo Jo and her family hadn’t come from the best of backgrounds, but they were proud. As the story advanced in years, it became clear that the Mullinax family was deeply attached to the land; they worked the land and believed that hard work would win in the end. I found myself cheering them on and as things fell apart I slumped in my chair feeling the same defeat they must have felt as they took out another mortgage and sold off some of their precious land.

 

Little’s descriptions and understanding of everything from farming to history really made A Southern Place come to life for me. This may be Little’s first published novel, but I certainly hope it won’t be her last. She has a way of bringing her characters to life and her depictions of the south have me longing for a visit. I am curious about peanut plantations as well as intrigued by the author herself – a piano teacher with thirty years’ experience turned author, now that’s something I didn’t see coming! Thank you Elaine Drennon Little for this exceptional book and I do hope to read more from you in the future!

 

Want to find out more about taking life’s lemons and turning them into lemonade or read more of Crystal’s book reviews? Follow Crystal’s lemon blog by clicking here:http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/

BOOK DETAILS:

Publisher: WiDo Publishing
Publication Date: August 6, 2013
Number of pages: 294 pages
ISBN-10: 1937178390
ISBN-13: 978-1937178390

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DISCLAIMER

I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me, in exchange for my honest review. No items that I receive are ever sold…they are kept by me, or given to family and/or friends.

ADDENDUM

I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

 

WELCOME BACK MARK RUBINSTEIN

MARK RUBINSTEIN

MARK RUBINSTEIN grew up in Brooklyn, NY, near Sheepshead Bay. After earning a degree in Business Administration at NYU, he served in the U.S. Army as a field medic tending to paratroopers of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division. After his discharge, he went to medical school, became a physician, and then a psychiatrist. As a forensic psychiatrist, he was an expert witness in many trials. As an attending psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell, he taught psychiatric residents, psychologists, and social workers while practicing psychiatry. His first thriller, MAD DOG HOUSE was released in the fall of 2012. Before turning to fiction, he coauthored five books on psychological and medical topics.  He also is a contributing blogger to Huffington Post and Psychology Today. He lives in Connecticut with as many dogs as his wife will allow in the house. He is currently working on his next novel.
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ABOUT THE BOOK

After Adrian fights for his life, the perpetrator is arrested. The gripping trial seems to return a semblance of normalcy—but not for long.  More chilling surprises await the couple as Love Gone Mad concludes with an ending that will leave the readers questioning the country’s legal system and the competence of some members of the psychiatric community.

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Publisher: Thunder Lake Press
Publication Date: September 1, 2013
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN-10: 0985626860
ISBN-13: 978-0985626860

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WELCOME STEVEN W. KOHLHAGEN

STEVEN W. KOHLAGEN

Steve Kohlhagen is a former, now retired, Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a retired Wall Street investment banker, and is on several corporate boards, most recently elected to the board of Freddie Mac. While at Berkeley he authored many economics publications, and he and his wife Gale jointly published the murder mystery “Tiger Found” under their pen name Steven Gale in 2008.

Kohlhagen was inspired to write his latest book “Where They Bury You” after reading Hampton Sides’ “Blood and Thunder,” a non-fiction history of Kit Carson and the West. Sides’ reporting of the factual murder of Marshal Joseph Cummings on August 18, 1863 led Kohlhagen to conduct further research on Carson and Cummings, including at the National
Archives. He also pulled from his own knowledge of the West, as the writer divides his time between the New Mexico-Colorado border high in the San Juan Mountains and Charleston, South Carolina.
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Q&A with Steven W. Kohlhagen

After a successful career in academia and on Wall Street, what made you want to write a historical fiction novel?
I love the West and I love murder mysteries. I read a passage in Hampton Sides’
excellent book “Blood and Thunder” (nonfiction) about the August 1863 murder of a U.S.
Marshal in the New Mexico territory that I felt Kit Carson had misreported. Intensive research led me to write this fictionalized historical account of that murder during the American Civil War, Apache Wars and Navajo War. I have a passion for truth that includes the injustices heaped on the Southwestern Indians, especially Cochise, and what I feel is history’s mis-characterization of the roles of Kit Carson and the Navajo themselves.

How does your living among the San Juan Mountains influence your writing and details of  “Where They Bury You”?
Coincidentally, the (white man’s) history of the area northwest of Santa Fe and Taos into south central Colorado essentially began at the time of Cummings murder. One hundred fifty years later, we live among the descendants of the Jicarilla Apaches, Utes, Navajos, ranchers, and explorers of our area. The appearances in the book of the original scout of this area, Albert Pfeiffer, are historically accurate, and we later discovered that he is buried about forty miles from our home.

A murder mystery based on a true story from the Western Indian wars, how did you wind up with a former prostitute and current poker dealer as the main character?
By accident. Given that the two historically accurate main characters were known
gamblers and womanizers, and that 1861 Santa Fe was basically a church surrounded by a
collection of bordellos, gambling halls, and saloons, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine a character like Lily Smoot who they would both know. The accident part was that she, literally, took the evolving story out of my hands and head, and took over the entire book. I was more surprised than the readers will be.

How did you bring factual events into the fictional story?
I started with the facts, the so-called “big story.” The characters were, in effect,
constrained by the historical facts of the Indian wars and the Civil War when the Texans arrived. In truth, we all—truthful and fictional characters alike—are living our lives constrained by the general thrust of history that we are caught up in.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In August 1863, during Kit Carson’s roundup of the Navajo, Santa Fe’s Marshal is found dead in an arroyo near what is now the Hubbel Trading Post. The murder, and the roughly million of today’s dollars in cash and belongings in his saddlebags, is historically factual. Carson’s actual explanation is implausible.

Who did kill Carson’s “brave and lamented” Major? The answer is revealed in this tale of a group of con artists operating in 1861-1863 in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. As a matter of historical fact, millions of today’s dollars were embezzled from the Army, the Church, and the New Mexico Territory during this time. In this fictionalized version, the group includes a Santa Fe poker dealer with a checkered past claiming to fall in love with one of her coconspirators, and the historically accurate duo of the Marshal of Santa Fe and the aide de camp of the Territories’ Commanding General. It is an epic tale of murder and mystery, of staggering thefts, of love and deceit.

Both a Western and a Civil War novel, this murder mystery occurs in and among Cochise’s
Chiricahua Apache Wars, the Navajo depredations and wars, Indian Agent Kit Carson’s return from retirement, and the Civil War. The story follows the con artists, some historical, some fictional, during their poker games, scams, love affairs, and bank robberies, right into that arroyo deep in Navajo country

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Historical Fiction
Published by: Sunstone Press
Publication Date: September 2, 2013
Number of pages: 344
ISBN: 978-0-86534-936-0

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WELCOME BACK REBECCA YOUNT

REBECCA YOUNT

Rebecca Yount is a native-born Midwesterner who always had a desire to travel. Now in a third professional career as the author of the Mick Chandra mystery series, she and her husband arrange free home exchanges in England, Scotland, and France. The Mick Chandra books take place in England.

In ebook format, the first three books of the Mick series are available from all major vendors. They have garnered 4, and mainly, 5-star reviews. There are currently 7 books in the Mick series, with #8 on the way. She can be reached at: RebeccaYount.com and Rebecca Yount author.
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GUEST POST

UNEARTHING THE TREASURE:

Why I Love The Ravenhoe Cauldron

 When I was a child, nothing excited me more than the prospect of a visit to the Ohio Historical Society Museum.  In the 1950s and 60s, waterparks and such were rare in central Ohio. So if we wanted to do something special, we had to seek other amusements. That might entail a double feature at the movies, a walk in our lovely county park, or a pick-up baseball game in an open field. But the crème de la crème of outings was a day at the museum.

My friends and I had different reasons for loving the museum, but we all agreed on one thing: the mummy was the star.  Yes, the mummy.  One.  That was all the collection could boast at the time.  But, boy, was she a doozy!

To this day, I remember being transfixed by her slender figure, her long, black tapered fingers peeking out from the linen wrappings, and her disproportionately large feet. I don’t remember her name, but she was the 19-year-old daughter of a prominent high priest.  Her contemporary portrait, displayed above her sarcophagus, revealed the full-body right profile of a beautiful young woman, a single bare breast exposed.  My, how the boys hooted over that.

But I had other priorities.  This centuries-old deceased young woman inspired me to fall in love with archeology.

As a 10-year-old, I dramatically announced to my redoubtable father, “One day I’m going to become an archeologist.”

“Oh, yeah?  Spell it,” he challenged me.

I did.  Correctly.

It was not to be.  Instead, I devoted some twenty+ years to being a concert pianist and then, in order to eat and pay my rent, worked in education policy development in Washington, D.C.  On early retirement, I fulfilled another dream: I became a fiction writer.

So, by way of a long introduction, this is where the third book in my Mick Chandra mystery series comes in: The Ravenhoe Cauldron, my favorite among the completed seven.  Why?  Because the story centers on archeology.

Some years ago I had intended to write a novel for young adults that featured an ancient Celtic setting.  But I just couldn’t get it to come together, so I put that project aside.  However, I had already completed a considerable amount of research for the book.

As I added books to my Mick Chandra mystery series, I stumbled upon an idea to write an installment in which Mick and company must find a missing 2,000-year-old gold Celtic ceremonial cauldron that was stolen from a local museum in Colchester, England.

Eureka!  Talk about mining gold. I was able to finally use all of that research about Celtic culture and history that I had previously set aside.  As I wrote The Ravenhoe Cauldron, it was apparent that I was vicariously living my childhood dream of being an archeologist.  When the fictional diggers mine the pits for Celtic artifacts, I’m right there with them, digging away as well.

I had great fun researching the book at the archeological site in Colchester.  Also, it was fascinating to conduct further research at the Colchester and British Museums.  Both collections feature a wealth of Celtic artifacts, many rendered in solid gold.

The Ravenhoe Cauldron also addresses two additional intriguing topics: the antiquities black market and fake busting.  Both of these I had to learn from the bottom up, which involved a massive amount of additional research.

The sale of stolen antiquities ranks among the top four most lucrative international crimes. And there are only a handful of credible fake busters in this world who can detect the real from the forgeries.

Here’s where good research enriches a story.  What is one way a fake buster can detect ancient gold as opposed to newer gold?  By tasting it.  Gold, unless it’s absolutely pure, contains a certain amount of copper and other impurities.  Over time the combination of these impurities can cause slight corrosion. Therefore, the older the gold the more coppery-metallic the taste. Experienced goldsmiths refer to this taste as “sour.”

Jamie Geller, Mick’s undercover agent, makes the mistake of tasting the gold on an artifact that a dealer is trying to fence.  By doing so, he gives himself away as an agent for the police.  Typically, collectors of stolen antiquities want a fast deal and mistakenly assume authenticity.  As Thomas Hoving, one of the world’s most sought-after fake busters, wrote: “Need, speed, and greed” are paramount in the illegal antiquities trade.

I have come to appreciate that writing fiction is not unlike digging for treasure.  As I write, I am excavating amazing discoveries.

So it would seem that I have become an archeologist after all.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The garotted corpse of Stanislaw Janus, a notorious antiquities thief and forger, is discovered in an excavation pit at an archeological site near Colchester, on England’s east coast. A former curator of pre-Roman British artifacts at the British Museum, Janus had turned to crime and was fencing forgeries on the international antiquities black market. Just before his murder, Janus had engineered the theft of the priceless Ravenhoe Cauldron from the Colchester Museum. The nearly 2,000-year-old solid gold vessel had been unearthed by archaeologists …… in the very pit where Janus’ corpse was discovered.

Despite being on parental leave to care for his four-month-old daughter, Detective Inspector Michael “Mick” Chandra is put in charge of the case, his family leave suspended by New Scotland Yard’s commissioner. Mick must find Janus’ murderer as well as locate the missing cauldron, but his task will not be easy. Interpol reveals that Janus assumed multiple identities and remained maddenly out of the reach of law enforcement agencies. Nathaniel Wyatt, his former colleague at the British Museum, describes Janus as the “Steppenwolf” — charming one minute, vicious the next.

Mick calls upon the Yard’s Arts and Antiquities Unit for help in this complex case and as it turns out, he will need all the help he can get, as the case becomes increasingly fraught with danger and risk.

A diverse cast of characters illuminates and obscures Stanislaw Janus’ past: Dr. Cassandra Palmer, Chief Curator of the Colchester Museum, who had known Janus for more than a decade; Dr. Gill Metcalf, director of the archeological dig who openly disdains Janus; Alissa Woo, Metcalf’s beautiful graduate assistant, who originally discovered the cauldron at the Colchester site; Nathaniel Wyatt, Janus’ former colleague, who believes the cauldron will never be recovered; and Anderson Peale III, noted wealthy collector of Celtic artifacts, who may not be as reputable as he seems. Added to this cast is Janus’ star-crossed mistress, Regina, who passes onto Mick her lover’s personal diary.

Familiar faces from the two previous Mick Chandra books return as well: Jessica Beaumont, the American-born pianist who is now Mick’s wife; Mick’s friend and chief informant, Jamie Geller; and Mick’s no-nonsense partner, Sergeant Elizabeth Chang.

And then there is the mysterious rust-encrusted key sent through Mick’s home mail slot bearing a note that reads: “The key to the Ravenhoe Cauldron.”

BOOK DETAILS:

Genre: Crime
Published by: Self
Publication Date: June 30, 2013
Number of Pages: 401
ISBN-13: 9781467559348
ASIN: B00DQCUKTU

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