Snifter of Death
by Chris Karlsen
on Tour November 1 – December 2, 2017
Synopsis:
The summer of 1889 was proving to be a strange one for Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone and his partner.
They had a sexual pervert loose. The man didn’t actually harm women but threatened them at knife point, fondling them, and ultimately stealing their stockings.
Far more serious were the murders of influential men, which appeared random other than they were all killed by arsenic poison. Never had he and his partner had cases with so little workable evidence.
Also, the rivalry between him and his detective nemesis at London’s other police department was intensifying. That nemesis was the boxing champion of their department and looking to challenge Rudyard, who never trained as a boxer.
Besides Rudyard’s pride being at stake, and the pride of his station, his nemesis also had in his possession a photograph of the woman Rudyard cares very much for. The new lady in Rudyard’s life had captured his heart and he’d fight the devil himself to save her reputation.
Book Details:
Genre: Historical Suspense
Published by: Books to Go Now
Publication Date: May 16, 2017
Number of Pages: 376
ISBN: 9781545211090
Series: The Bloodstone #2 | This is a Stand Alone Novel
Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Kobo 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗
Author Bio:
I was born and raised in Chicago. My father was a history professor and my mother was, and is, a voracious reader. I grew up with a love of history and books.
My parents also love traveling, a passion they passed onto me. I wanted to see the places I read about, see the land and monuments from the time periods that fascinated me. I’ve had the good fortune to travel extensively throughout Europe, the Near East, and North Africa.
I am a retired police detective. I spent twenty-five years in law enforcement with two different agencies. My desire to write came in my early teens. After I retired, I decided to pursue that dream. I write three different series. My paranormal romance series is called, Knights in Time. My romantic thriller series is Dangerous Waters. The newest is The Bloodstone Series. Each series has a different setting and some cross time periods, which I find fun to write.
I currently live in the Pacific Northwest with my husband and five wild and crazy rescue dogs.
Interview
Welcome!
Writing and Reading:
Do you draw from personal experiences and/or current events?
Mostly from personal experience as I use historical settings and weave in my interpretation of events based on my experience along with the culture of the period.
In Journey in Time, there’s a scene where my heroine, a modern London attorney must conduct a trial where she is both prosecutor and defendant. The trial is before King Edward 111 in the year 1355. I used my experience testifying in court for that scene.
In Snifter of Death, the handling of much of my protagonist, Detective Rudyard Bloodstone’s police world, from the crime scene activity to the people he works with to victims, witnesses, and suspects all result from my experience as a detective.
Do you start with the conclusion and plot in reverse or start from the beginning and see where the story line brings you?
I have the basic idea for the storyline in mind and the end. I write out an outline but I’m not married to it. I let the story take me to other places not in the outline. That said, the basic ending doesn’t change. I might add something to it, color it with another event or character’s involvement but it is what I planned when I started.
Are any of your characters based on you or people that you know?
No, not in the Knights in Time series or in the Bloodstone series. In the Bloodstone series, there are colorful or background characters who reflect some of the people whose paths I crossed in my law enforcement career. But there isn’t one person I can point to in those books and say, “that is so and so.”
The only time I used a real life person was in a short story in an anthology I was part of this year. 12 authors got together to do an anthology for children’s cancer research. The series was called Code Redhead and my short story was called Moonlight Serenade. It is set in WW2 and the hero is based on my father. That is the one true person exception and I stated how it related to him in the author’s note.
Your routine when writing? Any idiosyncrasies?
I am not a morning person. I write in the afternoon and stop around 5 and spend the rest of the evening watching television with my husband.
Tell us why we should read this book.
Ruddy (Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone) is my favorite character to write. As a retired detective myself I was often asked about writing a cop story. But I never wanted to write a cop story, especially a contemporary one. Then I started thinking about putting a detective in a historical setting. I couldn’t imagine a more atmospheric city for murder and mystery than Victorian London. Once I began writing Ruddy, I found myself having a great time with him.
He’s a war hero who doesn’t think of himself as a hero. When asked, he just says he did what was necessary at the time. I was able to give him that typical droll/dry humor so common to cops. He is clever and observant, not much gets by him. But unlike Sherlock Holmes, he follows bad leads at times and isn’t perfect, which I really like about him. He has a sharp tongue, a short fuse, and a sometimes healthy and sometimes troublesome disrespect for administrators and politicians.
One of my favorite things about the Bloodstone series and this book is filling his world with colorful support characters. I love showing Ruddy’s nature and personality through his interaction with them.
He’s a man of his time and I try to make the politics and culture of Victorian England almost another character. Ruddy and his associates live and function in a world with a strict class structure and that is an interesting aspect to address. He must work within the confines of the social mores but that can never take over the story. I enjoy using that element to enhance the plot and action.
-Who are some of your favorite authors?
I love Bernard Cornwell, Julie Anne Long, Julia Quinn, Michael Connolly, and enjoy much of John Sanford.
What are you reading now?
I’m reading Sharpe’s Rifles by Cornwell as my current wip (a historical romance with time travel element and book 5 in my Knights in Time series) has a section that is set in the Peninsula War. I wanted to get a feel for that war. Behind it, I have The Crossing by Michael Connolly. I love his Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller characters. After that, I have a Julia Quinn book, “The Girl with the Make Believe Husband.”
Are you working on your next novel? Can you tell us a little about it?
As I mentioned in the previous answer, I’m working on book 5 in my Knights in Time series. That is a historical romance series with a time travel element. My heroine in this story is a modern English doctor. A group of scientists near where she lives are working on a time travel project. She accidentally crosses into one of their experiments and is caught in a time tear where she is sent back to medieval England.
While the scientists continue to try to find a way to bring her home, she begins to fall in love with a medieval knight. As she and the knight are working out if they have a future, the scientists engage another system to bring her home. However, there’s a glitch. She and the knight don’t make it to modern England but find themselves in 1815 and surrounded by the French and English armies at Waterloo.
The hero and heroine have to escape before they’re killed by one or the other battling armies. Then they have to figure out how to get back to England and get word to the scientists who now have no idea where they are in time.
Fun questions:
Your novel will be a movie. Who would you cast?
Karl Urban as Rudyard Bloodstone
Elizabeth Taylor as Honeysuckle Flowers
Thomas Craig as Archie Holbrook (Ruddy’s partner)
Hugh Bonneville as Henry Jameson (Superintendent of Ruddy’s police station)
Clive Standen as Will Bloodstone (Ruddy’s brother)
Myanna Buring as Graciela Robson
Favorite leisure activity/hobby?
Reading, dinner with friends (theme dinners are especially fun), and just watching television.
Favorite meal?
Toss up: French onion soup or crab and/or lobster bisque, crab cakes or scallops, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, tiramisu or any French pastry.
Thank you for stopping by CMash Reads and spending time with us.
Catch Up With Chris Karlsen On:
Website 🔗, Goodreads 🔗, Twitter 🔗, & Facebook 🔗!
Read an excerpt:
“What address do you show for the Cross family?” the Vicar asked. Her mind went completely blank. Finally, she blurted the only one that came to her, which was no doubt wrong. “Park Lane.”
The Vicar smirked. Not smiled. Smirked. That meant it had to be wrong.
“I suggest you start there. In the meantime, I will have my housekeeper escort you out. I don’t know what you’re playing at but I don’t care for mischief. You’ll do your soul a good turn to drop a coin in the poor box on your way to the street.” He rang a small bell on his desk and the housekeeper came. “See this lady out.”
Graciela stood on the top stair of the chapel cursing her luck when a man’s disturbingly familiar laugh interrupted her thoughts. She took a quick step to the left and flattened herself against one of the portico pillars. The horrible laugh rippled over from close by. It sounded like Detective Bloodstone’s from the morning she’d bailed out Addy. He’d said something that sent the shine boy scampering away and had all the detectives snickering, including Bloodstone.
Taking a deep breath, she peered around the edge of the pillar expecting to see the detective. His presence would’ve been the perfect end to this entire St. Jude’s Chapel mission-turned-catastrophe. To her great relief, it came from a carriage driver. She hadn’t noticed a group of them gathered at the corner waiting to be hired. Graciela, you had no reason to be frightened. You’d done nothing wrong. Stop being such a ninny.
She left the church and headed home. Zachary would be getting up from her nap soon. The whole way home she questioned her luck. A dozen people are murdered every day in London.
How hard can it be to kill someone?
***
Excerpt from Snifter of Death by Chris Karlsen. Copyright © 2017 by Chris Karlsen. Reproduced with permission from Chris Karlsen. All rights reserved.
Tour Participants:
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Wow Cheryl! This looks great!! Thanks for sharing!!
& Chris… you’re making me hungry! For books & soup! 😉
Great interview! I enjoyed this book and it’s always fun to get an inside glimpse of the writer’s process.
Thank you. After reading your review, I knew it had to go on my TBR list. TY for stopping by!