Jane Reads: The Devil’s Flood by Pearl R. Meaker | Blog Tour with Excerpt, Review, Guest Post and Giveaway

The author of The Devil's Hook is back, with another Emory Crawford Mystery!

The Blurb

Sometimes the past won't stay in the past.

Twombly and Golden County’s past and present are bound together by the legend of Sutton House, which vanished during a record flood in 1844. Twombly College has sponsored an archeological team to find the lost house, but therein they discover two mummified men, both with gunshot wounds, and a pistol lying between them.

Add moonshine to the mix when it’s discovered that the old illegal liquor trade is alive and well in Golden County. Teens are the ones drinking it — until there is a murder.

Will Emory and Madison be able to sort myths and rumors from the facts to solve both mysteries?

The Devil’s Flood by Pearl R. Meaker
Series: An Emory Crawford Mystery, #3

Genre: Cozy Mystery

The Excerpt

“Okay.” Kate said, pulling her phone out of a pocket as Jairus and the crew gathered around me where I stood watching the rescue team go in after my husband. “Here’s a shot of Dr. Crawford.” She held the phone in front of me. “He’s still conscious and managed a little wave, but I’m glad the rescue team is heading in.”

I glanced at the photo. Jebbin lay in a pool of light on what looked like a pile of bedding heaped on a rough wooden floor. His glasses had fallen off. He never looks quite right without them, and I could tell he was hurting. Probably feeling a bit nauseous as well. In spite of it all he wore a wan grin and had lifted a hand in greeting.

Kate swiped the screen.

In the sharp glare of her phone’s flash a mummified man sat on the floor, his back against a wall. There was a dark stain spilling down his chest from a hole near where his heart would be.

“There’s one part of the company Dr. Crawford mentioned he had.”

She swiped again. “Here’s the other.”

This mummy lay on its back. The flash showed a stain that flowed from his chest and down his side to form a hardened puddle on the floor.

“Which one’s my Grandpa?” Melva gasped.

The Review

I just read an amazing book, y'all — The Devil's Flood, by Pearl R. Meaker. Let me tell you a little about it.

The Devil’s Flood, the third book in the Emory Crawford Mystery series, is an awesome cozy mystery, one that I truly enjoyed reading. It's just so good, y'all. The Devil's Flood is Author Pearl R. Meaker's best one yet!

If you haven't already read the previous books in the series, Book #1 The Devil’s Music and Book #2 The Devil's Hook, you can read The Devil's Flood as a standalone. Author Pearl R. Meaker has included enough backstory so that you won't be lost. However, this means that The Devil's Flood contains necessary details from the previous books; these will be spoilers, if you read Books #1 and #2 later. So, you might as well just read the entire series in order; Pearl won't mind. ;-) [You can read my reviews of The Devil’s Music here, and The Devil's Hook here.]

The Devil's Flood is amazing! I can't say it enough. Where do I start, to tell you all about its greatness?

~ The eye-catching cover — that's a logical beginning. I love its rather ominous air, created by ombré shades of blue; a house looming on a lake shore, slowly becoming obscured by the gathering mist; storm clouds building on the horizon; and an antique pistol, firing ... what? Is that ... blood??

~ The wonderful characters that Author Pearl R. Meaker has created, in Emory Crawford's world of Twombly College in Twombly, Illinois. Among the returning characters are Emory, of course, one of my favorites; her husband, Jebbin, a forensic scientist; Jairus Twombly, chairman of the college board of directors; his teenage daughter Madison Twombly, also one of my favorites; Dr Nibodh "Chatty" Chatterjee, another forensic scientist; and Emory's BFFs, Aine McAllister and AnnaMay Langstock.

Some of the new characters in The Devil's Flood are Deepti and Ragesh Chatterjee, Chatty's wife and son; Dr Chauncey Koerner, professor of history and archaeology at Twombly College, and leader of the archaeological dig; eight dig crew members (for a total of ten, counting Emory and Jebbin), including teenager Melva Suter (she has a prominent role in The Devil's Flood, and became another of my favorite characters); and Melva's father, Larry Suter.

~ The plot — simply superb. Two murders to solve — one present-day, the other from 1844. A conundrum to solve — how did the Sutton house disappear overnight? Plus moonshine, gambling, and wild parties, with teens and young adults behaving badly. [There's lots more to the plot, but Maxie won't let me reveal any spoilers.]

The Devil's Flood is so interesting and fast-paced, that I had a devil of a time putting the book down so I could go to sleep. [I was sorely tempted to pull an all-nighter, and keep reading until I finished it. Instead, I finished it ASAP the next morning — during and after breakfast, while still in my jammies.] Author Pearl R. Meaker kept me attentive and engaged to the very end. Speaking of end — the ending is fantastic! I was smiling to myself as I "turned the last page" on my Kindle. I so can't wait to read Emory #4.

Author Pearl R. Meaker's plot — solving two murders, separated by approximately 170 years — is brilliant. Elements of the present-day murder are foreshadowed by those of the 1844 murder. I was reminded of Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction by Amy Metz, in which her sleuth solves a 75-year-old murder.

The action is narrated in first person by sleuth Emory Crawford. Emory's enthusiasm — for the dig, for sleuthing out the solutions to the mysteries, and for life in general — is evident in the (mostly) cheerful and playful tone of The Devil's Flood.

There's great dialogue, too. Here are two examples:

"Can Madison stay here?" I asked. "I ... ah, I think Melva and I both want a good full report of everything that happens out here. Jeb ..." My voice caught on his name. "Jebbin will, ah, want it, too, when he's ... ready for it." I realized my hands were shaking.

"On it!" Madison grinned then scampered back to the crew before her father could say otherwise.

"Marple and Drew," Jairus muttered, smiling as he shook his head.

"You know this how?" I interrupted.

"Ah ..." I could sense the microprocessors humming away in her {Madison's} little grey cells. "You know I have my ways, and ... um, this is an old house with all sorts of nooks and crannies that people have forgotten about over the years."

"You snooped?"

I could picture the tilt of her head and proud look in her eyes as she told me, "No. I gathered intelligence."

Have I convinced you yet, that The Devil's Flood is an amazing Must-Read? There are mummies! Daddies! Action and adventure! Blood, sweat, and tears! Music, though none by Blood Sweat & Tears.

I highly recommend The Devil's Flood to all cozy mystery fans, especially to those who are history buffs, fans of the previous Emory Crawford mysteries, and fans of Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction and other Goose Pimple Junction books by Amy Metz.

I absolutely love The Devil’s Flood by Pearl R. Meaker, and hereby bestow upon it our highest rating of Five Kitties!

Five out of five kitties

Note: I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of The Devil's Flood.

All opinions shared are 100% my own.

Author Guest Post

Murder Goes To A Conference

That might be a good title for an Emory Crawford Mystery some day, but for now it’s a bit of a misdirect.

During the weekend of Oct. 28 – 30 this year, I was at the Magna cum Murder Crime Writing Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana. Magna, for short, is a festival that attracts top mystery writers but the thing that sets it apart for me is that despite being called a “writing festival,” since the very beginning there have been more readers in attendance then authors.

Have you ever been to a book related conference?

I hadn’t until I went to last year’s Magna cum Murder. This type of conference is one I would recommend to every reader. It is large enough to, as I said above, get some top name mystery authors, but it is small enough to be friendly. There are usually around two hundred in attendance. Everyone has lunch and dinner together. It is sit where you like, meet who you want to meet. Have a chance to get to know a favorite author or a new author you just heard about because they were on the panel discussion you went to that morning.

And believe me, we authors love it too.

Because you, the readers of the world, are why we write.

Oh yes, one often hears of writers who say they only write for themselves. But if that’s truly the case — why do they publish their works? ;-)

Most of us write because we want to share.

Many authors want to inform people, even if their book is fiction. They want to make people look at the world around them in a different way because of their story. Make the reader wrestle with some moral or cultural issue.

Some of us mostly want to entertain, to give our fellow humans a chance to escape their troubles for a while. Sometimes we help them relax. Sometimes we scare the pants off them. Either way, hopefully, it isn’t what they’re experiencing everyday.

I’m one of the latter.

I write hoping my books, The Devil’s Music, The Devil’s Hook, and the newest book The Devil’s Flood, will help my reader relax. Will entertain with touches of humor or some interesting thing they learn about or a good mystery to solve. And always, I hope my books give them a break from their everyday days.

I hope you’ll look online for a book/reading/writing festival near you, and I hope you can find one that will give you the chance to mingle with both readers and writers. It really is a wonderful experience. And maybe, I’ll get to meet you at Magna cum Murder 2017 — I already have my room reserved!

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Thank you, Jane, for inviting me to post on your blog today. ☺

The Author

About Pearl R. Meaker

Slightly quirky, always creative, Pearl R. Meaker has been an artist, singer and craftsperson her whole life. Although she's always had stories in her head, they didn't come out to play with others until the advent of home computers with their ease of making corrections and moving bits around.

After several years of writing fanfiction in the world of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, she took a couple of writing courses and dove into writing original works of fiction, and The Emory Crawford Mysteries were born.

When not playing with story ideas you can find Pearl playing with yarn either knitting or crocheting, doing other arts and crafts, bird watching and photographing nature, playing bluegrass fiddle (her husband plays banjo) or relaxing with her hubby on the sofa watching mystery shows on Netflix. Oh — and reading all sorts of books, but especially cozy and other types of mysteries!

The books in The Emory Crawford Mysteries Series are reminiscent of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, which is why Pearl has chosen to characterize her stories as "murder genteel."

Find Pearl on the web at