Red Hot Murder (Charlie Kingsley Mysteries) by Michele Pariza Wacek
About Red Hot Murder
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting - Wisconsin
Love-Based Publishing (April 25, 2023)
ASIN : B0BFC7MN2G
Charlie Kingsley’s tea customers have two things in common:
They rave about her teas.
AND they have a knack for attracting trouble.
There’s never been a connection between the two… until now.
One night, one of Charlie’s customers passes out, only to wake up to her fiancé dead in her home and no memory of what happened the night before.
But one thing she DOES remember is drinking a cup of Charlie's tea.
Charlie knows it wasn’t the tea, but everyone else is suddenly blaming her, so she has no choice but to get to the bottom of this mysterious death.
Meet Charlie. Better known as “Aunt Charlie” from the award-winning Secrets of Redemption series. She's back, making teas and solving cases in this funny, twisty, cozy mystery series set in the 1990s in Redemption, Wisconsin.
About the Author Guest Post
I love a good “impossible” mystery setup.
Whether it’s a locked-door mystery (i.e., the mystery takes place in a locked room or house), “five people go into the woods but only four return” or framing of an innocent person setup — or really, any setup that looks impossible to overcome — they’re some of my favorite types of mysteries.
In the case of Red Hot Murder, it’s the “waking up with a dead body in your kitchen and having no memory of how it got there” type.
If I was writing one of my psychological thrillers, I might have the main character wake up with the body and have no idea what happened. But for a cozy, I decided to have one of Charlie’s tea clients wake up with the body.
I also thought it might be fun to play with the “sleuth is framed” setup, but with a twist. In this case, Charlie was blamed for turning her client into a murderer, as opposed to being the one who did the killing.
Now, Charlie has to find the real murderer, so she can save both her own reputation and keep her client from going to jail.
I also thought it was time to write a book with a Valentine’s Day theme (yes, I know it’s releasing in April, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes).
Throw in a healthy dose of secrets that Charlie needs to wade through to get to the truth, and that’s the essence of Red Hot Murder.
This book was really easy for me to write. It came together fast and just flowed. (Especially when I compared it to the last book I wrote, which was a psychological thriller. There were moments I was sure it would be the end of me.)
Cozy mysteries have a different vibe than psychological thrillers, and I’m finding I really enjoy taking a break from the intensity of the psychological thrillers to go have a cup of tea and a couple of cookies with Pat and Charlie as they talk about their latest case.
Oh, and that reminds me… I’ve introduced a new, quirky character in Red Hot Murder — Tilde Tillerson. She’s the owner and founder of the Redemption Detective Agency. She’s also a bored, retired nurse who, inspired by Charlie’s amateur sleuthing, decides it would be fun to spend her retired years helping the Redemption Police Department solve crimes.
(Ahem, not everyone will find that fun, but I digress.)
Anyway, Tilde may end up joining forces with a few other silver sleuths as she focuses mostly on Redemption cold cases. (As you can imagine, there are A LOT of them.) She also may end up in her own spin-off series. (I’m not saying she will, but if she does, look for it in 2024.)
But back to the Charlie Kingsley Mysteries…
Like all the books in the series, you can read Red Hot Murder as a standalone even though it’s Book 6. The Charlie Kingsley Mysteries series is a spin-off from the Secrets of Redemption series, which is psychological suspense (but still clean like a cozy — all but one of my books are what I call ‘clean and twisty’… even the psychological thrillers).
In addition to all the books being clean, they’re also all intertwined — taking place in either Redemption or Riverview, Wisconsin. Redemption, Wisconsin is the main setting, and it’s a haunted little town with an unexplained past — all the adults disappeared in 1888, leaving only the children. No one knows what happened to the adults, but whatever it was, it still haunts the town to this day. Despite being a small tourist town, Redemption is plagued with more than its share of disappearances and murder.
Riverview is about 45 minutes from Redemption, and it’s a much bigger college town. It also has a dark, seedy underbelly, and I have plans to feature Riverview more in future books and series.
If you’d like to give Red Hot Murder or any of the Charlie Kingsley Mysteries a try, you can find them on Amazon in Kindle Unlimited along with paperback and audio (which should be out in May). For a free prequel to the Charlie Kingsley Mysteries, visit https://mpwnovels.com/freebies/
About the Excerpt
The phone rang, jerking me out of a sound sleep. I fumbled for it, my heart instantly in my throat. At that hour of the night, I automatically assumed it was my sister, Annabelle, calling from New York with terrible news.
But then I reminded myself it was more likely someone like Dana, calling with a middle-of-the-night tea emergency. Again.
“Charlie?” The voice was so choked with tears, I could barely make it out.
“It’s me,” I said, swinging my legs out of bed as fear started to take hold again. “Who is this?” I almost asked if it was Annabelle, but I wasn’t sure if I could get the words past the lump in my throat. Plus, it sounded nothing like my sister. Was it my best friend, Pat? No, it didn’t sound like her, either.
“It… it… it’s me,” the voice said between sobs. “Cherry.”
“Cherry?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.
Cherry burst into a fresh bawl. “You have to come,” she said. “He’s not moving. You have to help him.”
“He? Do you mean Marcus?” My mind raced as I thought about her romantic surprise date. “Is something wrong with Marcus?”
Another hiccup. “Please come. He needs help. I need help.”
“Cherry, if there’s something wrong with Marcus, call 9-1-1.”
“You don’t understand,” she cried. “I don’t remember. He wasn’t here. So, I don’t even know how he was attacked.”
Attacked? What was she talking about? Was she in the middle of a bad trip? Was THAT the romantic surprise? I tugged a hand through my wild, brownish-blondish hair, trying to decide if maybe I should hang up and call 9-1-1. “Cherry, what is going on? Talk to me.”
“I ca… can’t. Please just come. Hurry.” There was a click, and the phone went dead.
I stared at the receiver. Really, the smart move would be to call 9-1-1 myself. I had no business heading over to her house in the middle of the night, especially if I was going to end up in the middle of some dangerous situation. Best to let the professionals take care of it.
Yet… her voice tugged at me. She sounded terrified… like something had gone very wrong.
What she really needed was someone in her corner she could trust.
Before I was even aware I had made the decision, I was striding over to my closet to pull on a pair of jeans and an oversized University of Wisconsin sweatshirt. I headed into my en suite bathroom to quickly brush my teeth, wash my face, and try to do something with my wild hair. I finally managed to gather it into a loose ponytail, although a few tendrils had snuck out and were framing my face. I stared at myself in the mirror. My hazel eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, and I looked far older than my early thirties.
Well, it’s not like you’re going to a party, I scolded myself. If you’re gonna do this, then hurry up and do it.
I left the bedroom and hurried to find my keys.
About Michele Pariza Wacek
A USA Today Bestselling, award-winning author, Michele taught herself to read at 3 years old because she wanted to write stories so badly. It took some time (and some detours) but now she does spend much of her time writing stories. Mystery stories, to be exact. They're clean and twisty, and range from psychological thrillers to cozies, with a dash of romance and supernatural thrown into the mix. If that wasn't enough, she posts lots of fun things on her blog, including short stories, puzzles, recipes and more, at MPWNovels.com.
Michele grew up in Wisconsin (hence, why all her books take place there), and still visits regularly, but she herself escaped the cold and now lives in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona with her husband and southern squirrel hunter Cassie.
When she's not writing, she's usually reading, hanging out with her dog, or watching the Food Network and imagining she's an awesome cook. (Spoiler alert, she's not. Luckily for the whole family, Mr. PW is in charge of the cooking.)
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