jbronderbookreviews

Shades of Murder (Mac Faraday – 3) by Lauren Carr

Question: What do you get the man with everything?

Answer: When that man is the heir of the late mystery writer Robin Spencer, retired homicide detective Mac Faraday, you get him cold case to solve.

In Shades of Murder, Mac Faraday is once again the heir to an unbelievable fortune. This time the benefactor is a stolen art collector. But this isn’t just any stolen work-of-art—it’s a masterpiece with a murder attached to it.

Ilysa Ramsay was in the midst of taking the art world by storm with her artistic genius. Hours after unveiling her latest masterpiece—she is found dead in her Deep Creek Lake studio—and her painting is nowhere to be found.

Almost a decade later, the long lost Ilysa Ramsay masterpiece has found its way into Mac Faraday’s hands and he can’t resist the urge to delve into the case.

A world away, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; former JAG lawyer Joshua Thornton agrees to do a favor for the last person he would ever expect to do a favor—a convicted serial killer.

The Favor: Solve the one murder wrongly attributed to him.

Joshua finds an unexpected ally in Cameron Gates, a spunky detective who has reason to believe the young woman known to the media only as Jane Doe, Victim Number Four, was the victim of a copycat. Together, Joshua and Cameron set out to light a flame under the cold case only to find that someone behind the scenes wants the case to remain cold, and is willing to kill to keep it that way.

Little do these detectives know that the paths of their respective cases are on a collision course when they follow the clues to bring them together in a showdown with a killer who’s got a talent for murder!

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Author’s Bio

Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries. The twelfth installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series, Candidate for Murder is scheduled for release on June 20, 2016.

Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. If you would like to ask Lauren to appear at your event, feel free to contact her using the form below.

She lives with her husband, son, and four dogs (including the real Gnarly) on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

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My Review

5 stars

Ilysa Ramsay was taking the art world by storm when she is suddenly killed and her last painting disappears. Ten years later, Mac Faraday receives a package from a questionable collector that had a soft spot for his mother Robin Chase. The package is the missing Ilysa Ramsay painting and before he knows what’s happening people are trying to buy it from him and breaking into his house.

At the same time Joshua Thornton is a military lawyer and detective. He is on vacation with no kids in the house and gets a call from Cameron Gates, a serial killer. He was blamed for one victim that was never identified and it has bothered him since he didn’t kill her. He asks Joshua to look into Jane Doe. Joshua meets up with the detective that worked the case and together they find themselves in Deep Creek Lake.

Mac has his hands full when a missing painting shows up on this door steps. Mac has a bunch of rich people that act that way and are more worried about money than family values. I loved Gnarly and the toll bridge, too funny.

But then you get introduced to Joshua Thornton. I read the first two Thorny Rose mysteries and really enjoyed his son and Mac’s daughter. He did a great job in Shades of Murder and I can’t wait to read his mystery series.

This was another great Mac Faraday mystery. I loved the twists and the real reason the painting disappeared. Once again I didn’t really know who the killer was and was caught off guard by the reveal. I love these mysteries and recommend them to everyone.

I received Shades of Murder from iRead Book Tours for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.

Guest Post: So Many Murders, So Many Plotlines

By Lauren Carr

A while back, my son brought up a discussion that he and some of his friends had. According to something one of them had read on the Internet (so it must be true), there are only seven basic story plotlines. All of the stories and books written are variations of any of these seven plots. Therefore, my son said with a cocky grin, my books are not original because all of the basic plotlines have already been written.

Stab me in the heart, why don’t you? Writers are always striving for new ideas or new twists to old ideas.

As a mystery writer, I confess that I do work off of one basic plotline: commit murder, search for clues, piece together the clues, identify the killer, catch the killer. Hopefully, my main characters can have some fun and adventure along the way.

Now, this is not to be confused with being a formula writer, which I believe is what my son was insinuating. Writers who use formulas work almost from a template, not unlike an administrative assistant will use a Word Doc template for a letter: para 1 (introduction), para 2 & 3 (message), para 4 (closing).

While the basic plotline for murder mysteries may be the same, the genre has come a long way, baby. Since Edgar Allen Poe’s The Purloin Letter, the murder mystery genre has grown and branched and sprouted new sub-genres: thriller, suspense, cozy, romance-mystery, medical-mystery, courtroom-mystery, hobby-cozy, etc. As a writer or a reader, you name what you like or what you don’t like and you can find it in this genre if you hunt hard enough.

The twists and turns that a murder investigation can go are as numerous as the setting (small town/big city), motives, weapons, and suspects.

One website I found listed eighteen common motives for murder from money to jealousy to desire for fame to survival. We aren’t even talking about the less common ones: to benefit someone else. An example is bumping off someone in order to have a loved one inherit.

In A Fine Year for Murder, the Thorny Rose detectives, newlyweds Jessica Faraday and Murphy Thornton have to check off a few of these motives when investigating the cold case murder of a family. Which family member was the intended target? Was the motive theft or revenge? Or was it to silence a blackmailer?

Weapons: Used to be knives, guns, and poisoning with arsenic or strychnine were the standard weapons for murder. I remember reading a mystery that was written years ago where the detective concluded that the killer was a woman because the weapon was poison. Such sexism would not fly anymore.

Do you want your victim to drop dead instantly or do you want a delayed reaction? Choose your poison wisely.

Yes, the genre has really changed since the basic plotline was created.

Old school murder mysteries used to have the mystery end with identifying the killer, who, in the face of all the evidence against him or her, breaks down and confesses. However, in recent years, readers have become so savvy about the justice side of things, that it is not enough for the detective to simply identify the killer. How many cases have made the news of known killers walking free because of a mess up by the investigating officer violating a suspect’s rights, evidence being compromised, or some other legal loophole or twist by the defense attorney?

No, now mystery writers have to be on top of how the legal system works. It is not enough to identify the killer. The detective also has to catch him in such a way that there is justice in the end. The reader has to close the book knowing that the killer is going to jail for a very long time.

Yes, maybe my son is right in that there are seven basic plotlines. Maybe at the very root of a book or story, this is the case.

When it comes to a murder mystery, the possibilities are endless if you use your imagination. In the hands of an imaginative writer, anything can sprout from those roots.