I
AM PLEASED TO WELCOME AUTHOR
Carol
Kravetz
TITLE: Murder Is Just the Beginning
RELEASE DATE: March 20, 2017
AUTHOR: Carol Kravetz
CATEGORIES: Crime/Romance
PAGE COUNT: 466
ISBN: 978-1542809917
IMPRINT: Sly Fox
AUTHOR
BIO:
My name is Carol Kravetz and I live in
Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. I grew up here with my 2
brothers and 1 sister and, of course, my mum and dad. I have lived in Canada (12 years) and the US
(10 years). I started writing 25 years or so ago but I was lazy, and busy working full time as
a medical secretary and I didn’t do much to get myself “sold”. However, thanks
to my husband, Mark, who was in sales and marketing all of his adult life, he
was able to get me noticed by Ravenswood Publishing and I have just recently
gotten my first book published. It has been an exhilarating experience and I’m
hoping it won’t be too much longer before I can release the second book in this
series to an unsuspecting world. There are, in fact, seven books in the series
(so far). I currently work in the Education Authority for Special Needs
children.
BANTER
– STUFF ABOUT YOU
Q: If you could morph into any creature,
what would it be?
A:
I would easily love to be a dolphin. They are such beautiful creatures and they
make my heart sing anytime I see them, even on television. To be in the ocean
all the time, especially when the sea is rough, would be such a thrill!
If
you don’t mind me asking, why?
A: Because the first time I saw one for
real, it was in the Bahamas, I was just so overwhelmed by their beauty and
grace and intelligence. Anytime I hear their cry, I get goose bumps.
Q: If you didn’t have to clean them,
how many bathrooms would you have in your home?
A: I grew up in a family of six, with only one
bathroom. It was survival of the fittest every morning to get washed, showered,
etc. or a race to use the toilet first after coming in from shopping or
whatever, so, because of that, I would want 3 in my home.
How many if you have to
clean them?
A: I would still want 3 because, even
though now it’s just my husband and myself, it’s nice to have the luxury of
knowing there are plenty of bathrooms if we have guests and, if we’re catching
an early flight, we can each use a different shower at the same time to save
time. The third bathroom is just to save us from having to run upstairs!
Q: Dress up or dress down?
A: I much prefer to dress down. I love
being comfy. I don’t have to wear business clothes in work and am content to
show up in jeans and at least all my clothes are clean and don’t have any holes
in them. Besides, dressing down means I feel extra special when I do have to
dress up.
Q: Dine in or dine out?
A: I much prefer to dine out, however,
since that’s not economically practical, and certainly doesn’t do the waist
line any good, I don’t mind dining in. However, because I’m the only cook in
the family, it does get tedious sometimes coming home after a full day’s work
to try and figure out something tasty and nutritious for dinner. Thank goodness
for take aways!
BOOKS
– ABOUT THE CRAFT
Q: When did you start writing and why?
A: I started writing about 25 years
ago, when I lived in Canada. I kept getting these ideas and when I said for the
umpteenth time “I’m going to put that in my book” my then husband said, “Just
write the book!” That’s what I did, and it was just mainly to get my ideas
written down and out of my head. I never saw it becoming such a huge part of my
life but I’m grateful it did and so far, the ideas are still coming.
Q: How did you come to write your genre
of choice?
A: I was influenced by the 70s US cop
shows on TV, like Starsky & Hutch, Charlies Angels and, even before those
shows, I wanted to be a cop when I grew up. In Northern Ireland back in the
70s, they had height restrictions for police officers, which I found out I was
too short to make so I decided to write about cops instead.
Q: Who's your favorite author?
A: I’ve always been a huge fan of
Stephen King. I started reading him back in the late 70s or so and, apart from
the Gunslinger series, I have every full length novel of his, either as a
paperback or on my Kindle. No other horror writer comes close and where he gets
his ideas from is amazing.
Q: Do you write long hand first, or
does it go straight into the computer?
A: I’ve written all seven of my novels
in long hand first. It’s the only way I can do it. I write in pencil too. When
I’m transferring everything to the computer, then I can add or take away or
change about to my heart’s content but at least I have the bare bones written
out in front of me to work from.
BOOKS
- NOW LETS PROMOTE – STRUT YOUR STUFF
Q: What are you working on now? Would
you like to share anything about it?
A: I’m preparing the third in the
series now. It’s all typed out but it’s many several years old and badly needs
updated. Because I started writing 25 years ago, I’ve had to rewrite all my
novels and introduce things like mobile phones, or even the internet. I’m hoping that with the third story, readers
and fans alike will have already fallen in love with my characters and this
third one will have a major shocker in it.
Q: Do you have a new book coming out
soon? Tell us about it.
A: I’m waiting to hear from my
publisher about them picking up the second book so hopefully I will hear of a print
date soon. The first one was just released on paperback in February and on
Kindle March 20th. It takes off approximately six months after the
first book ends and, although the main characters are the same, the storyline
is completely different. It is called “The Revenge” and I’m hoping the title
will speak for itself. It involves a
kidnapping and the storyline is a lot darker than the first one, with some
violence that is completely relevant to the story. I also dabbled with a little
bit of law but I’ve tried to keep that interesting and nerve wrecking. Book 2
is also my favourite out of all seven books, with the third coming in a close
runnerup.
Q: How can we find you? Do you have a
web page, FaceBook page or any buy links?
A: Yes, I
do. Here are the links.
AUTHOR LINKS:
KEYWORDS: Crime, Romance, Adventure, Mystery, Intrigue, Suspense, Murder
ONE LINER:
Love can occur in
the most unexpected of places – even while investigating the murders of four
dancers who work in the same seedy nightclub.
SYNOPSIS:
Four murders of
staff who work in the same seedy nightclub, a shady nightclub owner and no
clues as to who the murderer is. Detective David Andrews and Detective Paul
Cameron are thrust together with two recruits from the United Kingdom, Cathy
Edwards and Krista Nolan, to solve the murders and bring to justice whoever was
responsible for them. Personality clashes and strong physical attractions ensue
between the four but they always maintain their strong professionalism. During
the investigation, yet another member of staff is found murdered but the
evidence is gathering and soon the guilty one is caught. But the case doesn’t
end there. By the time the court hearing comes around, the accused has already
devised a getaway plan. And the hunt is on….
EXCERPT:
On February 22nd, Paul and Dave were assigned a homicide case that was very time consuming and at times even seemingly impossible they were ever going to get it solved. As a result, they put in a lot of overtime and, claiming she could no longer handle his hectic schedule, Cindy broke it off with Paul. Used to receiving rebuttals like this because of his job, Paul accepted the split and her reasonings with good grace, if not with a little regret. Cindy was a nice girl but just apparently unable to deal with dinners and other dates being broken off at the last minute. She claimed she really did understand that he was very dedicated to his job, but she also managed to tell him, not without a little sarcasm, that his job wasn’t going to keep him warm on a cold winter’s night.
With no new love interest to occupy what little spare time he had, Paul devoted his all to the case and on March 5th, the day before his twenty eighth birthday, he and Dave finally placed all the pieces of the puzzle together and solved the case, coming up with a motive, a murder weapon and the murderer himself.
A few days later, they were presented with a case regarding another homicide but this one was drugs related, even more time consuming and had to be handled delicately to ensure no mistakes were made.
On March 15th, they had it all but wrapped and on the 16th, they achieved their goal. In the morning, they were in the station at their desks, preparing the final report when Captain Hamilton appeared at his office door.
“Cameron, Andrews,” he called. “My office. Now.”
Glad for any excuse to get away from the dreaded paperwork, Paul and Dave arose and went into the Captain’s office. Inside, they saw the Captain had two guests, two ladies who were certainly quite pleasing to look at.
Paul beamed them both a friendly smile. “Hello there, ladies.”
Dave barely acknowledged them with a nod.
Captain Hamilton walked back round to his side of the desk and rested his bulk on his chair. It groaned and creaked with familiar knowledge of the weight sitting on top of it. Aware all four people were looking at him for either an introduction or an explanation, he fixed his most professional and courteous smile on his face and gazed at Paul and Dave.
“Gentlemen, let me introduce to you Cathy Edwards and Krista Nolan. Ladies, Detective Dave Andrews and Detective Paul Cameron at your service.”
It took only a second for the names to register in Dave’s mind and he just about managed to conceal a scowl. So, the women from Northern Ireland had arrived. Terrific, he didn’t think so.
“Which one of you is which?” Paul asked.
“I’m Krista,” she answered with a hint of shyness. “And you are…?”
“Paul.” He offered her his hand to shake, which she did and when the contact was broken, he could still feel the warmth and strength she had conveyed with the simple, time-honored gesture. He shook Cathy’s hand too, his smile rich and honest and his eyes twinkling softly with welcome and good humor. “And you must be Cathy. It’s a pleasure to meet you both, particularly when we’ve heard so much about you. Welcome to the United States of America.”
“Thank you,” Cathy said warmly and looked expectantly at the one called Dave to see if he was going to greet them with a handshake or a smile. Her own smile faltered when she received neither and, immediately losing her momentum for a friendly introduction, she retracted inside herself in the way she sometimes did with strangers, to let Krista strike up an ice-breaking conversation.
But Krista, who usually talked a mile a minute and had a true talent for talking to strangers as if she’d known them for years, had chosen this moment to keep her mouth shut.
Aware of Dave’s reluctance to participate in any kind of a greeting, Paul folded his arms across his chest and sat on the edge of the Captain’s desk, retaining his relaxed smile to help put the ladies at their ease.
Paul simply couldn’t get over Krista and Cathy’s appealing good looks – every image in his mind’s eye he had built up of them was totally wrong. They were quite beautiful, he would even be prepared to use the word stunning because that was certainly what they were. As Captain Hamilton droned on in the background about something or other, and as Dave retreated into his moody little shell of indifference, Paul sat and quietly assessed the newcomers, finding he was quite enjoying the show.
Krista was tall, about five nine, and slim, probably weighing in at about one hundred and twenty pounds, but she was definitely filled out in all the right places and she carried herself with a naturally comfortable air and graceful poise. Her hair was very dark, almost as dark as Dave’s, and fell down her back in a thick, layered sheath with the bangs at the front short and feathered. Her complexion was creamy and flawless, her cheekbones high, her nose pretty and feminine and her lips, which fronted perfectly straight white teeth, were full, sensuous and inviting. But her piece de resistance had to be her eyes. Almond shaped, clear green, flecked here and there with tiny gold specks and fringed with long, thick eyelashes, Paul suspected they had lured many a man under their spell… just as they were doing to him right now, he realized with a jolt. And she hadn’t even being looking directly at him, nor seemingly was she even aware of his appraisal…
For distraction, he quickly switched his attention to Cathy. She wasn’t as tall as Krista, only about five four, he guessed and she probably tipped the scales at around one hundred and ten pounds, making her quite petite but perfectly rounded where she should be. He liked her hair, it was dark with a lot of hints of auburn and it stretched all the way down her back in a tumbled mass of curls and waves, giving her a wild, gypsy-like, free spirited appearance. Her skin gave off an untainted peach glow, her nose was perfectly sculpted, her lips generous, her chin strong and determined and when he lifted his scrutiny to her eyes, he was in for a pleasant surprise. They were blue – make that very blue, he quickly corrected – and the lashes that framed them were long and in abundance.
Both women could hold their own in the looks department, that was for sure and he fell in love with their accents too when they started asking the Captain questions regarding their itinerary for the next day.
A few minutes after the initial introduction, the Captain suddenly stood up. “Please excuse me, I have something to take care of on the third floor. I’ll be back in a little while.”
Left alone, an awkward silence descended upon them and it was Paul who started the conversational ball rolling. “What made you ladies want to come to the U S of A? Unless…I’m sorry, is that too personal a question?”
Krista quickly shook her head. “Oh no, we don’t mind that you asked. We needed a change of pace, basically. We both love our chosen careers and didn’t want to give it up so we decided to try our luck in another country. Thanks to our former boss finding out about Captain Hamilton’s program, we wanted to offer our services against terrorism and we jumped at the chance to come here. We only arrived yesterday so we haven’t really got our bearings yet but Captain Hamilton took us on a guided tour of the city this morning and most of what we saw looked really nice.”
As Krista filled Paul in with where they had been that morning, Cathy did what he had done and quietly assessed him and Dave. She knew she was looking at two of the most ridiculously handsome men she had ever seen, two men who would look quite at home in a jeans commercial or a razor blade commercial, or even on a catwalk, doing the male model bit. She couldn’t help but wonder if they were the sort of men who knew they were gorgeous but the more she remained in their company and read their body language, the more she didn’t think that was the case.
With Dave, she had to admit she was a little intrigued. She couldn’t understand why he was so quiet or why he seemed to have a permanent scowl stamped on his features, nor could she understand why his amazingly dark blue eyes were giving nothing away except a silent instruction that everyone keep their distance from him.
Dave’s attitude and appearance were in such sharp contrast to Paul’s. Paul was being very friendly, perhaps to make up for his friend’s muteness, he seemed attentive, charming and eager to offer his services towards Krista and herself. Whereas Dave’s eyes were cold, Paul’s were warm and quite appealing too and, despite his honey blond hair, his eyebrows and lashes were much darker and therefore all the more noticeable.
But all that aside, Cathy couldn’t deny the two men exuded sheer animal magnetism and a raw sexuality that could be dangerous if ever she choose to explore what they had to offer. Not that she ever would, the last thing she, and Krista too for that matter, wanted was to get romantically involved with anyone just yet. First they had to get themselves established both in a home and at work, then they had to get accustomed to a new culture and only then, when they felt comfortable and settled, would they even consider exploring a new relationship with any man.
Aware there was a lull in the conversation, Cathy pulled herself out of her meandering thoughts and back to the present. “Are you both from Bathville?” she asked, hoping to draw Dave into the company.
But Dave ignored the question so Paul had to answer. “No, I’m from Brooklyn and Dave is from Las Vegas, out west. We’ve been here for nearly four years now and we love it. Don’t we, Dave?” He turned to his friend with an innocent expression, deliberately dragging him into a conversation Paul knew he didn’t really want to be a part of.
After a second, Dave said curtly, “Yes.” And that was the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned. He had promised himself a long time ago he wouldn’t be even remotely friendly to the two girls when they reached Bathville’s fair shores and now that he at least knew what they looked like – absolutely gorgeous in a way he had least been expecting, definitely not the type to shave the whiskers off their chins – he was more determined than ever to keep their relationship at a cool and professional distance.
“I must say,” Paul continued, with a slight frown in Dave’s direction, “it really is wonderful to have you ladies here. As I heard the Captain tell you earlier, Dave and I have been assigned the task of looking after you, you know, helping you out with lifts, showing you around, that sort of thing and I’m certainly looking forward to a welcome change in my routine. It will be a pleasure to help you both in any way I can.” He shot Dave a cool glare. “In any way we both can.”
Neither Krista nor Cathy got a chance to respond because just then, a man popped his head around the office door. “Andrews, telephone call, line two. Sounds important.”
Dave glanced in his direction. “Thanks, Jim, I’ll take it out at my own desk.”
Paul watched his partner leave, then he turned to the two girls with an apologetic smile. “You’ll have to forgive my buddy, ladies, he tends to be rather shy at times and short on the conversation department too. Once you get to know him, you’ll find he’s a really nice person.”
“I’m sure he is,” Cathy said dryly, clearly unconvinced that someone who seemed so rude and standoffish could actually be nice.
Paul excused himself to see if Dave’s phone call needed his attention too but when he got out to his desk, he saw Dave wasn’t even on the phone anymore. In fact, all he was doing was the crossword in that morning’s edition of The Bathville Record. Paul studied his profile for a long moment and then said as casually as possible, “So, what do you think?”
“Of what?”
“Of Cathy and Krista.”
“Oh…them…all right, I suppose.”
“All right? Dave, they’re gorgeous, even you can’t deny that.”
Dave threw the newspaper down. “So what if they are? Still doesn’t mean I have to fall at their feet and tell them that.”
“Are you going to even be cordial to them?”
Dave broke into a broad grin. “Of course,” he said enthusiastically.
Paul’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He hadn’t failed to hear the underlying sarcasm in Dave’s voice. “In that case, you won’t mind if I ask them out for a drink tonight so all four of us can get better acquainted?”
“Ask them out if you want to. Me, I can’t go, I have people to do, things to see.”
“You have nothing planned, Dave. You told me so this morning.”
“Something came up.” Dave picked up the newspaper again and put a frown of concentration on his face. “Hmm, let me see, eleven letters for what a graphologist would study.”
“Handwriting,” Paul answered curtly and, no longer wanting to be around him, returned to the Captain’s office.
To make up for Dave’s apathy, he invited the girls out for lunch and, while getting to know them a bit better, by the end of their meal, he had come to the conclusion they were very intelligent, very sweet, very funny and entertaining. Krista was a great conversationalist once she got started, Cathy was more shy but certainly just as friendly and witty. Cathy was more cynical while Krista greeted everything with good humor but they certainly worked well together, had an obviously mutual trust and high regard of one another and shared the same devil-may-care outlook on life.
They accepted his offer for the drink that night and when he took them back to the station and entrusted them into the Captain’s care again, his only regret was that Dave had missed out on an enjoyable lunchtime.
One lunchtime wasn’t the only thing Dave was going to miss out on.
Buy Links:
AMAZON US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4U2FI3 AMAZON UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N4U2FI3
AMAZON CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01N4U2FI3
CREATESPACE: https://www.createspace.com/6895246
PAPERBACK: https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Just-Beginning-Carol-Kravetz/dp/1542809916/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486666758&sr=8-1&keywords=murder+is+just+the+beginning+paperback
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