Please welcome the lovely M. S. Spencer as my Guest for today
An antique train, a mysterious corpse, a bank robbery, a treasure map, and romantic rumblings make for passion and adventure in small town Maine.
Griffin Tate, hero of my new mystery romance the Penhallow Train Incident, is a retired Middle Eastern history professor and becomes ensnared in the search for a fictional map to the Queen of Sheba’s tomb. Now, it’s uncertain whether the Queen of Sheba ever existed, or where the land of Sheba was, but according to the Bible, the Ethiopian Book of Kings, and many legends throughout the Middle East, she came from a nation in the south to meet with King Solomon. She has always intrigued scholars and in the Penhallow Train Incident, she draws not only Tate, but the lovely Rachel Tinker and a slew of quirky characters into her mystery.
The Penhallow Train Incident
M. S. Spencer
Sweet Cravings Publishing (June 2, 2015)
Romantic Suspense/Mystery, M/F, 2 flames
BUY LINK: http://store.sweetcravingspublishing.com/index.php?main_page=book_info&cPath=4&products_id=278
BLURB:
In the sleepy coastal Maine town of Penhallow, a stranger dies on a train, drawing Rachel Tinker, director of the Penhallow Historical Society, and Griffin Tate, curmudgeonly retired professor, into a spider’s web of archaeological obsession and greed. The victim’s rival confesses that they were both after a map to the Queen of Sheba’s tomb, and with his help they set out to find it. Their plans are stymied, however, when a tug of war erupts between the sheriff and a state police detective who want to arrest the same man—one for murder and one for bank robbery. It falls to Rachel to solve both crimes…and two more murders, if she is to unlock the soft heart that beats under Griffin’s hard crust.
EXCERPT (G): WE MEET GRIFFIN
“Another Geary’s, Rachel?”
“What? Yeah, I guess so. Just to keep you company, Maude.”
“Thanks.” Her companion, a woman of about sixty with close-cropped, iron-gray hair and the beginnings of jowls, gave the word all the sarcasm she had available. The bright brown eyes that reminded Rachel of an intelligent squirrel sought out the waitress. “Hey Katie, can you bring us a couple more?”
The waitress, a compact brunette with a wide grin, brought two bottles over. As she uncapped them, she nodded at the window behind the two women. “Looks like we’re in for a blow.” Rachel and Maude followed her gaze to Penhallow Harbor. The sky to the north held piles of white cloud, cascading down the cliff to hover over the mouth of the river as it flowed into Penobscot Bay.
Rachel stared at them dubiously. “They don’t look all that threatening to me.”
Katie shrugged. “Ask Griffin. He considers himself our resident weather expert.” All three shifted to stare at the tall man seated at the bar, his back to them. The cap, flannel shirt, and worn trousers with suspenders should have signaled an old salt, grizzled and wrinkled, but they knew better. Griffin was only about fifty, but he liked to pretend he was time-worn and crusty. It rarely worked. Any vulnerable woman who took note of his strong chin, deep blue eyes, and thickly curling, salt-and-pepper hair, would immediately recognize a sexy man with depths of feeling only a special strategy could penetrate. Add to that a barrel chest, long-fingered hands, and shapely legs, and you had what Maude described as a latter-day Prince Valiant—“Only without that stupid hairdo.”
Griffin twisted on his stool. “Cumulus. Five thousand feet. They’ll pass out to the bay.”
Katie shook her head, but Rachel noticed a gleam in her eye. “No sirree, those are storm clouds. You folks from away can’t read ‘em like we do. See that gray mass over there by Young’s?”
“Huh.” He peered at it, his eyebrows wiggling. “Most likely smog.”
“Smog! That’s ridiculous. How could we have smog in Maine?”
“Wood fires.” The man turned back to the bar.
Maude rolled her eyes. “Griffin gets less verbose every day.”
Rachel demurred. “To be fair, he’s never been much for words.”
“True. Hardly said two or three since he arrived in Penhallow…how long ago? Two years? Wait, wasn’t that just about the time you moved here?” She winked. “You sure there was nothing going on between you two down at Queenstown University?”
Her companion glared at her. “I told you before. I didn’t know him then. He was a professor of Middle Eastern history at the Institute and I was a lowly instructor in Anthropology in the college. Paths like ours never crossed.”
“Institute?”
“Institute of Higher Learning.” She raised her voice. “It’s a glorified think tank for the most eminent scientists and academicians. Gives ‘em an excuse to laze around dreaming up inoperable systems and unworkable theories to gum up our lives.”
“Whoa, somebody has a chip on her shoulder.”
“I can’t help it.” Rachel pondered her former colleague, his head bent over his plate, and whispered, “Griffin was a prick then and he’s a prick now. Too bad he’s so handsome.”
Maude sniggered. “Yeah, too bad.”
The subject of their abuse did not react and after a moment the two women returned to their beers. When Katie arrived with two plates piled with lobster rolls, French fries, and coleslaw, Rachel asked her, “So, have they identified the corpse yet?”
The waitress nodded, her eyes alight. “Yeah—Sheriff Quimby was in this morning. He says the guy was a foreigner—Omar something. I couldn’t possibly pronounce his name. Some kinda Middle Eastern type.”
Maude glanced toward Griffin. “Middle Eastern, huh? Hmm. And he was shot, you say?”
“That’s what the sheriff says. Shot with a .45 caliber—just like the ammunition in Elmer’s and Hank’s guns. Only theirs were blanks. Somebody used real live deadly bullets.”
“Gracious me.” Maude dunked a French fry in ketchup and splashed Tabasco sauce on it. “So how come no one heard the shot?”
Rachel snorted. “Maude, hello? Elmer and Hank were banging away at the same time. Come to think of it, the murderer must have planned it that way.”
“Oh, really. Now you’re Miss Marple. What makes you think it was murder?”
“Well, what else could it be?”
“Suicide? Accident?”
Rachel showed these suggestions the disdain she was sure they deserved.
Katie had remained standing by their booth, ignoring the increasingly desperate signals from the two tourists at the next table. “Say, Rachel, weren’t you taking tickets for the excursion on Saturday? You must have seen the victim. What did he look like?”
Before Rachel could answer, they heard an angry growl from the bar. “God damn it, can’t a man eat his lunch in peace? God damn ghouls around here.” Griffin scratched his stubbly chin and pointed a fretful finger at the women. “You’d think no one had ever been killed before, the way you people go on and on.”
Rachel, enchanted by the way his eyes shimmered in the sunlight, didn’t respond. Maude snapped, “Professor Tate, just because you’re an old roué doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a little mystery. Not much happens in Penhallow after all. We’re entitled to some excitement.”
Griffin bristled at her. “A man is dead, Maude. This isn’t a movie.”
“Well,” she bristled back, “At least he was from away.”
Griffin gave her a long, hard look and, before turning back to his plate, muttered, “Like me.”
For some reason his words struck hard at Rachel’s heart. She couldn’t see his face, and knew it wouldn’t show the hurt anyway, but she could feel it from across the room. To a Mainer, anyone who couldn’t trace his Maine lineage back to at least the French and Indian War was considered “from away.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Although M. S. Spencer has lived or traveled in five continents, the last 30 years were spent mostly in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant, speechwriter, editor, birdwatcher, kayaker, policy wonk, non-profit director, and parent. She has two fabulous grown children, and currently divides her time between the Gulf coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine.
CONTACTS:
Blog: http://msspencertalespinner.blogspot.com OR
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AUTHOR PAGES:
Secret Cravings Publishing: http://store.secretcravingspublishing.com/index.php?main_page=products_all&filter_author=56
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Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/M.S.-Spencer/e/B002ZOEUC8/
OTHER BOOKS BY M. S. SPENCER
Romantic suspense and mystery, they are available in ebook and print from Secret Cravings Publishing and all fine on-line book stores. For more information, visit http://msspencertalespinner.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html
Whirlwind Romance
The Mason's Mark: Love and Death in the Tower (an Old Town Romance)
Lapses of Memory
Mai Tais & Mayhem: Murder at Mote Marine (a Sarasota Romance)
Artful Dodging: The Torpedo Factory Murders (an Old Town Romance)
Triptych
Losers Keepers
An antique train, a mysterious corpse, a
bank robbery, a treasure map, and romantic rumblings make for passion and
adventure in small town Maine.
Griffin Tate, hero of my new mystery romance the Penhallow
Train Incident, is a retired Middle
Eastern history professor and becomes ensnared in the search for a fictional
map to the Queen of Sheba’s tomb. Now, it’s uncertain whether the Queen of
Sheba ever existed, or where the land of Sheba was, but according to the Bible,
the Ethiopian Book of Kings, and many legends throughout the Middle East, she
came from a nation in the south to meet with King Solomon. She has always
intrigued scholars and in the Penhallow Train Incident, she draws not only Tate, but the lovely Rachel Tinker
and a slew of quirky characters into her mystery.
M. S. Spencer
Sweet Cravings Publishing (June 2, 2015)
Romantic Suspense/Mystery, M/F, 2 flames
BLURB:
In the sleepy coastal Maine town of
Penhallow, a stranger dies on a train,
drawing Rachel Tinker, director of the Penhallow Historical Society, and
Griffin Tate, curmudgeonly retired
professor, into a spider’s web of archaeological obsession and greed. The
victim’s rival confesses that they were both after a map to the Queen of
Sheba’s tomb, and with his help they set out to find it. Their plans are
stymied, however, when a tug of war erupts between the sheriff and a state
police detective who want to arrest the same man—one for murder and one for
bank robbery. It falls to Rachel to solve both crimes…and two more murders, if
she is to unlock the soft heart that beats under Griffin’s hard crust.
EXCERPT
(G): WE MEET GRIFFIN
“Another
Geary’s, Rachel?”
“What?
Yeah, I guess so. Just to keep you company, Maude.”
“Thanks.”
Her companion, a woman of about sixty with close-cropped, iron-gray hair and
the beginnings of jowls, gave the word all the sarcasm she had available. The
bright brown eyes that reminded Rachel of an intelligent squirrel sought out
the waitress. “Hey Katie, can you bring us a couple more?”
The
waitress, a compact brunette with a wide grin, brought two bottles over. As she
uncapped them, she nodded at the window behind the two women. “Looks like we’re
in for a blow.” Rachel and Maude followed her gaze to Penhallow Harbor. The sky
to the north held piles of white cloud, cascading down the cliff to hover over
the mouth of the river as it flowed into Penobscot Bay.
Rachel
stared at them dubiously. “They don’t look all that threatening to me.”
Katie
shrugged. “Ask Griffin. He considers himself our resident weather expert.” All
three shifted to stare at the tall man seated at the bar, his back to them. The
cap, flannel shirt, and worn trousers with suspenders should have signaled an
old salt, grizzled and wrinkled, but they knew better. Griffin was only about
fifty, but he liked to pretend he was time-worn and crusty. It rarely worked.
Any vulnerable woman who took note of his strong chin, deep blue eyes, and
thickly curling, salt-and-pepper hair, would immediately recognize a sexy man
with depths of feeling only a special strategy could penetrate. Add to that a
barrel chest, long-fingered hands, and shapely legs, and you had what Maude
described as a latter-day Prince Valiant—“Only without that stupid hairdo.”
Griffin
twisted on his stool. “Cumulus. Five thousand feet. They’ll pass out to the
bay.”
Katie
shook her head, but Rachel noticed a gleam in her eye. “No sirree, those are
storm clouds. You folks from away can’t read ‘em like we do. See that gray mass
over there by Young’s?”
“Huh.”
He peered at it, his eyebrows wiggling. “Most likely smog.”
“Smog!
That’s ridiculous. How could we have smog in Maine?”
“Wood
fires.” The man turned back to the bar.
Maude
rolled her eyes. “Griffin gets less verbose every day.”
Rachel
demurred. “To be fair, he’s never been much for words.”
“True.
Hardly said two or three since he arrived in Penhallow…how long ago? Two years?
Wait, wasn’t that just about the time you moved here?” She winked. “You sure
there was nothing going on between you two down at Queenstown University?”
Her
companion glared at her. “I told you before. I didn’t know him then. He was a
professor of Middle Eastern history at the Institute and I was a lowly
instructor in Anthropology in the college. Paths like ours never crossed.”
“Institute?”
“Institute
of Higher Learning.” She raised her voice. “It’s a glorified think tank for the
most eminent scientists and academicians. Gives ‘em an excuse to laze around
dreaming up inoperable systems and unworkable theories to gum up our lives.”
“Whoa,
somebody has a chip on her shoulder.”
“I
can’t help it.” Rachel pondered her former colleague, his head bent over his
plate, and whispered, “Griffin was a prick then and he’s a prick now. Too bad
he’s so handsome.”
Maude
sniggered. “Yeah, too bad.”
The
subject of their abuse did not react and after a moment the two women returned
to their beers. When Katie arrived with two plates piled with lobster rolls,
French fries, and coleslaw, Rachel asked her, “So, have they identified the
corpse yet?”
The
waitress nodded, her eyes alight. “Yeah—Sheriff Quimby was in this morning. He
says the guy was a foreigner—Omar something. I couldn’t possibly pronounce his
name. Some kinda Middle Eastern type.”
Maude
glanced toward Griffin. “Middle Eastern, huh? Hmm. And he was shot, you say?”
“That’s
what the sheriff says. Shot with a .45 caliber—just like the ammunition in
Elmer’s and Hank’s guns. Only theirs were blanks. Somebody used real live
deadly bullets.”
“Gracious
me.” Maude dunked a French fry in ketchup and splashed Tabasco sauce on it. “So
how come no one heard the shot?”
Rachel
snorted. “Maude, hello? Elmer and
Hank were banging away at the same time. Come to think of it, the murderer must
have planned it that way.”
“Oh,
really. Now you’re Miss Marple. What makes you think it was murder?”
“Well,
what else could it be?”
“Suicide?
Accident?”
Rachel
showed these suggestions the disdain she was sure they deserved.
Katie
had remained standing by their booth, ignoring the increasingly desperate
signals from the two tourists at the next table. “Say, Rachel, weren’t you
taking tickets for the excursion on Saturday? You must have seen the victim.
What did he look like?”
Before
Rachel could answer, they heard an angry growl from the bar. “God damn it,
can’t a man eat his lunch in peace? God damn ghouls around here.” Griffin
scratched his stubbly chin and pointed a fretful finger at the women. “You’d
think no one had ever been killed before, the way you people go on and on.”
Rachel,
enchanted by the way his eyes shimmered in the sunlight, didn’t respond. Maude
snapped, “Professor Tate, just because you’re an old roué doesn’t mean we can’t
enjoy a little mystery. Not much happens in Penhallow after all. We’re entitled
to some excitement.”
Griffin
bristled at her. “A man is dead, Maude. This isn’t a movie.”
“Well,”
she bristled back, “At least he was from away.”
Griffin
gave her a long, hard look and, before turning back to his plate, muttered,
“Like me.”
For
some reason his words struck hard at Rachel’s heart. She couldn’t see his face,
and knew it wouldn’t show the hurt anyway, but she could feel it from across
the room. To a Mainer, anyone who couldn’t trace his Maine lineage back to at
least the French and Indian War was considered “from away.”
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Although
M. S. Spencer has lived or traveled in five continents, the last 30 years were
spent mostly in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant,
speechwriter, editor, birdwatcher, kayaker, policy wonk, non-profit director,
and parent. She has two fabulous grown children, and currently divides her time
between the Gulf coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine.
CONTACTS:
AUTHOR PAGES:
Amazon Author Page:
OTHER
BOOKS BY M. S. SPENCER
