Lazarus

by Maryanne Melloan Woods

Overview

In tiny, god-forsaken Lazarus, Nebraska, Margo and Hank team up to solve a local murder, with Margo doing the detective work and the late Hank spying on suspects unseen. At the same time, Margo attempts to solve the cold case of her mother's murder seven years earlier. 

As Margo's quest becomes more perilous, Hank will try to protect her, anguished that he can't do more as she finally battles the sinister forces that killed her mother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781945654633
Publisher:	Owl Hollow Press, LLC
Publication date:	09/08/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	844 KB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Maryanne Melloan Woods is a novelist/ screenwriter/ playwright currently living in the New York area. She received a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Drew University and an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

As a TV writer/producer, Maryanne has written shows for networks including Showtime, NBC, ABC, Fox, the WB, Nickelodeon and ABC Family.

Maryanne's plays have been produced by HBO's New Writers Project, the Mark Taper Forum, and many theatres around the country. Maryanne has won the New England Theatre Conference's John Gassner Playwriting Contest and the Venice (CA) Playwrights' Festival. She also received a playwriting grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her play, Smells Like Gin, was the first play produced by Writers Theatre of New Jersey, and she recently won "Best Comedy Script" in the Nashville Film Festival's screenwriting competition for her screenplay Steve.

She has taught screenwriting at the Gotham Writers Workshop in New York, UCLA and the American Film Institute, and served as a panelist for TV writing seminars at NYU and the University of Wisconsin. Maryanne was also a mentor/teacher for The Unusual Suspects, a playwriting workshop for at-risk teens in L.A.

Maryanne is represented by Liza Fleissig of Liza Royce Agency.

Editorial Reviews

"Lazarus is a humorous, haunted whodunit that will keep you guessing-and laughing-until the bittersweet end."

-Karol Ruth Silverstein, Cursed

"Veronica Mars meets Encyclopedia Brown for the digital age. Two teenage sleuths solve crimes in this clever caper sure to

engross even cozy mystery fans."

-Lynn B, Media Netgalley review

"Lazarus holds everything you could want from a YA novel and more; suspense, an unsolved mystery, young love, and some teenage drama."

-Kimberly V, Goodreads review

From the Publisher

2020-11-16
In Woods’ YA paranormal mystery, secrets surface in the small town of Lazarus, Nebraska, when two teens investigate a murder.

Margo and Hank are deeply in love, their connection so strong it still exists two months after Hank’s death after accidentally being hit by a car. Margo alone can see and talk to him, which is hard to keep from her best friend Delia and her police chief father. Hank knows he stayed behind for a reason—to watch over Margo—although it pains him to see his family falling apart after his death. When a murder occurs and Margo’s father is sidelined by a heart attack, the two teens put their investigative minds to work. Suddenly, everyone in their little town is a suspect, and the couple’s research leads Margo down a dangerous rabbit hole. And then the clues seem to connect the new murder with the cold case of Margo’s mother, murdered years before. As time passes, Hank starts feeling tugged toward the afterlife, but how can he leave Margo behind with so much going on? The novel effectively toggles between Margo’s and Hank’s first-person perspectives in their small town full of secrets­­­. Hank’s ability as a ghost to watch and follow suspects at will, as well as the help he receives from other ghosts, is a bit too convenient, but it allows for the young couple to form an engaging dynamic. It’s assumed the audience will understand why Hank and Margo are so devoted to each other—readers enter the story after their coupledom has developed—but their connection is well portrayed and authentic.

A touching, bittersweet, albeit cont­­rived, whodunit.

Kirkus Reviews