WALKING INTO MURDER: Book One of the Laura Morland Mystery series

by Joan Lambert

Overview

Walking into Murder is a cozy mystery with a strong setting and distinctive characters: wonderfully appealing amateur sleuth Laura Morland, a Professor of Gender Studies; a country manor full of British eccentrics, and the Cotswolds, site of Laura’s planned walking tour through England’s quaintest villages and most verdant countryside.

Still smarting from her husband’s unexpected (though not entirely unwelcome) defection, Laura accepts an invitation to teach a seminar on gender in London. First, she decides to test her new independence by walking the Cotswold Way. The walk soon takes unexpected turns. Lost in thick fog, Laura is accosted by a man who may or may not be a murderer but forces her to pose as his wife lest someone be killed. Escorted at gunpoint to Torrington Manor by an aristocratic Englishman, she is confronted by a formidable grande dame, an outrageously rude child and a houseful of other eccentrics. When she discovers a dead body that keeps changing its identity in one of the bedrooms, Laura realizes that someone in the Manor is a killer. But who? Everyone in this bizarre household seems to have multiple identities and multiple motivations, which means that any of them could be the villain.

Laura’s curiosity is almost as uncontrollable as her over-curly hair, and she tackles the mystery with abandon. The plot gets ever more tangled, the list of suspects longer, and Laura’s verbal battles with her abductor – to whom she is undeniably attracted – more pointed. She finds allies as well: Catherine, a free-spirited American runaway whose involvement leads to a breath-taking confrontation on the moors, Nigel, a teen-ager with multiple talents like mask-making and sculpture, and (possibly) a former theatrical dresser. A more dubious occasional ally is Laura’s alternately charming and irritating, and always baffling, would-be husband.

As the efforts of the villains to silence her become more frantic, Laura’s strategies to escape them become more ingenious. With her usual disregard for the escalating danger, she vows to outwit them all. And she does. In a final dramatic scene with an unexpected twist, she zeroes in on the murderer, or it might be more accurate to say the murderer zeroes in on her.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940033117147
Publisher:	Joan Lambert
Publication date:	03/17/2012
Series:	Laura Morland Mysteries
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	129,684
File size:	712 KB

About the Author

Joan Dahr Lambert is an academic who accidentally became a novelist when she set out to write her first book. Intended as a non-fiction account of female contributions to human evolution (about which she knows a great deal), it mysteriously transformed itself into a novel as words and scenes appeared in her mind. That was CIRCLES OF STONE (Simon& Schuster 1997), and she has never looked back. Since then she has written two other books in the Mother People Series: CIRCLES IN THE SKY, which tells the story of the next Zena, and ICE BURIAL, which tells the story of the 5,000 year old Iceman discovered as glaciers melted in Italy and will be published soon. On a lighter note, Lambert also writes British-style mysteries. Books One and Two in the series, WALKING INTO MURDER and WADING INTO MURDER feature Professor Laura Morland, an irrepressible sleuth with a love of adventure, an impetuous nature, and a tendency to be in the wrong place at the right time - all traits that land her in unusual and often dangerous situations as she pursues her love of walking in England and other parts of Europe. It is no accident that Laura goes on walking trips; so does her author. Nor is it accidental that Laura is a professor of Gender Studies. Lambert has studied gender issues for more than thirty years. Book Three in the series, SKIING INTO MURDER, continues Laura's adventures, this time on skis (a sport she also enjoys but at which she feels singularly inept) in the famous towns of Zermatt and Murren in Switzerland. Book Four, as yet unnamed, will return to England, this time in Cornwall; Book Five will take place in Norway. Writing the mysteries has been one of the most joyous occupations I could ever have imagined. It is FUN! Hard work, harder than a prehistoric novel because mysteries have to be so tightly plotted and one has to keep track of what is in every person's head at any given moment - no mean feat, I discovered. Mysteries also provide a way to talk about some of my passions - like female sex slavery and forced child prostitution - while maintaining a light-hearted tone. That's a challenge, and I like it. I also hope that by addressing these problems in an entertaining way, I can make more people aware of their existence and the need to address them. Thanks for listening to me! Joan Dahr Lambert