This week we ponder on the idea that maybe a person's backstory could be all wrong. Maybe a rescue was really a crime? Who knows? But lets find out in Have You Seen Him by Kimberly Lee.

Synopsis

What if everything you believed about yourself was totally wrong?

For David Byrdsong, life is a series of daily obligations. An attorney, he lacks both ambition and the ability to commit to a long-term relationship with his girlfriend, Gayle. Abandoned by his family at an airport when he was eleven, he learned to blunt his feelings, despite his subsequent adoption by a loving couple.

Until one day, when David discovers his own face in a missing child ad. Suddenly driven to uncover the truth about his past, he is forced to tap into his inner strength as he encounters corporate conspiracies, murdered bystanders, and distressing suspicions about the only family he’s ever really trusted. David enlists Gayle’s help—and the help of an unlikely stranger with secrets of his own—as he attempts to find his true family, whoever they are.

Have You Seen Him is a story of lost identity, dangerous secrets, and a deeply personal pursuit of the truth.

Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub | Powells

This week we are traveling back in time to the 1880's to Brooklyn Heights. Leona and her husband Gil are trying to create income after being stolen from, but what adventures await on their journey. Find out in The Last Fatal Hour.

Synopsis:

For Leona Gladney, former woman soldier of the Union Army, life goes on despite the echoes of the battlefield in her heart. Now a suffragist and budding socialite in Brooklyn Heights, she yearns for a literary life and family. But her husband’s business partner embezzles their money and disappears. The society matrons of Brooklyn Heights turn a gimlet eye on Leona after the suspicious death of a wealthy friend. Leona will do anything to find justice for her friend and clear her own name, but she finds only secrets, seances and murder.

Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads

Music Credits:

Libertas

https://upbeat.io/t/christopher-galavan/libertas

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Point Blank

https://upbeat.io/t/arend/point-blank

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Hindsight

https://upbeat.io/t/christopher-galavan/hindsight

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Visit Teresa's blog at https://teresatrent.blog

Against the backdrop of WWII, no one expected to find a murdered stagehand on a Warner Brothers sound stage. With so much at stake, Jack L. Warner hires Babs Norman and Guy Brandt, the two young private eyes who recently resolved his high-profile Maltese Falcon/Blackbird Killer Case. Social justice crusader Leon Lewis suspects local Nazi sympathizers are responsible. Lewis assigns a German stuntman, a veteran of the decadent subculture of Weimar Berlin nightlife and one of his newest operatives, to join forces with the private detectives.

According to Warner, the show must go on, but everything from bomb scares to the Japanese internment, to unruly parrots, forbidden love, and family crises conspires against solving the crime. “As Time Goes By,” actors Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and the rest of the Casablanca ensemble join the professional private eyes to round up the unusual suspects and capture the killer.

Love 1940s classic movies? Treat yourself to the award-winning Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles (Book 1) and Bye, Bye Blackbird (Book 2) of Elizabeth Crowens’ Babs Norman’s Golden Age of Hollywood mystery series by Level Best Books.

Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub

Music Credits

Happy Swingy Chef

https://uppbeat.io/t/giulio-fazio/happy-swingy-chef

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The Usual Suspects

https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/the-usual-suspects

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Anxiety

https://uppbeat.io/t/dada/anxiety

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Books to the Ceiling is a part of Teresa Trent's Author Blog at https://teresatrent.blog

This week we are joining Jessica Fletcher out in Hollywood to compete in a game show and she brings along the town doctor, the sheriff and his wife. This is a fun one, and a Murder She Wrote you won't want to miss!

The newest delightful entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series, featuring mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher.

Jessica Fletcher and friends Seth Hazlitt and Maureen and Mort Metzger team up for pub trivia and crush the competition, then are stunned to learn that the prize is a chance to appear in a five-day trivia tournament filming in LA.

No one expects life-or-death stakes! But on day one of the tournament, a crew member is murdered. Who would benefit from derailing the show? Jessica has to come up with the ultimate answer.

In a metafictional twist, the investigation takes Jessica and the gang to the filming locations of their favorite mystery shows, where they discuss how Columbo, Monk, or Jim Rockford might go about solving the case.

Purchase Links

Amazon - B&N - Kobo - Bookshop.org - Penguin Random House

Music Credits

Spring March

https://uppbeat.io/t/jacob-taylor-armerding/spring-march

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Achaidh-Cheide

https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-macleod/achaidh-cheide

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Visit Teresa's blog: Books to the Ceiling to find an archive of all the podcasts and to check out the giveaway page for your chance at ebooks and gift cards.

In the rush to subscribe to true-crime podcasts these days, we think it's something new, but what if I told you about The Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club who has been digging around in old cases for over two hundred years? Today we are looking at this group of nosy, yet terribly smart, old ladies and three mysteries they solve. Our excerpt will be from the first book in the series, The Ghost and the Key, where they go after a murderer from 192 years ago.

With a pitchfork through the man's groin and another through his chest, it is clear that someone had murdered Chester H. Cranberry. It's not something that could have happened accidentally. But that was 192 years ago. As Mildred Cranberry, the current family matriarch, puts it, "We have two women, two keys, two pitchforks, and one dead two-timing man." Who in their right mind would want to dig up that cold case and try to solve it? It's not like the murderer could be prosecuted in 2024, right? But what if a key piece of evidence can be dug up (literally)? And what if a descendant of Chester's illegitimate child can get her hands on it? Mildred will need more than the Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club members to solve this bizarre case. The spiritual support she needs may not be what she expects when the ghost of Elcira Cranberry, the widow murderess herself, arrives to do what? Tell the truth or protect her reputation?

The Ladies Garden Club of Old Cranberry, Connecticut, has a 200-year history that has remained shrouded in secrecy for so long, it has been lost to history, until now. Elcira Cranberry and freedwoman Deborah Townsend knew the men of the town would have no interest in a garden club, so it was the perfect cover for their secret organization. Now, nearly two centuries later, the current members have no idea what those ladies were up to in the early 1800s, right here in Connecticut. But the secret will soon be out.

Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub

Music Credits:

Life

https://uppbeat.io/t/christopher-galovan/life

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Quiet Versus Silence

https://uppbeat.io/t/daniel-diaz/quiet-versus-silent

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Books to the Ceiling is a part of Teresa Trent's Blog.

This week we're headed to New Orleans, 1831 to the St. Louis Cemetery #2. It's hot and smelly and we are with the character of Tobias Whitney who works there. Get ready for a creepy cemetery vibe, as Tobias discovers the secrets hidden among the dead.

In bustling, multicultural 1831 New Orleans, Tobias Whitney, the sexton of St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, uncovers a journal sealed inside the tomb of Dominique You—war hero of the Battle of New Orleans, privateer, and half-brother of the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte. Convinced that the journal holds the key to Lafitte’s lost treasure, Tobias turns to his sharp-witted and outspoken wife, Mary Catherine, to translate its cryptic French passages.

Tobias and Mary Catherine discover secrets they could not have imagined—secrets that could change their lives forever. But is it really the truth? As the journal warns, Never trust a pirate!

Lafitte Lives blends meticulous historical research with a page-turning mystery, bringing the legend of Jean Lafitte to life while telling the redemptive story of Tobias's grief and Mary Catherine's quest to help him overcome it.

Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads

Music Credits:

Mysteries

https://uppbeat.io/t/all-ambient/mysteries

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Cold Prito

https://uppbeat.io/t/struktura/coldprito

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This week we travel back in time to go to a wedding, in 1965. Dot Morgan is getting married to the love of her life. Wedding preparations include cakes, flowers, music and murder. This is my fifth installment in the Swinging Sixties Series, but if you haven't read the first four, don't worry. Crying in the Chapel can be read as a standalone. So, grab your go-go boots and let's get that church.

It's August 1965, and Dot Morgan is finally getting married to the dashing reporter Ben Dalton. Her wedding day, August 14th, promises to be perfect—if only it didn't follow Friday the 13th. What could go wrong? Planning a wedding with the members of the Camden Chapel, Dot thinks she’s overwhelmed, but then it gets worse when a body is found on the church lawn. Dot decides to focus on her wedding to Ben, but when police reveal the victim didn't jump from the belfry he was pushed—she can no longer look away.

Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads

Music Credit

In Bloom

https://uppbeat.io/t/justin-lee/in-bloom

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Do you love Agatha Christie? As a mystery author, I've spent time reading her books and watching the movies made from them. Studying Agatha Christie can only help an author who deals with killers, red herrings, clues and pacing. I met this week's author at Malice Domestic, a mystery conference in Maryland, and even though I had no room in my suitcase, had to pick up a copy of her book, Agatha Christie, She Watched. Since then it has had a prominent place on my bookshelf and I am slowly getting through the movies Teresa Peschel researched. It's like a masterclass on Agatha Christie, and great for a dark and stormy night. Agatha Christie, She Watched is a big, well illustrated book, and worth every inch it will take on your book shelf.

Care to match wits with Hercule Poirot? Share tea and gossip with Miss Marple? Chase spies with Tommy and Tuppence? "Agatha Christie, She Watched" will introduce you to must-see movies (and must-avoid) dogs that prove Agatha's genius depicting the hopeful and dark sides of human nature. These movies will tantalize you, mystify you, and make you laugh at the folly of humanity.

Teresa Peschel watched and reviewed 201 adaptations, from the German silent movie "Adventures, Inc." (1929) to "See How They Run" and "Why Didn't They Ask Evans" (2022). Each film was rated for fidelity to the original material and its overall quality. Each review takes up two pages and comes with six cast photos, list of major actors, and known film locations. Foreign movies with English subtitles from India, France, Russia, and Japan are included. We include eight movies in which the fictional Agatha Christie solves murder mysteries, debates Poirot, battles a space wasp (in Doctor Who), and plots to kill her husband's mistress.

“Agatha Christie, She Watched” is the only comprehensive collection of reviews about Christie adaptations. Use it to find the movies made from the novels you love, fill in your movie collection or host an Agatha Christie festival of your own.

Book Links: Amazon | KindleUnlimited | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub | Peschel Press

Music Credits

Cloud Recesses

https://uppbeat.io/t/dada/cloud-recesses

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