FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Seattle, WA—On April 1, 2018, Camel Press will release Three Strikes, You’re Dead ($15.95, 288 pages, ISBN: 978-1-60381-727-1) by Elena Hartwell, the third book in the Eddie Shoes Mystery series, set in Washington State. Private investigator Eddie Shoes heads to a resort outside Leavenworth, Washington, for a mother-daughter getaway weekend. Eddie’s mother, Chava, wants to celebrate her new job at a casino by footing the bill for the two of them, and who is Eddie to say no?
On the first morning, Eddie goes on an easy solo hike, and a few hours later, stumbles upon a makeshift campsite and a gravely injured man. A forest fire breaks out and she struggles to save him before the flames overcome them both. The man hands her a valuable rosary and tells her his daughter is missing and begs for her help. He dies before he can tell her more information. Is Eddie now working for a dead man?
Barely escaping the fire, Eddie wakes in the hospital to find both her parents have arrived on the scene. Will Eddie’s card-counting mother and mob-connected father help or hinder the investigation? The police search in vain for a body. How will Eddie find the missing girl with only Eddie’s memory of the man’s face and a photo of his daughter to go on?
Says Hartwell, “In book three, I wanted to explore the other side of Eddie’s family history. Readers often ask about her father, Eduardo, so I decided to give him a little more time in the spotlight. This story also expands on my interest in the experiences of people who come to this country to build new lives, both legally and illegally. Of course, I couldn’t leave Chava out, so she’s in there too. A triangle is always more interesting than a duo. I hope readers enjoy the twists in the plot and seeing the relationships evolve as much as I did.”
Praise for the Eddie Shoes Mysteries:
Two Heads Are Deader Than One: 5 Stars: “A delightful heroine in a story that promises pleasant romance and a hint of danger with a twist of an ending. This will keep one from ever putting this book down!”
—InD’tale Magazine
Two Heads Are Deader Than One: “Elena Hartwell has conjured up a plausible protagonist and done a good job of plunking her into a setting and plot that nicely suit her.” —Reviewing the Evidence
One Dead, Two to Go: “Hartwell has created quite a winner in the unique and clever Eddie Shoes, and this first case features not only a twisting, turning, fast-paced plot, but also a number of nuanced, quirky relationships.”
—RT Book Reviews
One Dead, Two to Go: “Avid Alphabet series connoisseurs should flock to this kick-off series.”
—InD’tale Magazine
Elena Hartwell’s writing career began in the theater, where she also worked as a director, designer, producer, and educator. Productions of her scripts have been performed around the U.S. and abroad. She lives in North Bend, Washington, with her husband. For more information go to www.elenahartwell.com.
Three Strikes, You’re Dead is currently available for presale in both eBook and 5×8 trade paperback on Amazon.com and BN.com. After April 1st, it will also be for sale on the European Amazons, Amazon Japan, and at select independent bookstores. Wholesale customers should contact Epicenter Press/Aftershocks Media (orders@epicenterpress.com), Ingram, or Baker & Taylor. Other electronic versions are available from Smashwords.
About Camel Press—Based in Kenmore, Washington, Camel Press is an imprint of Epicenter Press, Inc. We publish genre fiction: romance, mystery/suspense, science fiction, and fantasy—the books that grab you and hold you in their grip long into the night.
An Interview with Elena Hartwell
You started out your writing career as a playwright. How did you decide to start writing mysteries?
I have been a lifelong reader. From the Narnia Series to science fiction, historical fiction, and non-fiction, I’ve loved reading a wide variety of genres and styles. Fairly early on, however, my granny introduced me to mysteries. She loved the classics, like Tony Hillerman and Agatha Christie. As I got older, I began to read more and more mysteries, so while I still branch out, they are my go-to reading. I began working in the theater during my undergraduate years. I have been a director, designer, educator, and technician. Marrying my writing with theater made sense, so I spent twenty years working as a playwright. But deep down, I always wanted to write a novel. Plays are ephemeral, they last for a very short period of time. Novels last as long as the binding holds. I wrote my first novel about ten years ago. It wasn’t very good, but I learned a lot. I wrote another and another, until my fourth book was published and the Eddie Shoes Mystery Series was born.
How has your training in theater played into your fiction writing?
I’ve come to understand story structure pretty well through all my years of both writing and directing–and occasionally acting–for the theater. Nothing teaches a writer more about how to write tight, dramatic scenes as trying to hold an audience’s attention. For the most part, you get two hours onstage to tell your story, so every word and every moment has to count. Theater taught me how to handle exposition (background information) and how to write dialogue. It also taught me a lot about how to create complex characters. What it didn’t teach me was how to write descriptions! I had to learn that the hard way. According to an editor I worked with on my first novel, that first book had “fantastic atmosphere, but no details.” She couldn’t tell what anything looked like, just the mood it created. I’ve gotten much better at including a few specifics.
How has Eddie developed as a character since the first book, and how do you think she might continue to grow in the future?
One of the things I love most about Eddie is her independence. But one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about her evolution, is her newfound connection with and reliance on other people. She was an only child, with a teenage, single mother, no other close family, and few close friends. She moved away from her hometown of Spokane, Washington, and became a private investigator. She was just starting to rely on her mentor when he committed suicide (before the first novel). She fled to Bellingham, Washington, and started back from square one. Over the course of the novels, however, she’s let a few people into her life, including her mother. And now she has a dog, so her life is almost complete. Keep an eye out for future Eddie Shoes’ books, however, her lovelife might be what she explores next.
How does setting the story in Bellingham, WA, influence the plot and characters?
Bellingham is a wonderful town just south of Vancouver, Canada. I like it as a location to set the series for a number of reasons. From Bellingham, a character can hop on a train, catch a bus, or a sneak on a ferry. They could run for the border or head to Idaho, Montana, or lots of other places to hide. Interstate 5 stretches from the Canadian border to Mexico, so it’s a straight shot out of the country. It’s a college town, so there’s a very active younger population, which is also somewhat transient. There are funky neighborhoods, and a beautiful historic section with brick buildings and cobbled streets. It’s less than 100,000 people, so it has a small-town vibe, without it being out of the realm of possibility that a murder could take place. Weather has a big impact. It rains a lot of the year, so that has to be taken into account for stakeouts and following suspects around. It’s a laid-back community, without gang violence or “bad” neighborhoods, but there are drug problems just like everywhere else. While crime isn’t rampant, there are domestic squabbles, robberies, and justification for criminal activity in my plots. I am aware of the Cabot Cove dilemma, so I move Eddie around sometimes and have the murders take place in other locations. I can’t quite justify killing more than one person a year.
What authors have inspired your writing?
Sue Grafton was probably the writer who inspired me the most in terms of writing mysteries. She was the first female author I found and followed on my own. I love Kinsey Millhone. She’s funny and capable and practical, and also feels real. While I love books like the Jack Reacher novels, I don’t think about meeting that character in real life, Kinsey always felt like someone I could sit down and have a drink with. That’s what I love about Eddie. She feels real to me. She makes mistakes, but her heart is always in the right place. In terms of career, I love Dennis Lehane. I think writing a contemporary series and a historical series and several standalones is ideal. Being able to write different protagonists and time periods appeals to me. Lastly, I think the Hobbit is the perfect book. J. R. R. Tolkien’s ability to create a mythological world that integrated battles from world war one has stayed with me since childhood. As I’ve gotten older and began to understand how he merged his real world experiences into his epic novel, showed me how much impact a fiction author can have on humanity understanding itself. It let me see that even when a novel is “light” or designed to “entertain,” it can still have an underlying ethical component. While Eddie is a fun read, I like to think there’s something to be gained by spending time with her. When I used to teach at the college level, I sometimes told my students, what I hope for, is that you leave my class as better people, if you learn something about theater along the way, that’s the icing. I hope when people read Eddie they enjoy the experience, but that’s the icing on the cake. If they think about themselves or other people in a slightly different way, that’s the cake.
Talking Points
- Creating a mother/daughter crime duo
- Transitioning from writing plays to writing books
- Using Bellingham, WA, as a setting for The Eddie Shoes Mystery series
- Straddling the line between traditional mysteries and cozies
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