[sufue]

Three books by Michaela Thompson (pen name: Mickey Friedman) are available right now for reduced prices:

Paper Phoenix is a non-series title, on repeat US Kindle Countdown at $1.99 for about 2 more days, before going up to $2.99.
link: http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Phoenix-...dp/B00DD0B6HK/

Spoiler:

"Wickedly delicious... What makes (Thompson's) book so particularly wonderful is the way it accomplishes the detective novel's covert mission of urban analysis and social criticism." -San Francisco Examiner

"(Thompson) knows how to create that sense of place which is so important to any novel, but particularly to crime fiction; her characters are believable men and women in a real world..." -P.D. James

First comes divorce, then comes murder…

…or at least sweet thoughts of murder. Maggie Longstreet has plenty of them after slimy, ambitious Richard trades her in for a more recent model. She’s so depressed she can barely get out of bed when Larry Hawkins, a seemingly not-at-all depressed acquaintance, commits suicide out of the blue. Suddenly Maggie goes on high alert, remembering something her evil ex said about Larry—something highly suspicious.

And from there, it's just a short segué to a bracing new development:

“When some women get divorced they go back to school, I thought. Some do volunteer work at the hospital, or join communes and learn to birth calves. Some have affairs with inappropriate men. My new interest is burglary. Maggie Longstreet, former wife and mother, past president of the Museum Guild, now starting a career as a second-story woman.”

Fortunately, Maggie isn’t alone in her adventure—a very attractive, much younger man proves a lot more fun than Richard ever was. In fact, the real delight of this witty, sly mystery is seeing Maggie come alive again after a suffocating marriage. Set in the’70s, it has a bit of that Mad Men feel of women on the brink of something big. And completely unexpected.

You know Maggie’s going to be okay when she says: “I’d rather have had one of those cute little guns with a mother-of-pearl handle, but this (diamond pin) would have to do. I concealed it in my hand. At least now I was armed—or pinned.”

Magic Mirror is the first in the Georgia Lee Maxwell series. It is free right now, not sure for how long.
link: http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mirror-G...dp/B00EJXIO7U/

Spoiler:

"The debut of detective Georgia Lee Maxwell is an all-around delight … a brisk and witty book full of sharply unexpected events and packed with wonderfully robust characters." -Publisher's Weekly

"(Michaela Thompson has) given us a fresh new heroine in Georgia Lee Maxwell ... She is a delight, a right and funny lady with a breezy narrative voice." -Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

SACRE BLEU! THEY KILLED A MAN FOR A MIRROR!

Florida transplant Georgia Lee Maxwell doesn't take to Paris at first, despite the fact that she's at least leaving a no-good man and a hated job as a society editor. Now she's a Paris correspondent, thank you very much—a dream come true for any journalist.

There's just a slight down side—she arrives in freezing rain, gets caught in a traffic jam caused by a bomb scare, and hates her apartment; but the real Bonjour is finding herself face down on a museum floor during a robbery. "Killed for a boring story!" she thinks. But as it happens, she isn't the one who dies. Three terrifying masked gunmen shoot the unfortunate security guard.

They could have stolen all the treasures of Monte Cristo's cave, so to speak, but it turns out they've made off with only a mirror. True, it once belonged to the French seer Nostradamus, but it may be the museum's least valuable item.

Does it have some prophetic ability? Does someone know something the gendarmes don't? Here's what Georgia Lee knows: If she finds out first, she's a journalistic hero. If she doesn't, she's dead.

Michaela Thompson's ability to bring alive a locale shines here, and when the locale is Paris, what's not to like? The writing is crisp, the protagonist witty, and the mystery is twisty. A great choice for armchair travelers! Also for fans of Cara Black, Michael Bond, and of course, the great Georges Simenon. Admirers of Hank Phillippi Ryan and the HBO show, THE NEWSROOM, will love the journalistic background.

A Temporary Ghost is the second in the Georgia Lee Maxwell series. It's on repeat US Kindle Countdown for about 2 3/4 more days, at $0.99 before going up to $2.99.
link: http://www.amazon.com/Temporary-Ghos...dp/B00FVDMDOC/

Spoiler:

The SECOND novel in the Georgia Lee Maxwell series.

"[Michaela Thompson] has given us a fresh new heroine in Georgia Lee Maxwell . . . She is a delight, a bright and funny lady with a breezy narrative voice." -Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

"Georgia, bright and kooky, is an engaging narrator and her adventures come thick and fast." -(London) Times Literary Supplement (about the British edition)

"Witty, thoroughly enjoyable crime novel." -Jewish Gazette

A GHOST-WRITING GIG IN PROVENCE--SHE'S LIVING THE DREAM! UNTIL THE KILLING STARTS...

In journalist Georgia Lee Maxwell's second adventure, she leaves her new home in Paris for Provence, where she's been offered a lucrative ghost-writing job. But her co-author, suspected murderess Vivien Howard, the widow of a wealthy New York financier, seems strangely uninterested in writing her memoir Vivian was widely believed to have murdered her husband but was never charged with the crime, and now she promises to tell all.

Amid the beauties of Provence, settled in, a charming renovated farmhouse, Georgia Lee finds a household full of ill-feeling, not to mention suspicious characters -- Vivien's handsome artist lover, Ross; her neurotic daughter, Blanche; and Pedro Ruiz, a mysterious housekeeper who has accompanied them from New York.

Frustrated by Vivien's lack of cooperation and unnerved by threatening letters, Georgia Lee soon realizes that she has become a player in a more dangerous game than she could have imagined. And then there's another murder.

When Georgia Lee transplanted herself from Florida to Paris in Magic Mirror, Publishers Weekly applauded: "The debut of Georgia Lee Maxwell is an all-around delight. . . a brisk and witty book full of sharply unexpected events and packed with wonderfully robust characters."

As in Magic Mirror, Michaela Thompson's ability to bring alive a locale shines here. The writing is crisp, the protagonist witty, and the mystery is twisty. A great choice for armchair travelers! Also for fans of Cara Black, Michael Bond, and of course, the great Georges Simenon. Admirers of Hank Phillippi Ryan and the HBO show THE NEWSROOM will love the journalistic background.