[sufue]

Several short stories by Julie Smith have dropped to FREE right now at Kindle US.

In the Rebecca Schwartz series:

Blood Types
link: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-types-R.../dp/B00QKWMJEC

Spoiler:

A BAFFLING CALL, FOLLOWED BY TRAGEDY!
If you’re a lawyer, and someone you haven’t heard from in years calls to ask how to execute a holographic will, what are you to think if he dies the next day?

This is a dark, dark story…actually very unlike San Francisco attorney Rebecca Schwartz’s usual outings. Rebecca’s usually given to displaying her wit and using her wits, but she mostly does the latter here—so perhaps this one will appeal more to noir than cozy fans. Even with her usual humorous turn of mind dialed down a notch, Rebecca’s still an ace detective, still operating in a meticulously drawn Bay Area, still solving a baffling murder mystery, so, when all said and done, still a female sleuth to love! Just one having a bad day.

For all fans of female protagonists, Bay Area mysteries, and the occasional case of literary shivers!

Cul-de-Sac
link: https://www.amazon.com/Cul-Sac-Rebec.../dp/B00QJV23UO

Spoiler:

A ROOMMATE SEARCH TURNS DARK…
When Julie Smith’s much-loved lawyer sleuth, Rebecca Schwartz, helps a friend move, she’s pretty surprised to find the new roommate digging a grave. This mystery short story’s a bit darker than most of Rebecca’s adventures, although the irrepressible San Francisco lawyer manages to keep her famous sense of humor.

A great introduction for those who haven’t yet read Rebecca, introduced the same year as Kinsey Millhone and V.I. Warshawski, but a completely different brand of female sleuth—a bit less super-human, we’re afraid. Rebecca’s loveable for her very bumbling human-ness rather than her super-powers.

At the time, she was a bit hard-boiled, but mysteries with female sleuths have changed so much her humorous adventures could now be considered on the cozy side. (Except for the sometimes-un-cozy language. A warning to readers offended by such—stick fingers firmly in ears!)

In the Paul McDonald series:

Montezuma's Other Revenge
link: https://www.amazon.com/Montezumas-Ot.../dp/B00QVPRL64

Spoiler:

THE CURSE OF THE PUZZLED PI...
Sometime San Francisco private investigator Paul Mcdonald wears lots of hats: ex-reporter, struggling mystery writer, devoted cat owner, and friend to a number of shady characters--who tend to get him into trouble. Paul’s not so much hard-boiled as smart-mouthed (in a highly charming way!)--and broke.

But this time his $55 an hour fee leads from investigating a friendly burgling-by-acquaintance to a brutal murder. An Aztec sculpture of questionable origin has gone missing, leaving a wake of misfortune that seems to point to a curse: psychotropic drugs, pre-Columbian art, sacrificial maidens… Paul traces the statue to a South of Market loft at the intersection of the international art world and a cult devoted to the revival of the Aztec religion.

WHO WILL LIKE IT: Fans of CASTLE, MURDER SHE WROTE, even ELLERY QUEEN will enjoy this fast-paced and funny take on the mystery-writer-as-detective. As will people who like their male sleuths wry, witty, and a little on the soft-boiled side—fans of Parnell Hall’s Stanley Hastings, say, Tony Dunbar’s Tubby Dubonnet, Gregory Mcdonald’s Fletch (this Mcdonald, it's worth noting, is Paul’s personal hero), Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr, and especially Rex Stout’s Archie Goodwin. Female sleuths with a sense of humor remind us of him too—for instance, Criminal Minds’ Penelope Garcia and the immortal Amelia Peabody (of whom he’d be terrified if they ever met).

In the Talba Wallis series:

Kid Trombone
link: https://www.amazon.com/Kid-Trombone-.../dp/B00PKX0NTK

Spoiler:

JAZZ ROYALTY, MEAN STREETS, AND ... MURDER!
The troubled heir of a great New Orleans musical legacy has been gunned down. The writer who researched his obituary has met a sudden death.
Coincidence?Or did he know too much?

The Big Easy’s premier jazz singer, Queenie Feran, thinks there’s more to it than an accidental overdose, and she hires PI and poet Talba Wallis--AKA the Baroness de Pontalba--to uncover the truth. The Baroness rubs elbows with jazz royalty, sounding them out for clues and swaddling the reader in New Orleans ambience, before she takes to the mean streets to uncover the victim’s secret life.

WHO WILL LIKE IT: This short story will appeal to fans of Talba, the smart, sassy, African American computer wiz who's also a gifted poet and detective, and Julie Smith’s other New Orleans detective, Skip Langdon. (As well as authors of female PI series like Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Linda Barnes, and Laura Lippman; and intrepid African-American female protagonists like Jackie Brown, Christie Love, Anita Van Buren on Law and Order, Whoopi Goldberg’s unexpected Bernie Rhodenbarr, not to mention the incomparable Olivia Pope of Scandal.) Bottom line: Expect a kickass African-American female detective--with the soul of a poet!

In the Skip Langdon series:

Meet Skip Langdon includes two short stories: Always Othello and The End of the Earth
link: https://www.amazon.com/Meet-Skip-Lan.../dp/B00PKUIYGC

Spoiler:

A MINI-MYSTERY ANTHOLOGY: TWO SKIP LANGDON SHORT STORIES
Back when the first Skip Langdon mystery won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, Skip was a six-foot post-deb cop with authority issues. She was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer, but say the word “supposed to” and she was outta there. But now she IS the authority, the most famous cop in New Orleans and one of the most engaging female sleuths in the mystery genre. If you haven’t met her, now’s the time, in this mini-anthology composed of two short stories, both mysteries, both starring Skip.

In ALWAYS OTHELLO, clever detective work leads to the killer of an acquaintance, someone Skip feels kind of personal about. You know how every neighborhood has its characters, the people you see every day but don’t really know? Well, Franny Futura was one in Skip’s French Quarter neighborhood—a Tarot reader who dressed in a ladylike silver suit with a spaceship hat. Was it true she was really a man? Where did her money come from? And why were none of her fellow fortune-tellers surprised at her death? The trail leads right to The question, the ONLY question anyone ever asks a Tarot reader.

THE END OF THE EARTH just might be the only mystery short story ever written that’s set in Antarctica! Detective Skip Langdon of the New Orleans Police Department and her long-time beau Steve Steinman find themselves sailing the Southern Ocean after winning a trip to the least populous continent, but not staying in fancy hotels because there’s no place to build any! The whole vacation’s a cruise, providing the perfect background for a cozy country house mystery—except the country home’s the ship. Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen fans will enjoy this unusual take on their favorite writers' favorite trick, as well as fans of police procedurals and strong women sleuths.

It's also probably worth noting that New Orleans Mourning, the first in Smith's Skip Langdon series, is a long time freebie, so most of us (who want it) probably have it, but if not, here's a link: https://www.amazon.com/New-Orleans-M.../dp/B007W97WJY