Alana Woods’ book reviews: A DEAD RED ALIBI by RP Dahlke

November 15, 2014Book reviewsAmazon author pages, contemporary fiction, seriesAlana Woods

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Stephanie Plum step aside.

Lalla Bains—ex model, 5’10”, blond and extremely easy on the eye teams up with cousin and budding PI Pearlie and cop fiancé Caleb Stone to solve two murders, not least because Lalla’s dad is the chief suspect.

This is the 4th book in the Dead Red mystery series and at the end the author expresses the hope I enjoyed reading it as much as she enjoyed writing it. I can assure her I did!

I haven’t read the previous three in the series, not knowing about them until coming across this one, but I didn’t feel the lack of any essential knowledge about the characters. There was some economical back story to fill me in but essentially I think it’s complete enough in itself to stand alone.

Told in a deceptively easy-to-read style everything about it engages you: the storyline, the characters, the descriptions and the humour.

I say ‘deceptively easy to read’ because that style isn’t as easy to accomplish as some may imagine. It brought to mind one of my all-time favourite authors, Dick Francis. He had a similar writing style and he was a master with it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that RP Dahlke is another author who has finessed it.

I found myself comparing it to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series and I’m betting that if you like Stephanie you’re going to really like RP Dahlke’s Lalla Bains.

A DEAD RED ALIBI on Amazon

Take this link to my interview with RP Dahlke

Alana Woods interviews RP DAHLKE, author of The Dead Red mystery series

November 15, 2014Author InterviewsAmazon author pages, contemporary fiction, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, thrillerAlana Woods

My books on Amazon Imbroglio | Automaton | Tapestries | 25 Writing Tips

My guest today is Rebecca Dahlke, better known as RP Dahlke to her fans. I’ve just read the 4th book in her DEAD RED mystery series and it might be true to say that with the series Rebecca took to heart the advice given to many authors starting out, and that is to write what you know. I say that because the first three books at least centre on the crop dusting business and, like her heroine Lalla Bains, Rebecca worked in it herself.

Alana: Welcome Rebecca. First of all, do you prefer Rebecca or RP?

Rebecca: Rebecca is just fine!

Alana: You grew up in Modesto, California, but escaped to the city after running your father’s crop-dusting business for two years. Whereabouts is home nowadays? Any particular reason you chose it?

Rebecca: We were leaving our sailboat in Mexico every summer, going back to the states to annoy our adult children, which can be very entertaining if you count how much fun it is to leave the towels on their bathroom floor and stand in front of an open fridge and ask, “What’s for dinner?”

Rebecca’s father RA Phillips and the first of the Stearman’s he used for the aero ag business.

Rebecca’s son John (on right) and a mate in front of their aero ag plane.

Alana: Wow, you’re game. We’ve never been brave enough to push those boundaries!

Rebecca: Well, hijinks of that sort only go so far, so we figured it was time to buy a summer home, something close enough to drive to and from the Mexican Marina where we kept our boat. Of course, when my husband suggested a condo or apartment, I suggested he get realistic! I’d gotten used to wide open spaces, so we compromised on 4 acres and a nice house south of Tucson. The scenic shot is a picture of our back yard.

Alana: That’s some back yard! My husband John and I owned a 46ft catamaran for a few years and I pretended to be a sailor but never got out of the sheltered waters of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. Tell us a bit about your experience. What was or is your craft, how long have you been sailing and where? Have you retired from the sea or do you still sail?

Rebecca: We’re from the bay area of San Francisco, California. We both learned to sail on this bay—which really was a lot of fun, if you don’t mind dodging freighters barreling down on you at warp speed. We started with a 27ft water ballasted trailerable boat, then upsized to a Hylas 47. Interesting that you had a catamaran as we tried out a few with charters, and even considered purchasing one before opting to stick with the mono-hull. A 46 ft. cat is like a 65 ft. monohull, and a dream to sail, or so I’ve heard.

Alana: We sold some years ago, but our memories are of the fun we had. I understand you wrote your mystery sailing trilogy while sailing. I can imagine it would have been very conducive to getting the creative juices flowing. I haven’t read it, so would you tell us a bit about it? Does it follow a principal character?

Rebecca: The two books in my sailing trilogy are based around one small 32 ft Westsail and two sisters who inherited it from their father. They both learned to sail it on the San Francisco bay and loved it.

Alana: So you were writing from experience again.

Rebecca: I was, and am. In the first book, A DANGEROUS HARBOR, Katrina Hunter is a S.F. police detective on leave after shooting her sister’s stalker. She single hands the boat to Mexico only to find a floater, an old flame with a secret that could undo her career, a bald parrot and the man who could either become the love of her life or her undoing.

Alana: And the second?

Rebecca: The second book, HURRICANE HOLE, features the sister, Leila Hunter Standiford, queen of daytime drama. When she admires a beautiful vintage Alden and its handsome captain she doesn’t realize that the boat will soon burn to the water line, or that a dead body will be found below, or that the captain has been targeted as the sacrificial diver.

Alana: Lalla Bains, the heroine of the DEAD RED series, is very likeable. I dropped in on her in the 4th book in the series and at some point I’m going to have to go back and read about her earlier exploits. She reminded me of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, although she’s most definitely her own person. I imagine I’m not the first person to make favourable comparisons.

Rebecca: I’ve been absolutely floored that so many readers have commented that this series reminds them of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series! I write what I like to read and, of course, Janet Evanovich is the queen of humorous mysteries.

Alana: I have to admit to becoming a bit tired of Stephanie by the time the books got to double figures.

Rebecca: Well, I can tell you there a lot of really entertaining authors who can also tickle the funny bone while writing a really good mystery. Try Heather Haven or Cindy Sample, or AJ Lape or Kaye George. Want to get all of these authors, myself included in a boxed set? Get WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT MURDER? and enjoy seven complete humorous novels for only 99 cents.

Alana: Thanks, I’ve just taken you up on that☺. About time I found myself some more authors in the genre. But getting back to you, do you have more stories in either or both of the series planned?

Rebecca: I’m writing #5 in the DEAD RED mystery series. This one is titled A DEAD RED MIRACLE and it’s again based in Wishbone, Arizona. I’m so enjoying writing about this area. Did you know that South East Arizona is where Geronimo and Cochise lived? These two Chirachauhua Apache Indians were famous for side-stepping American efforts to corral them, or their people.

(Alana: A DEAD RED MIRACLE has since been published and I’ve included the link here.)

Alana: Cowboys and Indians was one of the favourite games when I was growing up. I remember the girls always had to be the Indians and the cowboys always had to win. Things would be different if kids played it nowadays I think! But again, let’s get back to you. You produce a newsletter too, I’ve heard.

Rebecca: I do, three times a week and they feature the best in mystery/suspense and thrillers with DIRT CHEAP MYSTERY READS.

Alana: Are there new books envisaged for the future that take you away from the two current series and perhaps into a new genre?

Rebecca: oh, boy—that’s a loaded question. I so want to write a book that I’ve had in my head for several years, but the DEAD RED series is starting to pick up more and more readers, so much so that I can’t see how to stop writing the next and the next just to indulge my fantasy of something completely different.

Alana: Well, I look forward to reading it when you do. Rebecca, thank you so much for talking with me.

Rebecca: It has been my pleasure! Thank you for having me!

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Take this link to my review of A DEAD RED ALIBI

Spring comes to CHASING BOOK SALES LAND

November 8, 2014Chasing book sales landapples, cherries, Lavender, olive trees, Rugosa roses, The Fiefdom, The Palace, Trigintipetala roses, wildlifeAlana Woods

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What a glorious time of the year Spring is in CHASING BOOK SALES LAND.

The resident ducks have had babies and the kangaroos are coming in to the gardens looking for the new shoots. They have the belief—and I don’t disabuse them of the idea—that I cause the rain to fall that provides them with the new grass that grows just outside the palace doors.

The lavender is buckling under the weight of the Fiefdom’s bee population and the Consort and I are already salivating in anticipation of coating the honey on the lovely bread our bakery provides.

The rugosa roses are heavy with flowers, so along with everything else we’re expecting a bumper crop of hips to be turned into jam. The Trigintipetala roses are also heavy with blooms, meaning the Fiefdom’s stock of rose oil will be well and truly replenished this season. Nothing like rose oil to soothe the unquiet breasts of the Fiefdom’s sometimes unruly neighbors.

In the orchard our apple blossoms have transformed into little new fruits. Come autumn they will be large, red, crunchy and very sweet to bite into straight from the tree or savoured in the cook’s famous pies and strudel. The cherries, too, are abundant this year and will grace the Fiefdom’s Christmas Feast table. And let’s not forget our treasured olive trees which are covered in tiny flowers. They have only been producing a crop for the last two years so My Fiefdomness is still on the pickling learning curve. But I will master it!

Ah, Spring. Yes, we love it here in CHASING BOOK SALES LAND.

Alana Woods’ book reviews: GATEWAY TO FOREVER by Claude Nougat

September 13, 2014Book reviewsAmazon author pages, climate change, digital age, fiction, futuristic, sci-fi, short storiesAlana Woods

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Some time ago I read Nougat’s short story compilation Death on Facebook, Short Stories for the Digital Age and was impressed with the range of stories and the skill with which they were presented. One that caught my imagination was I will not leave you behind, the futuristic story of a 122 year old woman who is part of an elite program that keeps you young until you die. In GATEWAY TO FOREVER Nougat has taken that short story and woven its premise into a four-part series of short novels I enjoyed reading very much.

The over-arching theme is the approaching doom of Earth from climate change. The story is set 200 years into the future and what becomes apparent very quickly is that humankind never learned the lessons of what it would take to save the planet. Everyone, including big business, is still only concerned with the present and what they can get out of it for themselves. People are still divided into the have’s and have not’s, only now the have’s—called the OnePercenters—can afford to have old-age and illness permanently eliminated right up until death, whereas the have not’s—the 99PerCenters—continue to struggle as we struggle in this day and age.

The story and struggle is told through three characters who all aspire to be a OnePercenter, highlighting the fact that even in Earth’s extremis we’re still only concerned with what advantages we can garner for ourselves.

You can come away from reading this series feeling a great despair for where we’re heading. The alternatives that the author presents, that of leaving Earth to inhabit a new planet and starting again, or remaining and hoping Earth regenerates itself, are stark contrasts.

A thought-provoking, confronting read.

A point worth mentioning is that the cover art is one of Nougat’s own works. If you click on the link below to my interview with the author you will see more of her paintings.

FOREVER YOUNG on Amazon

Take this link to an interview with CLAUDE NOUGAT.
Take this link to the author’s Amazon author page for all of her novels.