Gwen Mayo

A vacation to St. Petersburg for Cornelia Pettijohn, her uncle Percival, and fellow war nurse, Teddy Lawless, takes a turn for the worse when Teddy runs into her ex-fiance and promptly wallops him. That action among other reasons is why she becomes the prime suspect when the man turns up murdered a few days later. While his family plots against Teddy, it is up to Cornelia and Percival to track down the real killer.

Roaring Twenties historical fiction is a favorite of mine. It is the time when the rules for proper behavior began to be challenged and in many cases ignored. This showed most in women’s fashions and their push for independence from their families. There are wonderful examples of this in all of the main characters in this story. You have party girl Teddy who is no longer a girl contrasted with her more staid friend who would love to be so free but can’t quite bring herself there. There are also the Stevens girls, who despite a domineering father are pushing to make their own choices.

Descriptions of 1920’s St. Petersburg and its surroundings along with the upscale seaside hotel, The Vinoy, as a backdrop for the story become almost characters in the story themselves. The spirit of building a new community comes thru superbly and I enjoyed the trips around town almost as much as solving the mystery.

I haven’t read the first book, but it is obvious that Cornelia and Teddy have a shared history and are quite close. This read well as a stand-alone. I am looking forward to further installments in this series.
… (meer)

**I received a copy of this upcoming book from Mystery & Horror LLC via NetGalley in exchange for a fair, honest review.**


In 1926, a drive south to Florida with their elderly uncle turns deadly for former war nurses Cornelia and Teddy. Both women learned how to take care of themselves during WWI. Cornelia never travels without a sidearm and Teddy knows showing a bit of leg can get them out of a jam quickly, even if her hair has gone to grey. Travelling to look into buying land from a development company so their uncle can live in the warmer Florida climate, their car breaks down on a lonely stretch of the Dixie Highway, and they end up having to catch the local train, The Mullet Express, to get to their destination. They are barely chugging along again before a fellow passenger is murdered with poison, and a second corpse is discovered stashed in ice with mullet fish.

I enjoyed this book! Gun-toting Cornelia and tippler Teddy are such fun characters. The cantankerous uncle with his love of steam engines and movie cameras is a hoot as well. Surround these plucky folks with land speculators, nefarious dealings and murder and the end result is an engaging, quirky mystery! Murder on the Mullet Express is a fun, quick read with plenty of suspects, twists and turns. It seems like their trip to re-locate their uncle is destined to be one fiasco after another, but the girls take it in stride, as they learned during the war. The backdrop of 1920s Florida gives great color to the story, painting a picture of fast development, desperate land speculators, and all the crime and greed that comes with them.

Murder on the Mullet Express will release January 16th by Mystery and Horror, LLC, an independent publisher.

Gwen Mayo is the author of the Nessa Donnelly Mystery series and several other novels. Sarah E. Glenn has also penned several novels including Strangely Funny and History and Horror, Oh My! Check out their websites at: www.saraheglenn.blogspot.com and http://www.gwenmayo.com… (meer)

I enjoy mysteries. This has always been my favorite genre no matter what age it is for. In this story we have three really great characters. Two of them are former nurses during World War I. The third character is their elderly uncle Percy. The three of them find themselves on The Mullet Express, when their car breaks down. They are headed to Homosassa Springs. This is a place that is just about an hour and a half north of where I live in Florida. They witness a fight between two men on the train. The problem is that one of them ends up dead shortly after arriving at his hotel. Uncle Percy becomes the prime suspect. Teddy and Cornelia must help find the real killer. After all, Cornelia’s uncle may be a bit crazy, but he is definitely not a murderer. I loved Cornelia because she was a very independent woman for the time. I learned a lot about the time period. I’ve lived in Ocala and I am very familiar with the areas mentioned or alluded to in the book. This is a great mystery with a lot of history and one I would definitely recommend.
I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.… (meer)