No More Time (A Dodie O’Dell Mystery) by Suzanne Trauth

No More Time
(A Dodie O'Dell Mystery)
by Suzanne Trauth

About The Book

No More Time (A Dodie O'Dell Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Lyrical Underground (July 23, 2019)
Paperback: 214 pages
ISBN-10: 1516107241
ISBN-13: 978-1516107247
Digital ASIN: B07JYQD61M

DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY

Restaurant manager Dodie O’Dell has found her niche in the cozy New Jersey town of Etonville, creating menus that make a delicious double-act with the community theater’s productions. Now she’s ready for a vacation at the Jersey Shore town she called home before a hurricane hit. Sun, salty air, and seagulls make for a nostalgic escape from regular life—until a contingent from Etonville arrives to compete in a Jersey Shore theater festival.

Roped into helping her former boss cater the event, Dodie also gets a visit from her old flame, Jackson, who’s hoping to revive his charter boat business and is looking for a place to crash. Before Dodie can tell him that ship has sailed, Jackson’s partner is found murdered on his boat. Dodie knows her ex is a mooch, but she’s sure he’s no killer. But as she follows a trail of evidence that leads into her own past, Dodie stumbles on a dangerous conspiracy theory that could bring the festival to a shocking finale…

 Excerpt:

By noon we were both hot and famished. I suggested a break from the sun at the tiki bar and we gathered our beach gear and trudged through the sand to the Polynesian music. We were halfway through our bucket of steamed clams when an elderly twosome at a table next to ours gasped in shock. We couldn’t help noticing.

“Is everything okay?” I asked gently.

The woman’s head bobbled and her wide-brimmed sunhat swung from side to side. She picked up the newspaper she’d been reading, the Candle Beach Courier, a local rag, and shoved the front page at us. “He was such a nice boy. We knew his parents years ago.”
I smiled sympathetically and scanned the sheet. Then I gasped.

“Dodie, what’s the matter?” Lola said.
“Were you acquainted with him too?” the woman asked.

I nodded numbly. Was I ever. The headline read LOCAL MAN DEAD. Underneath was a photo of the victim: It was Vinnie C. I rotated the paper so Lola could see the front page. “It’s him,” I said hoarsely.

Lola blinked. “Vincent Carcherelli,” she read.

I scanned the story. Apparently his body had been washed up on the beach sometime overnight and was discovered by a jogger early today in time to make the mid-morning edition. The police were calling it a drowning and speculating that he’d fallen off his boat, The Bounty, which had drifted half a mile off the shoreline. No foul play suspected at the moment but the investigation was ongoing.

I offered to return the newspaper but the couple refused to accept it, saying the story was too upsetting. They picked up their bill and left.

“Wow. What a coincidence. We were talking about how Jackson saw him yesterday …” Lola stopped. A light bulb went on. “The police will want to speak with Jackson. He might have been one of the last people to see Vinnie alive.”

It was Lola’s last word that brought me up short: alive. Jackson had been steamed during that meeting on the boardwalk. Did he know anything about Vinnie’s last hours? If Bill were here he’d tell me to mind my own business, let Jackson alone, let the police determine the actual cause of death. Bill was right, of course. But something about the whole event didn’t sit right with me. Why did Jackson lie about what happened when he met Vinnie?

About the Author

Suzanne Trauth, Harvard Studio, Montclair, NJ. 06/27/2014 Photo by Steve Hockstein/HarvardStudio.com[/caption]

Suzanne Trauth is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and a former theatre professor at a university. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Dramatists Guild, and League of Professional Theatre Women. When she is not writing, Suzanne coaches actors and serves as a celebrant performing wedding ceremonies. She lives in Woodland Park, New Jersey.

Author Links

Webpage: www.suzannetrauth.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuzanneTrauth/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuzanneMTrauth

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6187623.Suzanne_M_Trauth

Purchase Links

Amazon - B&N - Kobo

Interview with Suzanne Trauth

1. What is your favorite part of this book and why?

No More Time is a part of the Dodie O’Dell mystery series. Most of the series takes place in Etonville, New Jersey, a small town close to New York City. But Dodie grew up down the Jersey Shore and lived and worked in a town called Candle Beach, where No More Time is set. She is on vacation with her current love interest, Etonville’s chief of police. I love that Dodie is involved in solving the murder of her ex-boyfriend’s former business partner. I enjoy the way her mind works and watching how her instincts lead her down an investigative path. However, I must say I get a kick out of Dodie’s Etonville friends, members of the Etonville Little Theatre. The theatre is in Candle Beach performing at a festival and their presence adds fun and chaos to the story as they rehearse for their big moment on the Candle beach stage. They make me laugh!

2. If you could spend time with a character from your book whom would it be? And what would you do during that day?

I love these characters…they’re like family. So choosing one is difficult. Of course I’d like to spend time with my sleuth-protagonist Dodie – I feel as if she’s my alter ego! We could hop in her red MINI-Cooper and drive around Candle Beach, following suspicious strangers, or hiding out in some location where Dodie believes the murder suspect might show up, or just hanging on the beach. It is the shore after all…the possibilities are endless. We could end the day at her favorite seafood restaurant run by an old friend.

I would also love the to spend the day with the members of the Etonville Little Theatre. Having spent many years in theatre as a director, actor, producer, and writer, I’d love sitting in on their rehearsals—observing the chaos and bedlam!

3. If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?

There are so many. But here’s what comes to mind: I would love to have written All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. It is beautiful…the language, the story, the characters fully created. And it takes place during my favorite historical period—World War II.

I would also have like being the author of the Harry Potter series…

4. Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?

Most of my characters are the result of my active imagination—Dodie, her boyfriend Bill, her BFFs Lola and Carol, Henry, her boss at the restaurant she manages, and the quirky small-town characters who populate the Dodie O’Dell series. The theatre characters, however, are sometimes composites of, or based on, folks I knew throughout my theatrical career: the obsessive director, the loyal sidekick stage manager, the diva, the egomaniacal leading man…I had plenty of material to draw from!

5. What made you want to become a writer?

Reading a lot all of my life influenced my wanting to be a writer. I’ve been interested in writing most of my life. In grade school I wrote short stories and experimented with writing plays. In high school I entered a writing contest and won first prize for a short story. That was great encouragement, that and an English teacher who supported my scribbling. I loved giving expression to my imagination, making people come alive on the page. So I wrote on and off for many years, moving from one genre to another: plays, screenplays, and finally novels.

But probably the fact that I loved to read books as a child provided a strong foundation. I was most interested in biographies, I loved reading about famous people’s lives. And then I got hooked on mysteries like Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins before I graduated to adult mysteries and thrillers. When I began writing novels, a mystery series seemed a natural choice of genre. I also still enjoy writing plays.

Thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed!

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