Detective Parrott Mystery Series a Mystery, Police Procedural by Saralyn Richard ➱ Series Book Tour with Giveaway
Crystal Blue Murder
Detective Parrott Mystery Series Book 3
by Saralyn Richard
Genre: Mystery, Police Procedural
METH, MURDER, AND EXPLOSIONS OF THE HEART
In the heart of tranquil, lavish Brandywine Valley, Detective Parrott confronts a meth explosion, a dismembered corpse, and an intricate trail of deceitful secrets that shake up many lives -- including his own. When celebrity hostess Claire Whitman’s renovated barn explodes into flames, Parrott delves into the privileged lives of all who are affected. Tension from Parrott’s personal life crosses over into the case, and secrets, deceptions, and crimes create an even bigger explosion. Third in the Detective Parrott Mystery Series, Crystal Blue Murder explores the complexities of life in an entitled world where many of America’s wealthiest and most powerful elite have their own definitions of right and wrong.
**New Release!!**
A Palette For Love and Murder
Detective Parrott Mystery Series Book 2
THE SCENERY IS LUSH, THE MANSIONS ARE HUGE, AND THE SECRETS ARE DEEP.
Detective Oliver Parrott’s next case takes us to the ancestral home of Blake Allmond, a renowned artist, whose paintings have been stolen from his studio. Before Parrott can get a foothold on the case, Allmond is murdered in his second home in New York’s Gramercy Park. It’s out of Parrott’s jurisdiction, but he believes the two crimes are related, and he’s got the itch to work on both. Parrott comes to realize Blake Allmond’s life is full of mystery. The theft of the paintings turns into a treasure hunt and search for a killer—and then the investigation becomes personal.
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Murder In the One Percent
Detective Parrott Mystery Series Book 1
SOMEONE COMES TO THE PARTY WITH MURDER IN HIS HEART AND POISON IN HIS POCKET.
A lavish celebration. A rare poison. A clever plan. A milestone birthday party at a country mansion in Brandywine Valley brings old friends together, all glamorous, wealthy, and politically well-connected. Charismatic playboy, Preston Phillips, brings his trophy wife to the party, unaware that his first love, the woman he jilted at the altar, will be there, enchanting him with her timeless beauty. A snowstorm, an accident, and an illicit rendezvous later, the dynamics crackle with tension.
When Detective Oliver Parrott is charged with solving the untimely killing of one of America's leading financial wizards, he realizes this will be the case to make—or break—his career.
Ingenious and gripping, MURDER IN THE ONE PERCENT opens up to readers the opulent world of the ultra-wealthy in Philadelphia and New York—and reveals a killer that only Detective Parrott can catch.
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Excerpt from Crystal Blue Murder
Parrott was awakened by smells of pineapple chicken and warm Hawaiian rolls, one of his favorite meals. His mouth watered as if every cell were screaming to be fed. He hurried into the kitchen to confirm. “Mmm, I could eat ten plates full.”
“Here,” Tonya said, popping half a buttered roll into his mouth. “I knew you’d be hungry, so wash up and sit yourself down. I made enough for four, just in case.”
“Don’t have to ask twice.” Parrott did as instructed, patting Horace on the head through the birdcage on the way to the washroom. He called over his shoulder, “You’ve been a busy woman.”
When he returned and sat at the table, Tonya set a bowl of sauteed green beans and a casserole dish with aromatic pineapple chicken in front of him. “That’s what happens when I don’t have art class. I have to find another way to be creative.”
“You ask me, this is one luscious work of art, on its way to my stomach.” The first bite was heaven-on-earth delicious, with the sweet, tangy sauce cloaking the juicy chicken and soaking into the tender grains of rice beneath. Parrott shoveled bite after bite into his mouth.
Tonya’s lips curled. “I love watching you attack your food when you’re hungry. You might be named after a bird, but you eat like the king of the jungle.” She picked up her own fork and knife and began eating at a more leisurely pace. “When you come up for air, I’d love to hear how your afternoon went. If you can talk about it, that is.”
Still enjoying his food, Parrott said, “Why don’t you tell me about yours first?” He was stalling while he decided how much of his day he could share with his wife. He wasn’t overly concerned about confidentiality. Tonya, as a former Navy SEAL, knew how to keep information private, and at this point, he didn’t have much information to share, anyway. He was more concerned about which details might fire up her PTSD. She had made a lot of progress with counseling and therapy, but setbacks could happen at any time. He’d learned that the hard way.
Tonya’s eyes met his in a look that said, “I know why you’re delaying,” but she went ahead as if they were an ordinary couple having an ordinary conversation. “I washed your clothes, cooked the chicken, fed Horace, and read a couple of chapters in a historical novel. Oh, I googled Herman’s construction business. He’s got a neat website, lots of testimonials.”
Parrott raised his eyebrows. “Glad to hear it, but you can’t trust everything you learn from Google.”
“I know. I thought of asking Elle’s nephew Alexander if he’s ever heard of Herman or his company. Construction people talk about each other, and he may have an ear to the ground. There’s also Dunn and Bradstreet and the Better Business Bureau.”
“I admire your tenacity, but I’d stay away from asking people we know. We don’t want it getting back to Mama that we’re suspicious of her boyfriend.” Parrott pulled apart a roll and used a piece to sop up the pineapple sauce from his plate. “Bad manners, I know, but I can’t let a drop of this good sauce go to waste. Good thing I’m here at home and not at Claire Whitman’s house.”
“Claire Whitman, the party lady?” Tonya set her utensils on the side of her plate and took a long drink of water.
Parrott stared at his wife, amazed that Whitman’s fame had extended to someone like Tonya, who was raised in a totally different environment. “Long-ago party lady. She had a TV show.”
“I know. My grandmother watched it while she was ironing. Granny thought Mrs. Whitman was the perfect lady. She used her name as an example of good manners for us, growing up.” She began stacking the dishes at the table. “How do you know her?”
“That’s whose barn burned this morning. Where I was this afternoon—at her house in Brandywine Valley.” Parrott rose and patted his stomach. “Thank you for this outstanding meal. I feel like a new man. Let me clean up the dishes.”
“Really? America’s Miss Manners lives in Brandywine? My granny would be so excited.” Tonya jumped in, as Parrott took the dishes to the sink. “I’ll take over from here. You’ve had a long day. Besides, you’re going to need your strength in dealing with Claire Whitman. As Granny would say, ‘You’d better mind your p’s and q’s with her.’”
Parrott wrapped his arms around his wife and gave her a hug. “If you’re sure about cleaning up, there’s something else I want to do tonight.”
“I’m sure. Hardly any left-overs to put away, no big deal. What’re you going to do now?”
Parrott pulled back and wiggled his eyebrows at his wife. “Follow your lead, Mrs. Parrott. I’m going to make friends with Mr. Google.”
Excerpt from A Palette For Love and Murder
Marriage had turned out to be more. More than taking vows and sipping champagne. More than a romantic cruise to exotic islands. More than sleeping in the warmth of your lover’s embrace. Tonight Detective Oliver Parrott had another two a.m. wake-up call, but not the kind from the West Brandywine Police Station. His first thought had been of the stolen paintings he was investigating, but the punch in the kidney had come from Parrott’s own true love.
“No-o-oh, oh, no,” Tonya yelled, as she thrashed about in the bed next to him.
Parrott jumped out of bed and twisted around, grabbing Tonya by both wrists. “Wake up, Baby. It’s just a dream. You’re right here with me. Nothing’s wrong.”
Tonya’s eyes fluttered open and closed, as she struggled against her husband’s strong, tall frame. She was breathing hard.
Still holding her wrists, he murmured, “C’mon now. C’mon, Tonya.”
After what seemed like an hour to Parrott, Tonya woke up and stopped resisting his efforts to calm her down. When she realized what she had done, she threw her hands over her face and doubled over at the waist. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t want to have these dreams, Ollie. They just won’t go away.” Tears streamed down her face and neck.
Parrott thought to turn on the lamp, but decided the reflected beam from the streetlight, piercing through the curtain, was enough. He scooted to sit up against the headboard. “Come sit up here with me,” he said, patting the sheet between them. “Let’s see if we can make them go away.”
Tonya shoved down the covers that were wound around her legs. Her white nightgown was spotted with patches of sweat. She climbed into her husband’s embrace and dropped her head on his shoulder.
“Now,” Parrott said, snuggling into his wife’s hair and smelling jasmine. “Maybe it will help if you tell me exactly what it is that has you yelling in your sleep.” Every time he’d asked before, Tonya had dissembled. She hated to talk about her experiences in Afghanistan, period.
“You know I can’t talk about it, Ollie. Even thinking about it scares me. Putting it into words seems excruciating.” More tears overflowed the banks of her eyelids, and she wiped them away with quick brushes of the back of her hand.
“Yes, I know,” Parrott said, “but maybe if you could say the words, finally, these night terrors would go away. That’s what I remember from that psych class I took junior year.” He remembered times as a cop when he’d used a similar strategy to help witnesses articulate horrible memories. “It lets the boogeyman out from under the bed.”
The corners of Tonya’s mouth twitched, but failed to make it to smile. She was shivering, though the room was warm. “I—I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try.” She pulled the sheet and blanket up around them both, and Parrott pressed her to him, knowing whatever he did would be inadequate.
A few minutes passed in silence, and finally Tonya glanced at the alarm clock, which said two-seventeen. She took a deep breath, and then the words began tumbling out. “Some very bad things happened when I was in Afghanistan, Ollie.” Her fingers drew a pattern onto his bare chest. “Some things I could never tell you about.”
Parrott’s eyebrows rose a half inch, though this was not a revelation. “Whenever we Skyped, you said things were fine.”
“I know. That was me not wanting you to worry, and, you know, all our missions were top secret. There was always the chance that our Skypes weren’t private. And, anyway, I thought if I didn’t talk about the bad things, I could make them disappear. I know now that was foolish.”
“Because now you are dreaming about them? Is that what you’re saying?”
Tonya nodded. “Something happened last September when we were on a mission. It changed the way I felt about everything. I witnessed something terrible, and I keep dreaming about it, over and over.”
Parrot’s mouth went dry. “What is it?”
“There were six of us in a helicopter, and I was co-pilot. Five guys and me. We landed about a mile from where a terror cell was supposed to be. It was pitch black. We moved as quickly and quietly as we could, and we surrounded the place. It was little more than a hut pushed up against the side of a mountain. It was supposed to be a peaceful grab—surprise the target, cuff him, and take him back for ‘treatment.’
It all went surprisingly well. No screaming, no fuss, the target looked scared, but resigned to being caught. The problem, though, happened before we took him away.” Tonya’s hand reached for Parrott’s, and she squeezed.
“What happened, Baby?”
“The guy had a family. Wife and daughters. Two pretty young girls, maybe twelve and thirteen. They were curled up on mats on the ground, two peas in a pod. They were just lying there—” A sob flew from Tonya’s lips like a speeding train from a tunnel, loud and long.
Parrott pressed his wife’s body into his own, trying to suppress a shudder of his own.
“—I c-can’t…I just can’t say anymore. It’s—it’s too horrible.” She pulled her knees into her chest and clutched tightly.
Parrott groaned, as he felt the millimeter of progress slipping away. He wrapped his arms around the human sphere that was his troubled wife, and held tight, all thoughts of sleep having vanished.
Tonya shook with emotion, her sobs finally quieting into soft hiccups.
Parrott patted his wife like a baby. His baritone voice murmured soothing syllables. When he found some words, he said, “Listen, Tonya. Whatever happened, you didn’t cause it. And you can’t solve it. You just need to let it go.”
Tonya stared at her husband, as if he had spoken in a foreign language. “I thought you would understand, Ollie. I see the way you are with your cases. You’re so focused on every detail. You’re a dog with a bone. And you don’t care to talk about them, either.”
“That’s different. Police work is, mostly, confidential. And I’m not losing sleep over my cases, either.”
“That’s not what you said when you were investigating the Phillips case, everyone breathing down your neck and making all kinds of threats. It don’t seem too different to me.”
“All right. Point taken. I do wish you’d get some help, though. Seems like we have a bit of PTSD going on.”
“I see your detecting skills are working, even at three a.m.” Tonya’s lips parted, showing the space between her front teeth.
In the dark, Parrott could see that Tonya’s expression had lost its terror, and her eyes glowed. Parrott kissed the top of her head, her eyes, and finally her lips. “We’ll get through this together, my love.”
Excerpt from Murder In the One Percent
Preston brought his young wife to the party, not knowing he'd encounter his first love, the woman he jilted at the altar years ago. Margo's timeless beauty tantalized him once again, making Nicole wonder, Is the honeymoon over?
Alone on the fourth floor, Mr. and Mrs. Preston Phillips were having a marital spat. Having no clue that he had behaved boorishly throughout the evening, Preston had climbed the three flights of stairs feeling good about himself. He was sure Margo still had feelings for him, and he had to admit, he was still attracted to her. He had enjoyed the attention of Kitty Kelley, too. I've still got what it takes to attract a woman, he thought with a grin. And I rather enjoy aggravating the men, as well.
"What are you smiling at?" Nicole asked.
Her tone pierced Preston's reverie. He had been expecting her to fall right into his arms. “What do you mean?"
"Don't play innocent with me, Preston. I've been watching you with your friends all night. Frankly, I think you've made a fool of yourself."
“And how do you think I've made a fool of myself, Miss Expert? A few months of marriage, and you think you know me and my friends that well?”
“Totally. I know enough to know there's something going on between you and that Margo and the others either detest you or barely tolerate you. I may not have been around for the back story, but I'm not blind."
Nicole sat at the dressing table and stared at her husband in the mirror.
Preston returned her stare in the mirror, aiming for sincerity. “There's nothing going on with Margo and me. I haven't seen her in forty years, for God's sake."
"Oh, yeah. Then what were you two doing for fifteen minutes when you both went upstairs?”
Preston turned away from the mirror, pacing. "Maybe we shouldn't have come this weekend. I didn't mean to upset you."
"Answer my question. What were you and Margo doing?" Nicole's voice rose in pitch as if she were about to cry.
“Keep your voice down. We weren't doing anything. We were talking. We are old friends."
"You could talk to your old friends all night long, right in front of everyone. You didn't have to leave the table to follow that old hag. I asked you not to leave me alone with these people, but I never dreamed you would go off pussy-chasing. I'm mortified." She stood and paced around the room, brandishing her hairbrush.
"I'm not going to apologize to you, Nicole, because I didn't do anything wrong. I love you, and I married you. End of story. Now let's go to bed."
"Don't think this is the end of this discussion, Preston. If you do one more thing to upset me this weekend, you'll live to regret it.” Nicole's voice trailed off at the end of the threat, as Preston grabbed her from behind, both hands sliding smoothly into the front of her panties.
Annoyed as she was with him, her first impulse was to push her husband away. On the other hand, this was how she and Pres ton communicated best. She moved against him, signaling that the argument was over, and the making-up was underway. Let them eat their hearts out, she thought. Preston Phillips belongs to me.
"Mmmph,” Preston groaned into her ear, feeling the full effect of the blue pill he had taken earlier. "Don't worry. You're the only woman I need, baby."
The Five Best Things about Reading or Writing a Series
by Saralyn Richard
When I wrote MURDER IN THE ONE PERCENT, I was completely focused on telling a story about a group of old college friends who gather for an elegant birthday party weekend in the lush Brandywine Valley, a place so peaceful, you’d never expect a murder. One of the party guests turns up dead the next morning, and all the guests had motives to kill him. It wasn’t until I was halfway through writing the book that I realized its main character was the detective investigating the murder.
I never fathomed that Detective Parrott, an outsider in this community, where some of America’s wealthiest and most powerful elite reside, would develop such a following, or that a clamoring for more Detective Parrott books would ensue. But that’s what happened, and MURDER IN THE ONE PERCENT was followed by A PALETTE FOR LOVE AND MURDER, and now the third mystery in the series, CRYSTAL BLUE MURDER.
While I love reading books in a series, I wasn’t sure about writing them. Would I tire of Detective Parrott and Brandywine Valley? Would I have trouble concocting new and different plots? And what about all those juicy ideas for books I’d been collecting in my head for years? Would I ever have the chance to work with those, too?
What I learned is that writing a series can be just as much fun as reading one. Here are five reasons:
BEST THING #5
All the big decisions about main characters’ appearance, background, beliefs, and attitudes have already been made. The readers and I know what we can expect from them when they are put into a new situation. In fact, my characters are so real, they continue to whisper in my ear..
BEST THING #4
The audience for the first book is roughly the same as the audience for the new books. Book club members who enjoyed #1 will be eager for #2 and #3. Interestingly, the process works backwards, as well. Someone who reads #3 first and loves it will go back to read the previous books. Clarity of target audience makes for a more enjoyable story, as well.
BEST THING #3
Concepts or themes that required a lot of research or learning in book 1 have become familiar by the time we get to sequels. Familiarity creates a comfort zone within the book. We understand the topics and like deepening that understanding.
BEST THING #2
The better the author grasps the culture of the setting, the better the reader will grow to understand it. The authenticity of the various elements within the story grows with each book.
BEST THING #1
When I finish a book I love, I hate saying goodbye to the characters, whom I’ve also come to appreciate and even befriend. With a series, I can stay with the characters, watch them learn and grow, worry over their challenges, and celebrate their victories. By the time we read several books about them, we know them inside and out. We know how they are like us and how they are different. The next book in the series is a visit with a dear friend.
Saralyn Richard writes award-winning humor- and romance-tinged mysteries that pull back the curtain on people in settings as diverse as elite country manor houses and disadvantaged urban high schools. An active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, Saralyn teaches creative writing and literature, and continues to write mysteries. Her favorite thing about being an author is interacting with readers like you. Visit Saralyn on her Amazon page here, or on Facebook here.
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