Secrets and Murder by Marilyn Levinson

LUCY BURDETTE: We've enjoyed our visits from fellow Crooked Lane author Marilyn Levinson (aka Allison Brook) before on the blog, so I'm delighted to welcome her back with a new book!

MARILYN LEVINSON: Not that I’m biased or anything, but I think a good cozy mystery is the perfect reading choice in the Time of COVID. What's more relaxing than a picturesque small-town setting peopled with mostly likable characters who deal with everyday life and local issues. Pandemics and contentious presidential races are never mentioned. Sure murders happen but they do so with a minimum of  bloodshed or mess, and the killer is always brought to justice. A cozy mystery often conjures up the wish to return to the good old days when life was simpler. As if those days ever existed.

In CHECKED OUT FOR MURDER, my sleuth Carrie Singleton, the head of programs and events at the Clover Ridge Library, meets a young woman who wants to give a program on psychic phenomena at the library. Evelyn the Ghost recognizes the woman as someone who used to live in Clover Ridge and whose father, an abusive drunk, was murdered twenty years earlier. Meanwhile, Carrie's self-absorbed mother come to town with her younger, second husband. Tom is in a movie being filmed in Clover Ridge playing opposite his beautiful ex-fiancée who sure acts as if she wants him back. A murder occurs, then another. Carrie and Evelyn wonder if they are connected or even related to the twenty-year-old murder.

Someone once told me that every character should have a secret—a useful piece of advice that I follow. My characters are complex and harbor all sorts of mysteries that impact their actions and their relationships with one another. The subject of mother-child relationships arises in CHECKED OUT FOR MURDER. Can a strained mother-daughter relationship mother improve years later if one of them never changes? Can a mother who has abandoned her child be forgiven? What lasting effects does an abusive drunkard have on his family members? How does a festering secret keep a woman from the people she holds most dear? (Read CHECKED OUT FOR MURDER and find out.)

Aside from the identity of the murderer, what was the most intriguing secret that was revealed in a mystery you’ve read?

A former Spanish teacher, Marilyn Levinson writes mysteries, romantic suspense, and novels for kids. Her books have received many accolades. As Allison Brook she writes the Haunted Library series. DEATH OVERDUE, the first in the series, was an Agatha nominee for Best Contemporary Novel in 2018. Other mysteries include the Golden Age of Mystery Book Club series and the Twin Lakes series. Marilyn lives on Long Island, where many of her books take place.

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