Author Spotlight and Giveaway - Elizabeth J. Duncan

Today's author spotlight goes to Elizabeth J. Duncan. Elizabeth is the author of the award-winning Penny Brannigan mystery series set in North Wales and will launch a new series, Shakespeare in the Catskills Mysteries in November. 

One lucky reader will have a chance to win a copy of her newest book Slated for Death. Leave a comment and email.

About Slated for Death

When the body of Glenda Roberts, an apparently well-liked, respectable woman, is discovered  at the bottom of a former slate mine, now a busy tourist attraction,  a Pandora’s Box of hate and fear is opened in the North Wales town of Llanelen.

The victim’s sister, Rebeccah, sells cheap goods from  market stalls. Amateur sleuth and spa owner Penny Brannigan is drawn into the investigation when jars of her house brand  hand cream, along with other counterfeit local products are discovered in the sister’s inventory.

The asthmatic son of the mine operator had suffered an almost fatal attack a few days after his mother had sprayed his room with air freshener she’d purchased at the stall. The police investigation reveals that the dead woman had been filling in for her sister on the stall the day the air freshener was purchased and they suspect the mine worker of her murder.

But after talking to the victim’s elderly mother, and learning that the victim’s father, the former mine manager, also died down the mine, Penny has an uneasy sense that a deeply hidden family secret lies behind the murder.  When the mother herself is murdered in her care home on the afternoon of her birthday, Penny’s sure of it.

At the heart of the story is a long forgotten child whose rise to fame and wealth meant nothing without a family’s love, a cold mother who thought she had buried the past, and a sister who died as the unwitting focus of decades of pain.

And during the course of the investigation, Penny’s friend and former lover DCI Gareth Davies discovers the truth about a secret in her own past. 

About Elizabeth J. Duncan

After graduating from Carleton University, Ottawa, with a BA in English, Elizabeth J. Duncan worked as a writer and editor for some of Canada’s largest newspapers, including the Ottawa Citizen and Hamilton Spectator. She lived and worked in London, England for five years as a freelance writer and broadcaster. She has also worked in public relations, was a college professor for ten years, and is a faculty member of the Humber School for Writers.

Elizabeth’s first novel, The Cold Light of Mourning, won the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic 2006 Grant for Unpublished Writers and the 2008 St. Martin’s/Malice Domestic Award for best first traditional mystery and was nominated for an Arthur Ellis award in Canada and an Agatha Award in the United States. Her fourth novel, A Small Hill to Die On, won the 2013 Bloody Words best light mystery (Bony Blithe) and the fifth book in the series, Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By, was nominated for the same award in 2014.

Elizabeth divides her time between Toronto, Canada and Llandudno, North Wales.

Elizabeth J. DuncanMystery author 
Shakespeare in the Catskills (Crooked Lane Books) 
Penny Brannigan (St Martins Press) 
elizabethjduncan.com
@elizabethduncan
facebook.com/ElizabethJDuncan

You can get all of Elizabeth's books here:

http://www.amazon.com/Slated-Death-Penny-Brannigan-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00NS3TEBC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8