A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery
“I’m working on the greatest mystery ever,” was the last thing noted mystery novelist Mercedes Livingston said to seven-year-old Chris Matheson before walking out of Hill House Hotel never to be seen again.
For decades, the writer’s fate remained a puzzling mystery until an autographed novel and a letter put a grown-up Chris Matheson on the trail of a cunning killer. With the help of a team of fellow retired law enforcement officers, each a specialist in their own field of investigation, Chris puts a flame to this cold case to uncover what had really happened that night Mercedes Livingston walked out of Hill House Hotel. Watch out! The clues are getting hot!
The other books in the series :
Winter Frost
(A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery #2)
It all started with a chance encounter in the city with Blair, his late wife.
Chris Matheson and the Geezer Squad, working under the guise of a book club, dig into the events surrounding his late wife’s supposed death halfway around the globe. A state department employee shoots himself in the back three times. A CIA operative goes missing. A woman is targeted by an international assassin three years after being declared dead in a terrorist attack overseas.
Nothing is as it seems.
In his most personal cold case, Chris fights to uncover why the state department told him that Blair, the mother of his children, had been killed when she was alive. What had she uncovered that has made her a target? Who terrified her so much that she had gone into hiding and why are they now after him?
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ICE
(A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery #1)
When Sandy Lipton and her unborn child disappeared, the court of public opinion found young Chris Matheson guilty. Decades later, the retired FBI agent returns home to discover that the cloud of suspicion cast over him and his family has never lifted.
With the help of a team of fellow retired law enforcement officers, each a specialist in their own field of investigation, Chris Matheson starts chipping away at the ice on this cold case to uncover what had happened to Sandy and her baby and the clues are getting hot!
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Q&A
1. Which character would you like to be in this book?
I have to say Doris, Chris Matheson’s mother. At sixty-five years old, Doris is smart, spunky, and sexy. It was after I had completed the first book in the Chris Matheson Cold Case series that I realized I had based Doris on my late mother.
Doris does what she wants and says what she thinks and is quite classy when she does it. She’s who I want to be when I grow up.
2. Do you always take a book/ereader wherever you go?
I’m sorry to say I don’t. I take my laptop. Any spare time I have I write. Sometimes, I may be able to squeeze a scene in while waiting for my car at the mechanic shop.
3. Say someone asks if they can use your name in a book. Would you rather be the ‘good one’ or the ‘bad one’?
Oh, make me the good one who outsmarts the bad one and against all odds wins at the end!
Once, I did a speaking engagement at a high school. A student came up to me afterwards and asked if I’d use his name and make him the murder victim. Only time anyone ever asked to be the murder victim. If I base a victim on someone I know, it’s someone who’s gotten on my bad side. I think I’ve killed every ex-boss who’s been nasty to me—some multiple times.
4. Do you prefer to write standalones or series?
Writing four series just happened. I started out writing murder mysteries with the intention of writing standalones. I became so attached to my series characters that they have become like family to me. So, I find that I have to continue writing their stories.
5. Where can I find you when you are reading?
Curled up in front of the roaring fireplace with my feet tucked under a blanket. Sterling will be stretched out in front of the fire. There will be a cup of tea and a bowl of chocolate kisses at my elbow.
6. Where can I find you when you are not writing/reading?
In bed taking a nap.
7. Can you walk past a bookstore without going inside?
Nope. When my husband and I first got married, our dates would always include hitting the brick and mortar bookstore across the street from our favorite restaurant. I’d had some very successful book events there when my first books came out. Sadly, it closed.
8. What are you most proud of?
My son. Tristan is not only smart, but he’s a go-getter. He just graduated from college with a four-year degree in three years on a full academic scholarship. Like me, he wants to write books—but not murder mysteries. Tristan reads thick non-fiction books about history and economics and that’s what he wants to write. Right now, I think he’s thinking great thoughts in a think tank in Washington someplace.
9. What goes through your mind when you hold your new book in your hands for the first time?
Did I do this?
I always think back to when I was a child. My mother used to take me to the library every Friday morning. That was our thing. I loved books. I loved entering a make-believe world and having adventures. Eventually, I started dreaming of creating those adventures myself. Now, I am.
So many people never fulfill their dreams. They give up on them for any number of reasons. I have been blessed to be able to fulfill and live my dreams.
It’s a surreal feeling.
10. What piece of advice would you give to aspiring writers?
I always give the same advice. Think about what you want to say and then write it.
So many writers dream of writing books and then their dreams shift to wanting to be best-selling authors. Who doesn’t want to have people snapping up their books and reading them? Who doesn’t fantasize about being James Patterson and living a life of luxury because of their writing?
Along the way, they lose track of what made them want to become a writer in the first place.
The love of writing.
That’s what came first.
After writing my first book, I had signed with a traditional publisher for the second book. Then, when I wrote my third book, the first Mac Faraday mystery, I found out the publishing houses had changed the rules for mysteries. My book was four thousand words too long! I had to cut it by four thousand words! What four thousand words needed to go?
I stared at the computer for a year. I had writers block. I needed all four thousand of those words to tell my story.
So, I packed up my computer and announced that I had quit writing.
Six weeks later, I was back at the computer doing a rewrite, but I wasn’t cutting the book by four thousand words. I’d made the decision to write my book—the way I wanted. I had decided to write for myself—not the publishers—for myself. If my books sold—fine! If not—that was fine, too.
Six weeks after that, I received two offers for It’s Murder, My Son. I turned them both down. That book—every single word of it—made number one on Amazon in murder mysteries.
11. What are you working on now?
I’m really excited to be working on the next Thorny Rose Mystery. I had started a new Mac Faraday mystery for Christmas, but Murphy Thornton started whispering in my ear and he is sooo persuasive.
The fourth installment in the Thorny Rose Mysteries is entitle 13.
Three years ago, the nation gasped in horror when the President of the United States barely escaped an assassination attempt that left two dead—the vice president’s wife and assassin.
Even after numerous investigations proving otherwise, conspiracy theorists still argue that the would-be assassin was acting on orders from the CIA, FBI, and every federal agency within a hundred miles of the capital and the government was involved in a massive cover-up.
An aspiring author who spent more time enjoying his executive wife’s money than writing, Dean Conway is the last person with whom Lieutenant Commander Murphy Thornton USN wanted to spend his Saturday afternoon when they end up at the same wedding reception table. While their wives tend to bridesmaid duties, Murphy is trapped listening to Dean’s latest unfinished work-in-project—completing the manuscript of an unknown investigative journalist who’d disappeared months earlier.
“She was number twelve you know,” Dean says.
“Twelve?” Murphy askes while looking for someone, anyone, to offer him an escape.
“Twelve witnesses connected to or investigating the assassination have died either in an accident or suicide.”
Two days later, Dean Conway dies suddenly, but not without sending a text message to Murphy.
“13.”
That caught Murphy’s attention.
Thank you, Lauren Carr and iReads Book Tours.
About the author
Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Thorny Rose, Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Chris Matheson Cold Case Mysteries—over twenty titles across four fast-paced mystery series filled with twists and turns!
Book reviewers and readers alike rave about how Lauren Carr seamlessly crosses genres to include mystery, suspense, crime fiction, police procedurals, romance, and humor.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, and two spoiled rotten German shepherds on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Social Media links
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Book Link
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