the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher mysteries

March 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th of 2024
Thursday through Monday

Including the recently released Ghost Walk

It’s the quarterly-recurring special deal whereby authors can choose to
trade royalty payments for exposure to new readers & new markets.

From Amazon.com — use the links below the covers
to order your copies.

Available only in Kindle format.

Simultaneously at all 15 Amazon stores, worldwide:
US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy,
Netherlands, Sweden, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil.
Nobody doesn’t like free stuff.

Give any or all of these titles a try, and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at: mystery@budcrawford.com.

the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher mysteries

December 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th of 2023
Thursday through Monday

Including the recently released Ghost Walk

It’s the quarterly-recurring special deal whereby authors can choose to
trade royalty payments for exposure to new readers & new markets.

From Amazon.com — use the links below the covers
to order your copies.

Available only in Kindle format.

Simultaneously at all 15 Amazon stores, worldwide:
US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy,
Netherlands, Sweden, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil.
Nobody doesn’t like free stuff.

Give any or all of these titles a try, and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at: mystery@budcrawford.com.

September 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th of 2023 Thursday through Monday

Including the recently released Ghost Walk

from the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher Mysteries series

August 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd of 2022
Thursday through Monday
Including the just released Ghost Walk

Asheville Story

Williamsburg Story

Charleston Story

free from Amazon.com (links below the cover pictures)
available only in Kindle format

At all Amazon stores, worldwide:
US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy,
Netherlands, Sweden, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.
People everywhere like free stuff.

Give any or all of these titles a try,
and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.

from the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher Mysteries series

November 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of 2022
Thursday through Monday
Including the just released Ghost Walk

_________________________________________

It’s the quarterly-recurring special deal
whereby authors trade royalty payments
for exposure to new readers & new markets.

All briefly free from Amazon.com 
use the links below the covers.
Available only in Kindle format.

Simultaneously at all the Amazon stores, worldwide:
US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy,
Netherlands, Sweden, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.
Nobody doesn’t like free stuff.

Give any or all of these titles a try,
and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at:
mystery@budcrawford.com.

the Charleston story

gone live today on Amazon Kindle

it’s the third book of the Ellen & Geoffrey Fletcher mysteries

Riverrun is ready

write the first review

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday

from the Ellen and Geoffrey Fletcher Mysteries series

February 11 – 15 of 2022
Friday – Monday

The idea is that that authors with books published on Kindle can choose, now and again,
to trade income for exposure and make their titles be briefly free.

So, new readers, arise! Exercise your freedoms! Lest they wane and waste.

free from Amazon.com (links below the cover pictures)
available only in Kindle format

At all Amazon stores, worldwide:
US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy,
Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.
(People everywhere like free stuff.)

Give either or both of these titles a try,
and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.

It’s seven years ago, now,
that I was musing on reviews.
I’ll stand by what I said.

Every book published, or symphony premiered, every play that opens, lives or dies on its reviews. Sometimes a work survives a spate of initial bad reviews, or the reviews spur revisions that improve it. Sometimes a rerelease catches a better moment in the zeitgeist. And sometimes a piece thrives despite universally bad reviews. More commonly — enough good notices bring life, enough bad ones bring death.

On the Interwebs

Internet reviews are the same. And different. Reviewers aren’t qualified or institutional, just people who loved the water-proof mascara or hated the salmon on a cedar plank, who thought the treble was set too high or didn’t like how the salesperson talked to her toddler. Good or bad, they’re up forever. A ten-year-old comment might still be on top of the list. Sometimes they generate a spiral, usually downwards, of challenges and replies.

People who use reviews learn to assess the credibility of reviewers and pick up on which ones their own tastes align with. And some sites help by letting you access all the reviews somebody has written or by tracking whether other people scored their comments “helpful.” A long string of 5-star reviews may mark an especially good piece of work. But it may also mean the author has lots of relatives trying to help her out. 1-stars may mean something’s lousy, or show enemies or rivals lurking. A 3-star average may indicate mediocrity or an excellence that not everybody gets.

But it’s all you have, if you’re looking for something new to read, or a new restaurant to try. Your time and money are limited, so you’ll probably check out the higher-rated choices first. Reviews are the blood flow of Amazon: either they bring you some oxygen or your work turns blue. The people behind the work take all the comments personally and feel them sharply. Reviews can validate your efforts or knock you flat. If you’ve spent a year of your life making the best story you know how, hearing “well, that sucked” is going to sting. Obviously he’s an idiot with no taste, but …

Beginner luck

I was lucky, right off the bat, getting strong reviews that pleased me not just because they were favorable, but because they seemed to understood what I was trying to do and thought I had succeeded. But then came some harsh ones, some mean ones. Some wounded because they touched what I thought the weak spots were—ah, got me! Some were annoying because they claimed I had failed at something I hadn’t tired to do, or violated a standard I wasn’t trying to meet. Should you give a bad review to a book because it’s not the kind of story you like to read? Most people let it go, but others are on a mission to purify the world by marking everything that displeases them, dogs and fire hydrants.

What’s fascinating is when the same quality gets an opposite response. Fit to Curve, my first book, starts slowly as I introduce my main characters to the world; for the series, not just for this story. Part of the craft of the novelist is learning what you can leave out (and for the most part: if you can, you should). But this was my first venture. It was the most common criticism, except for the reviewers who didn’t notice, didn’t care, or thought it was a good thing. My second title, Heart Attack, moves more briskly; it generated a different set of complaints. Here’s a selection of typical comments (some fragments, some whole, mostly from Amazon, a couple from Goodreads). Question: have they read the same book(s)?

Specimen reviews

      Fit to Curve is a skillfully written mystery with complex characters and such a fascinating plot that I’m way behind on my chores.

      This series is a favorite with interesting plots and wonderfully drawn characters. Wish the author would write more of them. The type of book you don’t want to end.

      A bed and breakfast mystery. Super characters, well developed. You are waiting for the other shoe to drop. A mouth-watering, good read. I love the old lady with the sharp wit and mind. I’d like the recipes, too

      I wasn’t sure I’d like this book at first, because the plot builds very slowly. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I liked the characters, and you get a lot of insight into them.

      Good mystery, likeable characters, but overly long-winded. I put it down for days on end because it just seemed to go nowhere at times.

        This is too fine a novel, as a novel, to be mired in the mystery/suspense ghetto. It’s a good mystery, with a complex plot, all the mystery trappings, but the characters are rounded and attractive. The theme seems to me to be a consideration of morality — not just sexual morality (or immorality), though there’s some of that, too, for those who like to read such descriptions, but all kinds of morality: for how high a price might you sell your soul?

      It pains me to say I just couldn’t get into this book. I found the characters were well written, and their personalities drew me in. However, with that being said, the plot just moved too slow for me.

      Heart Attack is a great read! Just wish Ellen & Geoffrey weren’t quite so perfect; never do anything wrong, look great all the time, have wonderful jobs, and the only drawback to their marriage … she can’t have kids. 

     This couple are a great addition to the mystery genre. Sharp and interesting with a bit of humor and spice.

      Snappy dialog. Geoff and Ellen are a great team. He has a definite intuitive method of assessing info and arriving at conclusions that baffle and irk his cohorts. Ellen is more conventional and together are a great team. Unusual mystery not easily solved.

      I just read the first few pages and then deleted it from my Kindle. I am not a fan of books with nothing but sex and innuendo for a story line. It might have gotten better as it went along, but I couldn’t get far enough to find out.

The last was my favorite 1-star notice, from Amazon Canada. It’s a little bewildering, I’m really not sure what alarmed her. But it brought a huge brief spike in Canadian sales. Probably also disappointed some readers.

Review review

So, hey, if you’ve got something nice to say, say it. If you’re going to be mean, pause a second: do you need to be? Have you spotted a rotten thing the world should be warned against, or just something not to your taste?

Coming attractions:

Stepping across the branch at the wide place over the quartz

that supports life forms which may or may not
be consuming portions of its essential self.

Some of the mini boulders are so far free
from visible inhabitation

even as the situation of others is impossible to assess.

While on the forest floor below
the mushrooms thrust their caps into light and air.

Oh, there were complaints, all day long, chiefly
from the jays and the thrashers and the catbirds,

but for the second year running,
we got a good share of the blueberries.
Well, to be honest, most of them.

The point, we explain, is that we’re already feeding them
from a dozen feeders, refreshed several times a day.

We left the phoebe nest glommed against the siding
clear of the screen door by a whisper.
Yes, the little gray bits at the top are chick heads and tails.

We’d think we’re entitled to some of what
we’ve tilled and planted and fed and watered.
The deer demur, lean in to help themselves,
but we persist.

The same life forms that digest the rocks also work
on the wood of our porch, beautiful and strange,
as they proffer proof of pretty clean air.

It’s time to sit to spin a spell as the sun settles.

And appreciate the day that has just unwound.

There’s the strangest mix of ineffable delicacy with ferocity.

Fey things light sometimes and sometimes strike.

From the back, most delicate brushstrokes.

From the front, the apparatus of a working insect.

They’re not fooling around, they get it done.

Solitary, except by random if frequent juxtaposition;
or perhaps directed by a drunken choreographer.

Ontogeny incorporates phylogeny if you look underneath.

Flightpath direct and unafraid,
like a predator, not evading,
just up there, like a wasp, like a hawk.

Possible alien spacecraft.

Hayrolls from the first cut.

Backing up a bit.

Our western ridge and the next ridge.

Hazy, a little lazy.

Veteran fence posts ever ready for a new deployment.

Uphill past the garden into the orchard.

Annoying brush pile — it’s for the birds.

Wall garden with stone snake-sunning bench.

Energy and entropy wrestled to a tie.

One turn around the house, a chromatic floracopeia.

While here and there at the edges

begins the rehearsal for what’s next.

That’s water at the top, running under the bridge,
but the bridge hosts a rock festooned with cinnamon lichen.

All that black plastic was a weed barrier
stretched over the bank, temporarily, 30 years ago.
It ripped as time went by,
blew apart, got brittle
while we pondered on the wall we wanted to watch
from the kitchen window
instead of the unstable bank rank with weedy stuff.

In December just past,
a mason began the real work
and three decades vanished in three months
despite dodging the dodgy snows and freezy rains
that have marked our ascent, this year, into spring.

A solid as rocks, the bottom grew up
to a shelf all the way across
with a backing and the beginning of terraced beds.

For spring and birthday and Easter
and a place in one of those beds
a calla lily waits out our most recent freeze.

The plastic, meanwhile, ripped away in minutes,
the rocks set, the beds turned down,
and plant chocolates placed on the pillowed ground.

It’s a matter of mulch, now, and compost, and setting out plants.

Most of the rocks came from the mud-daubed chimney,
a hundred years old when we took it down,
rock by rock, passed hand to hand,
out of the very center of the house,
and piled it, 40 years ago,
a careful heap, become a mine
of flat and stackable native stone.

But a dozen of the stones
are hunks of crystal quartz harvested
from the branch
worked in just for magic.

Meanwhile, the unruly grass rises everywhere
not impressed by late frosts
or a little dusting of April snow.

Ah, but the mower has a new 135″ belt
and I a new shoulder.
We shall prevail,
for one more year.
in one more month.

“I want you to come with me tomorrow morning to have a talk with your Aunt Gally.” Jewel Wallner Drummond was Beale’s widow. Kendell was their only child, currently Vice-President for WMT European operations, directly under Gally’s son Spencer. There were four other VPs in Hamburg, but they were technocrats, not leadership. “Spencer is a sixty-year-old puppet. If Violette ever took her hand out of his ass, he’d crumble. You are ten years younger and fifty IQ points ahead of him. And I know you’re who really runs things in Europe, in the big picture sense.”

“Mom, quit with this stuff.” Kendell pretended to put her hands over her ears. “I’ll see Aunt G any time she wants. I’m not going to stand around her deathbed for the eenie-meenie-miney-moe. I don’t want to be CEO of Planet Wallner. If Spencer takes over, as he probably will, I’ll likely get his job. That would be great. I know Europe, after 17 years. My husband and my kids are native Hamburgers, they’re happy there. I don’t know Pittsburgh anymore. I don’t want to be the one to choose between making tools for robots and tools for humans, or whether we’ll be producing machinery or computer code. Let Pittsburgh decide, or Gally with her last breath. I’m sixty years old, I get to make my own choices for me and my family.”

“Sweetheart, I own 15% of Wallner, more than anyone but your Aunt Lizzie, when Gally’s gone. I trust you to keep my stake safe. I don’t believe either your cousin or that Czech has the sense God gave a mud hen. Spencer is a fool and Mikala believes robots should rule the earth. I want you in charge.”

“I get that. But you have to get that I don’t want to be.”

“If Gally asked you?”

“That answer’s not going to be different, the 57th time you ask. I’d tell her why she was wrong. If she still wanted me, I’d say, yes. Only then. And this is still not an invitation for you to stage something. However this turns out, I’m good. And so are you. You’re 77, ma, that’s too old for this Game of Thrones shit.”

“What about the witch, the one that shrivels up when she takes off her necklace?”

“And you’re wrong about Cousin Spencer. He’s not brilliant, needs some help with technical stuff, but he’s solid. People trust him.”

“Because they don’t know him. He has a nice smile, but I want a good brain running my company, not good teeth. I’ll talk to Gally tonight, set something up for us.”

“Please don’t, ma. Don’t make me tell her I don’t want to see her, because that’s not true. And what about the twins? Why aren’t you crabbing out on Ricard and Arona? I realize they’re working under Aunt G in Philadelphia and Spencer has Europe to himself, as it were. So they’re slightly junior. But there’s two good brains and they work together like, well, twins. And Vernon’s kids have as much claim as I do.”

“Kendell, you’re so far above them. It’s not even a contest, unless you stay under your damn bushel. You need to think about the company first.”

“Why, Ma? Why must I? 70-80 hours a week of my best effort, that’s not enough? How about early retirement instead. I’ve got plenty saved, I could help in Alwyn’s office, we could travel, spend time with our kids, pretty soon grandkids. That sounds damn good.”

“Financial security with an architect in private practice? Right. The next commission might be the one that never comes. Your savings won’t cover the malpractice insurance. It’s like fashion models, they’re hot until they’re not. Wake up one day, nobody wants to see Twiggy’s bony knees ever again.”

“You know, mommy dearest, that you can’t win anything here? You can irritate the hell out of me. You’re getting close.”

“I just want the best for you. Go ahead, sue your mother.”

“You don’t. You want the best for Wallner, which is weird, really, for somebody not born into the thing.”

“A 110 year old company is a ‘thing?’ The largest tool maker in private hands is a ‘thing?’ Twelfth largest tool maker in the world? The seventh largest privately owned manufacturing company?”

“Something like that. I’m sure your numbers are right. But try to remember I was cleaning Wallner offices at eleven, on the factory floor at fourteen, sent to Hamburg right out of grad school. I’ve worked for your company for forty years. I’ve never worked anywhere else. One more little cheerleader happy fact and I’ll slap you.”

“You’re threatening the woman who pushed you into the world? Of course you are. You’re my very own damn darling daughter. I really am not trying to piss you off. I just want … well, you know.”

“Yeah. I know. And you could not love me so much loved you not Wallner Machine Tools more. I forgave you years ago for not knowing that you needed forgiving. All in a daughter’s day’s work. Waters broken under the bridge. I love you, too.”