Deadly Deception (The Deadly Series)
Historical Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
JDP Press (March 22, 2019)
Paperback: 316 pages

Synopsis

Everyone hides secrets. Some provoke murder.

Olivia Denis discovers her father kneeling over the body of a man…a man who supposedly drowned in the Channel years before. Olivia wants to ring for help, her father wants to hide the body, but a mysterious phone call brings Scotland Yard to the murder scene.
Olivia can’t stand by and let her maddening, disapproving father hang. To prove his innocence – and learn his secrets – she must work with a master spy. The search for clues takes Olivia to the continent and the Kent countryside, Hastings and London, pushing her deeper into the world of danger and deception.

As war between Germany and Britain stalks closer, the hunt for a Nazi collaborator intensifies. With a mounting death toll, Olivia knows she must unmask the killer or be the next to die.

Guest Post

A note from a Reader

It all began with an email sent to my website. Marcia Wheeler wrote me to say, “A good tale let down by the supposedly mid-20^th Century English narrator using 21^st Century American English.” She then went on to point out where I had used words that marked me as an American rather than the upper-middle or upper-class English woman who’d grown up between the two World Wars. (I’m not that old, either!)

It was the most helpful email I’ve received on my website.

Among the common mistakes I make is that the English call it autumn, not fall. I need to go through my manuscripts and replace like with as if or as though. An elevator is a lift, my characters should tidy up, not wash up, and a closet is a wardrobe.

I always thought parlour was British. It’s not. The word is drawing room, sitting room, or living room, depending on the size and nature of the house or flat. And here I thought living room was very American. So much so that I use drawing room or sitting room, and give living room a pass in my stories. Home alone should be sitting at home by yourself.

I learned that instead of holding something funny, it would be awkwardly or oddly. English schools don’t end in graduation, only universities do. Courgettes (zucchini squash) and aubergines (eggplant) weren’t commonly found in English cooking before World War II. Food must have been pretty dreary and along the lines of potatoes, gravy, cabbage, and boiled carrots

I asked her about gazebo, which features in my current work in progress, the second in the Milliner Mysteries. I was trying to describe a small covered shelter in a park that looked like a small bandstand. Was I ever relieved to find out that was a good word to use in the story.

Marcia also told me about pantries and larders for Deadly Deception, the fourth in the Deadly Series. A larder is specifically for food. A pantry could be the Butler’s pantry or used for storage.  A scullery is a room off the kitchen used for laundry, which Americans would call a laundry room. This is helpful for me not only in my writing but in watching PBS and BritBox TV shows.

The men running the jail where Olivia’s father is kept are called warders, not guards. The warden in the US who is in charge of a prison is called the governor in Britain. What we call a yard, front or back, is called a garden in England. An American truckload would be a lorryload in England. A sedan isn’t a four-door car in England. They would either call it a car or a saloon.

These are just some of the differences between American and British England that Marcia taught me. As is obvious, I had a lot to learn to make certain Olivia sounded correct for her time and place in society.

Marcia kindly read through Deadly Deception and corrected places where I used the American term rather than the British one. I believe it’s made the experience of reading this book easier from the point of view of slipping inside Olivia’s head and seeing England in the 1930s all around her.

The Deadly Series, including the latest, Deadly Deception, can be found in e-books and paperbacks at your favorite online retailers, including:

Amazon * iBooks * B&N * Kobo

About the Author

Kate Parker grew up in Washington, DC, spent several years along the Carolina coast, and now finds herself in the Colorado front range. All the time, she has been busy plotting to spend more time in her favorite city, London, where her books are set. So far, she hasn’t been able to build a time machine, so she has to visit historical sites and books to immerse herself in the details of life in bygone days.

2019 will see the publication of her fourth Deadly Series book, Deadly Deception, as well as a novella, The Mystery at Chadwick House. Chadwick House will both be for sale at the usual retailers plus given away to the readers of her newsletter. It is her first contemporary mystery. Later in the year, Kate plans on publishing the second Milliner Mystery. Her daughter has informed her this year she will also become the servant of a large, exuberant dog.

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