Fair Game (A Zoe Chambers Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
8th in Series
Henery Press (May 14, 2019)
Hardcover: 286 pages
Paperback: 286 pages

Synopsis

Paramedic Zoe Chambers hoped a week at the Monongahela County Fair, showing her horse and manning the ambulance, would provide a much-needed diversion from recent events that continue to haunt her.

An old friend, a bossy nemesis, and a teenage crush from her 4-H days fail to offer the distraction she had in mind. But ever the caregiver, she soon bonds with a troubled teen and a grieving father.

Back in Vance Township, a missing woman turns up dead, leading Police Chief Pete Adams into a journey through her mysterious final hours. With each new clue, the tragic circumstances of her death grow increasingly muddied.

A cryptic phone call leads Pete to join Zoe for an evening at the fairgrounds where the annual school bus demolition derby concludes with a gruesome discovery and a new case that may or may not be connected to the first.

Pete’s quest for the motive behind two homicides—and Zoe’s stubborn determination to reunite a family—thrust them both onto a collision course with a violent and desperate felon.

Guest Post

Overheard Murder Plots

By Annette Dashofy

I’m frequently asked where I get my story ideas. Sometimes a news article sparks my interest. Sometimes a long-ago event begs to be retold. And sometimes ideas come to me in my sleep. No, I don’t mean my dreams.

I do a fair amount of traveling while promoting my books, and some hotels have very thin walls. There have been many nights when I’ve been exhausted and have an early morning ahead. Eager for slumber, I’ve lain awake because the folks in the next room were having a party, watching TV with the volume cranked up, or otherwise being “loud.” I’ve been tempted to pound on the wall and yell, “I can hear you!”

One night a couple of years ago, while attending a mystery convention, the hotel walls were especially thin, and I really could hear every word my neighbors were saying. I wouldn’t have had to pound the wall or yell to inform them their conversation wasn’t private. This made me wonder what topics my own roommate and I had discussed that weekend. Two mystery authors in a room…talking shop…brainstorming ideas…maybe discussing ways to kill someone and get away with it…

Instead of ordering my neighbors to be quiet, I came up with an idea that found its way into the opening chapter of Fair Game. A traveler spends the night in a hotel with thin walls and overhears a man in the next room threatening to kill someone. Was he drunk? Just blowing off steam? Writing a mystery novel?

Or was our traveler really privy to a plan to commit murder?

In Fair Game, the traveler decides to report the “murder” at the first police station he passes the next day, which just happens to be Vance Township’s P.D. The report then places the burden on Chief Pete Adams. Should he investigate? There hasn’t been a murder, just an overheard threat. But the potential is there to stop a killing before it happens.

What would you do if you overheard a murder plot being hatched in the room next to yours? (Advice: First find out if there’s a mystery convention going on!)

About the Author

Annette Dashofy is the USA Today best-selling author of the Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania’s tight-knit Vance Township. CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2014 and BRIDGES BURNED was nominated for the 2015 Agatha for Best Contemporary Novel.

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