Gambling with Murder: A Southern California Mystery
Mystery
5th in Series
Setting – California
Level Best Books (March 29, 2022)
Paperback, 260 pages

Synopsis

A late-night call is all it takes for rookie lawyer Corrie Locke to kiss her day job at the movie studio goodbye, and do what she does best: flex her sweet P.I. skills and go undercover to find a senior who’s missing from a posh retirement community. One small stumbling block: skirting past security to gain inside access to the exclusive Villa Sunset. Time to call in the heavy artillery. Besides former security guard turned legal assistant—now wannabe P.I.—Veera, Corrie relies on a secret weapon: her mother, a surprisingly eager addition to Corrie’s team. Armed with enough pepper spray to take down a band of Navy Seals, Mom impersonates a senior to infiltrate the Villa, Corrie and Veera in tow. Turns out the job’s not as easy as they’d thought. These seniors have tricks tucked up their sleeves and aren’t afraid of using them.

The action gets dicey when the missing senior case turns into attempted murder by a criminal mind who’s always one step ahead. Corrie’s hot on the trail, but finds more than she bargained for…when her mother becomes a target.

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Guest Post

The Life of a Fictional Criminal

by Lida Sideris

Since I write mysteries, I need to set up each book with a criminal element to give my heroine, Corrie Locke, something to do; actually, something to look forward to doing, in her case. She thrives on cleaning up the streets of Southern California, one criminal (sometimes more) at a time. And she’s got the skills, plus the weapons, to do it. How do I create my felons?

Sometimes, it’s as easy as reading a news story. For instance, I read about a perpetual thief, now in her eighties, who broke into doctors’ offices and stole everything from first aid supplies to drugs. The thief had been in and out of jail/prison her whole adult life. She formed the inspiration for a criminal in my latest, book, Gambling with Murder.

Other times, the felon slips in when I’m not looking.

In the first installment of my Southern California Mystery series, I wasn’t sure who the bad guy/girl was. I pressed on, right beside Corrie, to find the killer’s identity. And boy was I surprised! That’s because the felon acted pretty normal when he/she mingled with the rest of the book’s characters. Clues were tossed around, but innocent bystanders also misbehaved at times, so I couldn’t be sure who the culprit was until the very end.

To make fictional, villainous characters appear real, I give them:

–  Motive – Villains are people typically motivated to do bad things because of their particular circumstances. The motivation could be a thirst for greed or power (as in my first book, MURDER & OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS). Maybe they’re killers for hire (like the bargain basement hitman in book #3, MURDER: DOUBLE OR NOTHING) or maybe they need to exact revenge (a popular motive that appeared in #2, MURDER GONE MISSING).

–  Personality – Villains need character traits and even…jobs. I don’t have any independently wealthy villains in my books. Or do I? 😊 A villain could be a janitor, a student, a doctor, a college dean, or an amusement park character.

– Willingness to Help – I’m always a little surprised to find that villains can be helpful. They are capable of doing almost anything to throw the scent off their actual plans. And sometimes, deep, deep inside, they’re not all that bad. And that helps throw the reader off track.

The goal is to play hide and go seek with the reader. Hide the villain and keep the reader guessing. And in my case, sometimes, keep the writer guessing, too.

About the Author

Lida Sideris’ first stint after law school was a newbie lawyer’s dream: working as an entertainment attorney for a movie studio…kind of like her heroine, Corrie Locke, except without the homicides. Lida was one of two national winners of the Helen McCloy Mystery Writers of America Scholarship Award and a Silver Falchion Award Finalist. She lives in the northern tip of Southern California with her family, rescue dogs, and a flock of uppity chickens.

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