Corpse and Robbers: A Male Housekeeper Mystery
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – A small town in Michigan
Cozy Cat Press (April 16, 2022)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 234 pages

Synopsis

Paul Bearer & Sons has two memorial services on the schedule, but three dead bodies. When Rusted Bonnet’s funeral home becomes the site of a murder, Cam Reddick finds himself as a prime suspect. To distance himself from the allegations, Cam must untangle a host of clever cons and mini mysteries, from corpse robbing to a fine art scam to a modern-day treasure hunt. Cam soon discovers that Paul Bearer’s more closely resembles a con artists’ colony than a funeral home. With help from his ex-wife and mother, Cam ultimately unearths the most devious and deadly ploy of all.

Corpse and Robbers in the second installment of Stephen Kaminski’s Male Housekeeper Mystery series.

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Guest Post

The Diversified Con Artist

The Male Housekeeper Mysteries I write are cozies, replete with quirky characters, witty banter, and of course, murder! But interwoven throughout the primary mystery are a series of clever cons. My latest book in the series—Corpse & Robbers—has four confidence schemes running in parallel. One key to keeping readers’ attention without confusing the narratives is to diversify!

So what does diversity in the realm of con artistry mean? It can mean “who” is running the scam, but it can also mean the geographic location or even the timeline of when the con took place. In Corpse & Robbers, I employed each of these methods.

In terms of “who,” several of the cons involve more than one con person. That is, they depend on multiple artists playing various roles, which adds to the con’s complexity. There are so many con men and women running around that I’ve dubbed the primary location of the book—Pall Bearer & Sons Funeral Home—to be a “con artists colony.”

As for geographic diversity, while the book’s primary setting is in Michigan, one con takes us over the border to Ontario, Canada and another crosses the Atlantic to South Africa.

With respect to timeline, while most of Corpse & Robbers happens in real time, I’ve included a “historical con” being uncovered in the present day related to a fast sailing clipper ship that sank in 1851.

And as for the murder at the heart of the story, could it be that the most intricate of confidence schemes soured?

About the Author

Stephen Kaminski is the author of two cozy mystery series: The Male Housekeeper Mysteries and the Damon Lassard Dabbling Detective series, both published by Cozy Cat Press.

“Corpse & Robbers” (2022) is the latest of Kaminski’s Male Housekeeper Mysteries. The first installment of the series, “An Au Pair to Remember,” was penned in 2019.

Each of Kaminski’s Damon Lassard books — “It Takes Two to Strangle” (2012), “Don’t Cry Over Killed Milk” (2013), and “Murder, She Floats” (2014) — was awarded the Reader Views Literary Award for the Mid-Atlantic Region, and Don’t Cry Over Killed Milk was named Best Classic Cozy in the 2014 Murder & Mayhem Awards and was a 2013 Chanticleer Media CLUE Award Finalist.

Stephen is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School and currently serves as the chief executive officer of a national energy association. He lives with his 120 lb Swissie, Siberian forest cat, rescue kitty, and a gaggle of occasionally tolerable but always loveable humans in Bethesda, MD.

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