The Fog Ladies: Date with Death (A San Francisco Cozy Murder)
Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Setting – California
Wild Rose Press (October 2, 2023)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 338 pages

Synopsis

The Fog Ladies are at it again, spunky senior sleuths and an overstressed young medical resident solving murders from their elegant apartment building in San Francisco. They join a senior dating group, and romantic intrigue soon turns to murder. Graham Parselle, lady killer extraordinaire, plunges off a cliff on a Senior Singles outing. Did one of his dates pitch him over? Or is Olivia Honeycut’s new beau to blame?

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Excerpt

Enid Carmichael ducked her head and squeezed her eyes shut and waited for Beverly’s car to smash them to smithereens. Enid was squished in the back of this tin can Mr. Glenn called a car with a huge furry hound taking up more than his fair share of the seat and fouling the air with his stinky breath. She had survived eighty-one long, tedious years. This was not how she wanted to die.

The tin can hurled and thrust her sideways into Boris. He let out a yelp and so did she, but she was alive and she had plenty more tedious years to live, so she could shout all she wanted.

“You did it, Alma! Now get us away from her.”

“I’m trying, but she’s right there! Right behind us.”

Mrs. Carmichael twisted her head around, but her neck didn’t move like it used to. She opened the window and stuck her head out for a better view. Beverly’s car picked up speed and was suddenly so close Mrs. Carmichael could see the maniacal look on her face.

Couldn’t Mr. Glenn’s car go any faster? Wait a minute. “Alma, what are you doing? Don’t stop for the stop sign! This is life and death!”

“I have to stop for the stop sign. What if I hit someone?”

“Hit someone? It’s us who’re being hit. Put your rear in gear.”

Alma pressed the gas pedal, and they shot through the intersection. Shockingly, Beverly’s car slowed for the stop sign, too, but in an instant she was on them.

Alma was whining again. “I’m not allowed to drive without a supervising adult in the car. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

“Supervising adult? Good God. Alma Gordon, put the pedal to the metal or I’ll do it for you.”

Alma tugged the wheel one way then the other, pitching them up one street and down the next.

“Good driving, Alma. I think you lost her.”

Clang, clang

“Oh, no, Alma! What street are you crossing? Hyde?”

“Cable car! Hold on, Enid!”

A cable car rocketed down Hyde, passengers hanging out the side taking photos of the San Francisco Bay at the bottom of the steep street, oblivious to the sure death that awaited them when they T-boned Alma and Enid. Or would the cable car slice right through Mr. Glenn’s flimsy car, leaving the ladies sawed in two like a big-stage magic trick gone awry?

The cable car bell clanked incessantly. Alma dodged in front of the outsize doom mobile. Her car teetered on two wheels, Enid was sure. The tires spun and they ended up facing the water far below, the cable car on their bumper.

“Go, Alma, go!”

Enid saw the gripman’s expression, somewhere between terrified and infuriated. His brakes screeched. His passengers screeched.

He yelled, but Enid’s view of him was cut by a car slipping in between them. “It’s Beverly!”

Enid’s stomach heaved as Alma sped downhill. Boris’s body flew up and he landed with his front paws in her lap. He shoved his big head out the window, completely obscuring her sightline. Her face was in his fur and all she could see was his enormous, platter-like tongue, lolling in the wind.

“Eek,” Alma shrieked. “We’re going too fast. These brakes aren’t enough. Brace, Enid, brace!”

Enid was as braced as she could be, squashed behind this dog. The car lurched around a corner, tires squealing.

“Woof, woof, woof,” Boris protested.

Enid opened her mouth to protest, too, but was met with a mouthful of fur. Yuck.

“She’s still there! Enid, I can’t shake her. Hang on!”

Enid’s body hurtled against the door. Mr. Glenn’s car better hold. If the door latch gave way and she plummeted out onto the streets of San Francisco, she’d never forgive him. And just her luck, Beverly’s car would crush her flat into the pavement, and she’d be nothing but a thin smear on the asphalt adorned with a red crop of hair.

She was not going like that. She threw the dog off her. She leaned forward, shot her long arm around Alma’s puny body, and seized the steering wheel. If Alma couldn’t save them, Enid would.

About the Author

Susan McCormick is an award-winning writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in Washington, DC and San Francisco, where she lived in an elegant apartment building much like the one in the Fog Ladies books. Susan served as a doctor in the US Army for nine years before moving to the Pacific Northwest and civilian practice. In addition to the Fog Ladies series, she also wrote Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and The Antidote, a middle grade to adult medical fantasy. She lives with her husband and two sons and loves giant dogs, the bigger and slobberier the better.

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