A Different Kind of Review--Guest Reviewer, Irving from Lauren Carr's Dead on Ice!

A Maine Coon cat in the snow of Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dead on Ice:  
 A Lovers in Crime Mystery

By Lauren Carr


You know me, right? We met first in Shades of Murder. That was when I first got involved with Gnarly and Mac Faraday. They are both cool dudes, but, really, I just needed to have my own book, which is Dead on Ice, the Debut Lovers in Crime Mystery! And, no, I'm not a lover...yet.

I'm the sidekick of Cameron Gates, one kick-ass lady! Of course, I could have no other type of partner since most people also run when they see me... Ha, I'm just teasing you as we cats are prone to do with our...victims... You see, only God knows why I was literally striped with white down my head and back, so that, some, who don't immediately recognize me as the beautiful Maine Coon  (I had this picture touched up so you could enjoy just gazing at my big furry bod...) that I am, immediately scream, "Skunk!" You know, that gets old reallllll quick! But, at least Mom always immediately corrects the mistake and introduces me...I'm Irving! Yeah, Irving is my moniker--Mom gave me that name--you wanna step outside and make something of that?

But then, she had to go and allow the story of my being "skunked" to be shared here... It'll be awhile before I forgive her for that!

So, just let me go ahead and tell you a little about our great story!

Cherry Pickens was her name...

Yes, she was a well-known porn star at one time, but had at some point come back to her home town. Some didn't even know she had been there, or at least that's what they said when my Mom started asking...

Hey, I haven't told you yet that Mom is a state Police homicide detective. She works a lot with Joshua Thornton who is the Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney. This time, Joshua was personally involved because his cousin owned the house...

Where the well-preserved body of Cherry Pickens was found.

But that wasn't the first body...

Albert Gordon was a local lawyer and the cousin of Joshua, but had been noticed to be missing for a few days.

Cameron and Joshua had both showed up to a house that they had not been inside since before Albert's wife had died. Since then he had become a hoarder and there was just a small path through which they began to search. Soon, though, Mom noticed a familiar smell beyond the mustiness of all that was stored there...

They saw his hand first; piles of newspapers had fallen on him and apparently smothered him before he could get out. They soon learned that Albert's estate was left to the church and included a million dollars! That's when people started coming from all over to see what was in the house, to help clean, and to consider what would happen in the future...

And someone spotted the bomb...

There were certainly many trails down which Mom and others went, to try to find out who would have killed a porn star. Could it have been as simple as the mob finding her and taking their revenge out? But then, how did they get the body into a freezer and into the basement of a house so full that humans had to follow the paths that had been left by the owner. You may be stumped by this complex mystery--cause my Mom sure spent a lot of time investigating, not even taking me out as usual! That was NOT good! And I often let her know my feelings, even though she was so busy she couldn't listen to me much!

I've been told this book will be lots of fun for you humans,  and Dead on Ice is BRH Highly Recommended! As for me, I hope I am invited back once I'm totally smell-free from the spray from you-know-who! And, if you don't mind, could you keep this little part of the book to yourself...and I'll owe you one!

Enjoy this one, especially my parts in our Debut...I just know it's going to be me that you'll want to follow, but I'm sure you'll also like getting to know my Mom and the others in our little town! Thanks for reading about me!

Irving

Lauren Carr is the author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. All of her mysteries have been getting rave reviews from readers and reviewers. Dead on Ice is Lauren's sixth book, and the first installment of a new series, Lovers in Crime, which is set in Chester, West Virginia and Hookstown, Pennsylvania, in the Ohio Valley.

When a foul odor reached her nose, Cameron covered her face. She could hear Irving screeching behind her. Big Will covered his face with one hand while pointing over her shoulder with the other. “I thought you said that was a cat.” Whirling around, Cameron saw Irving racing across the parking lot toward her. His fur was flared so that he looked twice his size. As he grew closer, the stench became worse. “Irving? Is that you?” “Skunk!” Big Will turned to run. In his hysteria, he banged into the edge of the picnic table and fell over. He rolled before scrambling to his feet and running up the hill to where his car was parked along the road. Cameron wanted to back away also, but she couldn’t leave Irving, who was equally hysterical. When he got to her, he stopped, dropped, rolled, and pawed at his face with first one paw and then the other. “What did you do?” Irving howled. When he tried to rub up against her, she backed up. He followed her in her retreat until she had her back up against the picnic table. Crying out, the big cat reached up to claw at her thighs. Cameron looked from where the cat was pitifully writhing in misery at her feet to the state police cruiser. There was no choice. The only way to get Irving home and cleaned up was to take him in the police car. “You do realize that we’re never going to live this down.” She picked up the howling cat. Clinging to her with his front claws, he rubbed his face back and forth across her shoulder. “What happened? Did she get mad when she found out you were a cat in a skunk suit?”