Author of the Week: Elissa D. Grodin
To bring in the new month of August, Cozy Cat Press introduces Elissa D. Grodin as author of the week! Her two cozy mysteries are Physics Can Be Fatal and Death by Hitchcock: An Edwina Goodwin Mystery.
Physics Can Be Fatal follows the story of twenty-five year old Edwina Goodman, a physics instructor at Cushing College, an Ivy League college in the New England town of New Guliford. A new physics instructor, Alan Sidebottom, shows up at the college to teach for a semester and dies a few days after his arrival due to a supposed heart attack. When the handsome investigator, William Tenney, finds there is much ill will towards the dead professor-who is known as the 'bad boy' of physics-he enlists the help of Edwina. Edwina, who was with Sidebottom the night he died, feels guilt that she did not stay with him longer and is willing to help in the investigation as much as she can. Can they find out if the heart attack is something more? Or will their mutual attraction get in the way?
Click the picture to read a sample!
Death by Hitchcock: An Edwina Goodwin Mystery is also about Edwina Goodwin. This time someone else has died at Cushing College. A film student, Bunny Baldwin, was found strangled to death the opening night of the Hitchcock Film Festival. Bunny's death was timed to the showing of the Hitchcock film, Spellbound, all of the suspects seem to have an airtight alibi, and drugs were found in Bunny's system that suggest poisoning. Working again with her almost boyfriend, detective Will Tenney, Edwina uses her scientific sleuthing skills to get down to the bottom of this unusual case as another victim is found. Can she crack the case before the killer finds her first?
Check out this excerpt and click the picture to read more!
"The tearoom's young amiable namesake, Olivia Mason, made a refreshing change from the truculent Madame Davenport. Full of cheerful energy, and eager to make a success of it, Olivia Mason had decorated the tearoom with loving care, first painting the grey walls a butter cream color, then lightening the dark, hardwood floors with a pickled oak stain. A smattering of tables and chairs with polka-dotted tablecloths lined the front window. The gleaming display counter tempted customers with platters of tarts and cakes, cookies and tea breads, alongside trays of savory sandwiches on fat slices of fresh baked bread. It seemed Olivia Mason had thought of everything to make her patrons feel welcome.
"But if, on occasion, conversation among some of her regulars should take a dark and subversive turn, it could hardly be expected of Olivia Mason to keep abreast of such things, to nip it in the bud. After all, no one was breaking any laws.
"Not just yet."
Born in Kanas City, Missouri, Elissa Durwood Grodin was the fourth of six kids. She attended Antioch and Dartmouth Colleges, as well as The School of Visual Arts in New York City. She lived in London and wrote for the Times Literary Supplement.
Along with her cozy mysteries, Elissa has written many children's books about the alphabet and counting. One of her earliest memories is attending pre-school at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Elissa is married to actor/activist Charles Grodin and they have a son, Nicholas.
Like what you see? Like, comment, share, and happy August!