Introducing Lauren Carr

-What is your name?

Lauren Carr

-What genre do you write in?

Mystery

-What drew you to this genre?

Mystery is the name of a very broad genre, under which there are dozens of sub-genres—including serial killer mysteries, cozy mysteries, and so on. Some mystery novels focus on the violence of the crime (like the serial killer mysteries), while others focus on the puzzle of solving it (like the cozy mysteries).

I am drawn to the puzzle side of murder mysteries. I love puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Crossword puzzles. But the murder mystery—solving the mystery to discover who has stolen the life of another—that is the ultimate puzzle.

 

-What books have you written?

1) A Small Case of Murder

2) A Reunion to Die For

3) It’s Murder, My Son

4) Old Loves Die Hard

5) Shades of Murder

6) Dead on Ice

7) Blast from the Past

8) The Murders at Astaire Castle

9) The Lady Who Cried Murder

10) Twelve to Murder

11) Real Murder

12) A Wedding and a Killing

13) Three Days to Forever

14) Kill and Run

15) Open Season for Murder

16) Cancelled Vows

17) Candidate for Murder

18) Killer in the Band

19) A Fine Year for Murder

20) Twofer Murder

21) ICE

22) Murder by Perfection

23) Crimes Past

24) Winter Frost

25) The Root of Murder (Spring 2019)

 

-What is your current release?

Winter Frost (A Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery). This is the second installment in a popular series that features Chris Matheson, a retired FBI agent. In ICE, the first installment in the series, Chris joins a book club at the urging of his mother, only to discover that it is not a book club at all. Disguised as a book club, the self-named Geezer Squad, whose number one rule is to never talk about the squad, boasts a broad set of skills, courtesy of its members, all former law enforcement agents. They welcome Chris with open arms, working with him to close numerous cold cases.

 

-How much research went into that book?

Researched various cold case mysteries and cold case squads, via the Internet and other venues, that have sprung up in various police departments across the country in an effort to close cold cases. Many police departments have brought in retired law enforcement officers, like the Geezer Squad, specifically to tackle cold cases.

 

-What was the hardest part of writing Winter Frost?

Treading gently in Washington. Our country has become so divided that some segments of our population, on both sides of the aisle, have become hyper-sensitive. Anything can be twisted around to offend someone somewhere somehow.

The storyline in Winter Frost deals with espionage and touches on politics only in that there are two politicians who play tiny roles in the plotline. I am a card carrying independent and personally dislike and distrust all politicians.

Focusing on the mystery, I became dismayed when I found myself taking a magnifying glass to the two politicians to see where some readers might find a hidden message and take offense. Here I was writing a murder mystery. Fiction! A make-believe story with make-believe characters and I was bending over backwards to make sure I didn’t inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings when all I wanted to do was write a compelling story—that’s all.

So, I threw away the magnifying glass and went back to writing. If anyone is offended, I’m sorry. Or maybe not.

 

-Is this work part of a series?

The Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery series.

 

– Where can your book(s) be found?

Amazon.com: Free with KindleUnlimited:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LF7TJ85

Available in ebook and paperback. Coming in Audible!

 

-Reading time is valuable. Sell me on your book.

Winter Frost was released January 28 and is already receiving fabulous feedback. Book Readers Heaven says “From the first chapter to the end, the excitement, the scares, the surprises…and the wonderful characters, simply blew my mind…”

 

Winter Frost is the second book in my popular new series, the Chris Matheson Cold Case Mysteries. After a chance encounter with his late wife Blair while on a date in Washington, Chris Matheson and the Geezer Squad, working under the guise of a book club, dig into the events surrounding Blair’s supposed death halfway around the globe.

 

A state department employee shoots himself in the back three times. A CIA operative goes missing. A woman is targeted by an international assassin three years after being declared dead in a terrorist attack.

 

Nothing is as it seems in Winter Frost.

 

I am the international best-selling author of four popular mystery series ― the Thorny Rose, Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Chris Matheson Cold Case Mysteries—twenty-four titles, each of which have made the top-one-hundred on Amazon both in the US and overseas markets. Many have reached the top-five. Book reviewers and readers alike rave about how my novels seamlessly cross genres to include mystery, suspense, crime fiction, police procedurals, romance, and humor.