New Crime Novel from Valerie Keogh

I‘m so happy to share the news that one of my fav crime writers is releasing a new book today. Valerie has come along to share the news and talk about the inspiration behind No Simple Death …

Writers take inspiration from things they see, read, or do, things that lodge in their memory until finally they’re able to incorporate it into a story.

I live in an old house, at the end of a short road that ends in a church gate. A key to the gate came with the house and I can go through it as a pleasant walk across church grounds to the supermarket. The chain and lock are a bit of a palaver to use – it was here I got the idea for the death in the graveyard in No Simple Death. Although the heroine of my story lives in Foxrock, Dublin, I used my house and the road I live on for the house where she lives – a long way from Foxrock!

I also use the name of a very small village in Cornwall that we drove through many years ago – Come-to-Good. Such a great name, it remained in my head all these years until I found a perfect use for it in this story. (I also used the village named Tiddlywink in a different book!)

It’s nice to use some of the ideas that are floating in my head – but the space quickly fills up with more!

***

No Simple Death by Valerie Keogh

How can you find someone who doesn’t want to be found?

When Detective Garda Sergeant Mike West is called to investigate a murder in a Dublin graveyard, suspicion immediately falls on a local woman, Edel Johnson, whose husband disappeared some months before. But then she disappears.

Evidence leads West to a small village in Cornwall, but when he checks in to an Inn, he finds Edel has arrived before him. Her explanation seems to make sense but as West begins to think his suspicions of her are unfounded, she disappears again.

Is she guilty? West, fighting an unsuitable attraction, doesn’t want to believe it. But the case against her is growing. Back in Dublin, his team uncover evidence of blackmail and illegal drugs involving Edel’s missing husband. When another man is murdered, she, once again, comes under suspicion.

Finally, the case is untangled, but is it the outcome West really wants?