Pages: 71
This short novel is the FOURTH in the Bruce Kohler mystery series by Agatha- and Derringer- Award nominee Elizabeth Zelvin. (About 100 pages)
A NEW AGE RETREAT IS SERENE AS A LOTUS POND … UNTIL THE KILLING STARTS
“Zelvin’s wit is as sharp as ever as she leads her readers down a fast, 12 step path to humor and homicide.” -Rosemary Harris, Anthony and Agatha Award-nominated author of Pushing Up Daisies
Recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler and his good friends Jimmy and Barbara decide to escape the big city for a wellness and couples workshop outside of Sedona. The joint is called The Aquarius, a New Age community the locals have taken to calling The Woo-Woo Farm. But the serene retreat has much more in store than yoga mats, didgeridoos, ecstatic dancing and aboriginal tracking.
During an early morning hike, the trio encounters America’s bestselling relationship guru, Melvin Markowitz, posed for meditation and strangled to death with a luggage strap. The race is on for the three friends to find the murderer. Bruce falls for the victim’s widow, Jimmy longs for the city, and Barbara minds everybody’s business as usual.
But when Melvin’s baby sister’s volatile husband “Madhouse” is also found dead, it seems everyone at the Woo-Woo Farm is suddenly in danger from more than just a handful of holistic loonies…
Readers will fall in love with Bruce’s smart mouth and heart of gold, Barbara’s comical efforts to fight her addiction to helping (she knows she’s co-dependent), and Jimmy’s solid sweetness and cyberspace wizardry.
“Zelvin’s Death Will Save Your Life is filled with zingers and zest. Set in the isolated location of a New Age camp for adults, with enough colorful suspects to have a Kumbayah fest, the mystery has the vim and vitality of Agatha Christie’s finest.” -Avery Aames, Agatha Award winning author of A Cheese Shop mystery series.
“A clever mystery peppered with intriguing characters and Zelvin’s droll New York humor.” -Krista Davis, New York Times bestselling author of the Domestic Diva mysteries
“Zelvin brings [her characters] to life. A good plot, and action to keep readers glued to the pages. Good reading for the summer or anytime.” -Mysterical-E
“Zelvin has mastered the male voice in a series that doesn’t shy away from serious interpersonal issues. She has a natural ear for efficiently melodic prose.” -Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
Excerpt:
I am not a morning person. I like to wake to some natural New York sound, like a jackhammer in the street or six hundred school children screaming. I could have done without the chorus of chirps and caws that started at the crack of dawn. My fingers scrabbled around the floor beside my bed. No cigarettes. No smoking. Enjoy an invigorating, pollution-free environment at Woo-Woo Farm. Four-letter words, with feeling.
Brisk footsteps tramped across the room. The roommate. Last night, he’d been a hump under the covers and a couple of Louis Vuitton bags slumming in the cramped closet.
“Good morning!” Relentlessly cheery voice. “Rise and shine, it’s a beautiful day.”
I dragged my bones through the series of postures necessary to achieve a sitting position and snarled what grizzly bears might have called a greeting.
“George Custer.” Oh, great, the cavalry. Galloping off in all directions before breakfast. “But call me Jojo, dear, everybody does. It’s going to be a fabulous day. The mist is rising from the cornfields, and the red-tailed hawks are circling the mountains.”
I visualized toothpicks and propped my eyelids open.
“Bruce,” I grunted.
