Jennifer Vido: What’s the premise behind the Merry Wrath Mysteries? Leslie Langtry: The Merry Wrath Cozy Comedies feature our heroine – Merry Wrath, a former CIA agent who was ‘accidentally’ outed from the spy biz by a scheming Vice President. With only seven years of field work under her belt before a forced early retirement, Merry goes back to her hometown, Who’s There, Iowa, where her best friend convinces her to start a Girl Scout troop. Merry thinks this is going to be easy, but soon discovers that little girls can be more terrifying than actual terrorists.   Jen: What inspired your new release, MATCH BOX MURDER? Leslie: I was a Girl Scout as a kid, a Girl Scout Leader for ten years, and a volunteer at camp for twelve, teaching zip line, archery, low ropes and canoeing. I love it when Merry and the troop go back to camp and discover a body! By the way, I should say that it has never happened to me or my troop. In real life, we probably would’ve had rather different reactions to tripping over bodies. Okay, my troop would’ve been fascinated, but the trip would’ve been cut short and that would’ve…

Hello! Leslie Langtry here to tell you about my book MUNCHIES AND MURDER – book #23 in the Merry Wrath cozy comedy series! The books can be read in any order, but if you want to start at the beginning, there’s MERIT BADGE MURDER. Merry Wrath was a CIA agent undercover with a Chechen strongman when the Vice President ‘accidentally’ outted her on CNN to get back at her senator dad. After a close call escape that included an armed chicken, Merry retired to her hometown of Who’s There, Iowa, where her best friend convinces her to start a Girl Scout troop. In some ways, Merry often wonders if life was less dangerous in the CIA than with this very precocious group of little girls. Too bad bodies keep popping up at inconvenient times. Here’s a little bit about MUNCHIES AND MURDER:   M is for Merry Wrath – an ‘accidentally’ outted ex-CIA agent who moves back to Who’s There, Iowa, starts a Girl Scout Troop and stumbles upon more dead bodies than any random jogger on any tv mystery series.   U is for Unusual as this book is pretty weird. Seriously…this may be the weirdest book I’ve written,…

I have something to confess. I. Love. Mysteries. Not only do I write them, but I read them. Um, a lot of them. Not only do I nibble at their pages, but I consume them nightly on television. Why? There’s just something about the familiar characters, the sleuth and his sidekick or the detective sergeant and her trusty partner, that draws me in. I laugh at their silly jokes, bite my nails when they blunder into danger, and breathe a sigh of relief when they make it back safely to their apartment, cottage, or vicarage. The piece de la resistance is solving the mystery before my favorite detectives figure it out. Like chocolate cake, it melts in my mouth and makes my heart sing. What about you? Do you require your mysteries to be all sewn up by the end of the hour, chapter, season, or even—gulp–the end of the series? Regardless of your palate, this week’s cozy mystery new releases will help to satiate your love of solving mysteries, fighting crime, and sending those criminals where they belong, behind bars. BEACHES IN PARADISE by Kathi Daley Tj Jensen Mystery #9 Tj Jensen’s life is thrown into turmoil when a…

Hello! Thanks to Fresh Fiction for inviting me to blog today! As some of you may know, I write the Greatest Hits Series, featuring the Bombay Family – the first name in assassination since 2000 BCE. My first book, ‘SCUSE ME WHILE I KILL THIS GUY, featured Gin Bombay – soccer mom/assassin. My second book, GUNS WILL KEEP US TOGETHER is about her brother, Dakota Bombay – playboy/assassin. I love writing about this family of hitmen. The Bombays have kids to raise, bills to pay, PTA presidents to avoid, and so on. And they kill people. Well, bad people, really. A lot of people ask me where the inspiration comes from to write about this subject. I have to say that movies like MR. & MRS. SMITH and GROSSE POINTE BLANK as well as books like Hugh Laurie’s (yes, the guy from HOUSE) THE GUNSELLER rank pretty high on the list. I think it’s because the characters are ordinary people with extraordinary jobs. And it’s easy to write about family life because everybody can relate to quirky cousins and a mother who ignores the fact that you are no longer twelve and still buys you barrettes with your name on…