Friday Spotlight- No Neighborhood for for Old Women by @JudyAlter #TMPress @FictionWitches

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Claire Guthrie shoots and wounds her husband the same night that Florence Dodson, Kelly O’Connell’s former neighbor, supposedly falls down her back steps, hits her head, and dies, Kelly knows it’s murder, but she has a hard time convincing Mike Shandy. She also has a hard time explaining why she gave Claire refuge in her guest apartment. Mike is adamant that she stay out of police matters. But then, with another murder, it’s clear someone is targeting elderly women in Fairmount, and panic invades the neighborhood.

Jim Guthrie dies in an automobile accident—or was it an accident? Kelly’s real estate business plunges. Who buys a house in a neighborhood with a serial killer? And in the midst of it all, Kelly’s mom decides to move to Fort Worth from Chicago.

Will Kelly solve her differences with Mike? Will Claire be convicted of murder? Will Kelly’s mom be safe and yet not dependent on her? And most important, will Kelly be able to identify the serial killer and restore peace to her Fairmount neighborhood.

No Neighborhood for Old Women holds some real surprises.

About Judy Alter-

After an established career writing historical fiction, for adults and young adults, about women of the nineteenth-century American West, Judy Alter has turned her attention to contemporary cozy mysteries. No Neighborhood for Old Women is the second in the Kelly O’Connell Mystery Series. The first, Skeleton in a Dead Space, is available at www.turquoisemorningpressbookstore.com. Judy’s western fiction has been recognized with awards from the Western Writers of America, the Texas Insti-tute of Letters, and the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame. She has been honored with the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement by WWA and inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame at the Fort Worth Public Library.

#TuesdayswithTaryn Q&A with #mystery #Author @JudyAlter

Tuesdays with Taryn

Join me today in welcoming mystery author & fellow TMPer, Judy Alter to the blog-

What book(s) most influenced you as a writer? Oh, gosh. Nancy Drew, Francis Parkinson Keyes, and on up to today’s mystery writers—Sue Grafton, J. A. Jance, Julia-Spencer Fleming, Deborah Crombie, Diane Mott Davidson, Susan Wittig Albert. Yet my own writing is not, to my mind, as complex as any of theirs. Then there’s the whole other side of me that wrote about women of the American West, and there I’d say Owen Wister’s The Virginian intrigued me, and Elmer Kelton’s entire body of work taught me a lot about writing about the West.

What book do you read over and over again? Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose

Tuesday Trio-

1) Movie- not a moviegoer, but Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a big influence when I wrote Sundance, Butch, and Me, about Etta Place (now available on Kindle, Nook, and other sites).. That was, however a 1969 movie—you can tell it stuck in my head until the ‘90s when I wrote the book. And I really did like Julia and Julie. I keep meaning to see Midnight in Paris and The Help. Loved the book of the latter.

2) Music- Folk music—Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Neil Diamond; also some blues and jazz

3) Decadent Dessert- chocolate mousse; almost anything chocolate.

What’s the most interesting or bizarre bit of trivia you’ve learned from researching for a novel?

That Etta Place, the woman who rode with the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and was The Sundance Kid’s lover, probably ended up in my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, running a respectable boarding house, and probably died in a house fire.

Novel on your Nightstand:

Who/what are you currently reading? Clobbered by Camembert by Avery Aames

Whom would you cast as your Hero & Heroine if your book became a movie?

I have no idea because I don’t keep up with current movies or stars. I don’t think Julia Roberts would be right as Kelly O’Connell, but I don’t know who would. One of my daughter’s friends suggests Reese Witherspoon, Matt Damon or Ewan McGregor.

No Neighborhood for Old Women, the second Kelly O’Connell Mystery, following Skeleton in a Dead Space

When a serial killer begins targeting older women in Fort Worth’s Fairmount neighborhood, realtor/renovator Kelly Jones investigates, in spite of the pleas of her companion, policeman Mike Shandy, and her assistant, the colorful Keisha, that she stay out of it. Kelly knows a serial killer will hurt business, and she worries about the frightened old women in the neighborhood. And when Claire Guthrie, a friend and former client, shows up at Kelly’s front door announcing that she’s just shot her husband in the butt, Kelly becomes her champion. Kelly knows about bad marriages and bad husbands from her own experience. Then Kelly’s mom, the needy Cynthia O’Connell, decides to move to Fort Worth to be near her grandchildren. Kelly, a harried, hassled, and loving single mom of two young girls, unwittingly puts her children, her mom, and herself in danger and almost derails her love life.

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