The Lillian Byrd Crime Series
Page 65
Nonetheless, Lillian throws herself into chasing down every complex thread, especially after Porrocks is injured in a suspicious accident. The action ranges from Porrocks’s Detroit riverfront neighborhood to a nursing home in Cleveland, where Lillian and Todd pose as animal therapy workers to shamelessly coax information from an elderly resident. From there Lillian goes undercover to Boise, Ft. Lauderdale, and points beyond, facing deception and danger the whole way—as well as the bewildering emergence of her own dark side.
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Left Field [#5]
Lillian Byrd has been searching her soul after the gut-wrenching experience of killing someone in self-defense. Scrabbling to make ends meet, she takes a job as a quasi detective, solving life’s little mysteries for a pair of eccentric women in one of Detroit’s last prestigious neighborhoods. When she spots a corpse on the next-door lawn, she jumps back into honest work as an investigative journalist.
Her friend Mercedes reveals that the dead woman, Abby Rawson, played on a women’s softball team she manages and pressures Lillian into taking her spot. Softball turns to hardball when Lillian not only plunges into a love affair with the team’s sought-after pitcher but also goes undercover as an exterminator, a squatter, and a charity worker to investigate Abby’s death and the corrupt medical organization she worked for. No one on the team is above suspicion, and as they get closer to snagging the coveted championship title—and Lillian gets closer to discovering the dark truth behind Abby’s murder—she fights to keep her new love in her life and literally save her own.
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The Rita Farmer Mysteries
The Actress [#1]
Aspiring actress and single mother Rita Farmer has gone from struggling to find work to downright desperate. If she doesn’t land a paying job soon—horror movie, soap commercial, anything—she’s afraid her ex-husband will use her dire financial straits to take away Petey, her cherished four-year-old son. While she’s charming the crowd at storytime at the L.A. public library, a celebrity defense attorney approaches her with an unusual job offer: So long as she’s discreet, Rita can rake in a thousand dollars a day preparing his client for her appearance in court.
Easy money? Hardly. His client, Eileen Tenaway, is not only a wealthy heiress and a queen of the tabloids but she’s been charged with the murder of her own child. The attorney needs Rita to coach Eileen secretly to help her seem more sympathetic, more human. He needs the jury to believe not only her words but the subtle cues of body language, facial expressions, even vocal style. Rita knows she can do it, but what she doesn’t know is how determined she’ll become to find out what really happened to Eileen’s family—once her own life and Petey’s life depend on it.
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The Extra [#2]
Rita Farmer knows what it feels like to be flat broke. Even now, when studying to be a lawyer, Rita is so far in debt that she has to scrounge for acting jobs to keep herself and her son afloat. Decked out in police uniform as an extra on a low-budget movie shoot, she wanders into a rough part of town and is pulled into a vicious assault. Rita chases off the assailants but doesn’t escape unscathed, and the boy they attacked isn’t out of danger yet. His injuries could last the rest of his life.
Rita’s heart goes out to him and his grandmother, Amaryllis B. Cubitt, the director of an urban mission that Rita had turned to for help years ago. But the mission has changed from its unassuming past and is now flush with secret donations and gruff guards posted at the doors. Rita can’t but wonder if now Amaryllis is too proud to ask for the help she needs.
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On Location [#3]
Rita Farmer knows exactly how hard it is to break into the movie business. Acting was the big dream that brought her out to L.A. in the first place. And while she never made the red carpet, that big dream did turn into a modest profession that kept her and her son afloat. So from time to time she’ll lend her talents as a favor.
Kenner and Lance de Sauvenard, heirs to a timber fortune, don’t really need a favor to make their art film, but since Lance is dating Rita’s sister, Gina, there’s no way for Rita to worm her way out of a read-through. Gina is all for the project—or at least her new boyfriend—and she goes with Lance to scout locations on his family’s land holdings in the Northwest. When they don’t return as planned and flood waters start to rise, Rita can’t help dashing into the wilds to bring her sister home, and when foul play becomes more and more likely, her sometime lover, George Rowe, is right on her heels.
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More Fiction
Crimes in a Second Language
Elnice Coker and her husband Arthur, retired schoolteachers, move from Indiana to the Hollywood Hills in a last-ditch attempt at novelty and happiness. California alone can’t do the trick, but when Elnice befriends her housecleaner, Solita, her life opens up to friendship and intrigue. Elnice teaches Solita English, although Solita’s common-law husband, Luis, is against it. The women build a secret, tentative friendship.
Meanwhile, wannabe novelist Jason M is busy writing faulty information into tech manuals for airplane-making machines at a factory in the Valley. One of a swarm of corporate saboteurs scattered around Los Angeles, he’s bossed by a nameless, exacting mentor. But when he begins to have ethical doubts, he discovers it’s harder to get out than it was to get in.
The lure of easy money casts its spell over everybody, and as Elnice and Solita grow closer, they encounter treachery and danger where they least expect it. The saboteurs intertwine, innocent lives hang in the balance, and as Elnice risks everything to dig deeper, she learns the value of rejecting safety—and living life to the max.
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I am Calico Jones
Four Short Stories
These four short stories are close to Elizabeth’s heart. Love stories? Happy endings? Tough breaks? We got ’em. If you’re a fan of the Lillian Byrd crime novels, you’ll be delighted to finally know what Calico Jones thinks about when she’s tied up, awaiting execution at the hands of geopolitical terrorists. Regrets? She’s had a few. The three other stories explore a range of lesbian experience from wacky to warm, from heartbreak to hilarity. Says a reviewer: “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to go camping.” We might add, you’ll never feel the same standing in front of a bank teller again.
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Go-Go Day
Four Literary Tales with a Dash of DARK
If a story by Flannery O’Connor and a story by Chuck Palahniuk got together and had kids, they would be these intense, bitingly sharp tales. Elizabeth Sims digs into the heart of humanity, with characters who start out knowing what they want, and end up knowing what they need. Their paths are rutted and dangerous. In “Dixon Amiss,” a lithograph pressman gets a visit from a couple of guys with a life-changing message for him. Regina, a routinely shamed student in “The Cashmere Club” has a shitty life, but seizes a chance for a strange yet comforting makeover. The manchild at the center of “West Forkton Days” teaches himself a searing lesson about chance, love, and art. And the heroine of “Go-Go Day” yearns to be doted on, yet seeks ultimate liberation on her own terms. These are stories for readers who love to think—and who love life.
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Elizabeth Sims Short Stories Twinpack
I am Calico Jones and Go-Go Day together!
Save money and get all eight short stories in one stylish package.
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Amazon Author Page
For up-to-date information about everything Elizabeth:
www.elizabethsims.com
Acknowledgments
Holy Hell
Since a novel is more or less a manifestation of the innards of the author, and since no author is self-invented but is formed by, if not made up of, her experiences, I’d like to thank everyone I’ve ever met.
A handful in that group stands out:
My mother, Carolyn Sims Davis, whose reverence for books and a
uthors set me to thinking, way too young, hell, you know, how hard could it be? My father, Frank Sims, who gave of himself everything I ever asked. My loving brother David Sims, my beautiful sister Kathleen Cristman, and my steadfast uncle and aunt, Leonard and Tracy Romey.
Pauline Adams for humoring my grandiose ambitions. My special friends Maureen M. McClellan, Arlene Marie, Brad Grube, Lucinda Reinas, Gesa Kirsch, Thom Powers, Jan Kimmel, Terry McKenzie, Cindi Forslund, Anne Kubek, Molly Sapp, Andrea Smith, and Philip Lenkowsky. Sue Brooks and Kay Solsbury, through whose door I found the community, and so much more. Tim Gable, Elaine Morse, and Don Powers, as holy a trinity of booksellers as ever lived. The uncommonly sensible Angela Brown.
And my beloved Marcia Burrows, who keeps believing that a bestseller is just around the corner.
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I’m indebted to my friend, the author Lori L. Lake, for her generous help and advice as I plunged into the complicated process of e-book publishing.
Damn Straight
My undying thanks to my family and my friends for their support and belief. (You know who you are.)
Also, I thank the thousands of readers who actually bought and read my first book, Holy Hell. Knowing you’re there keeps me from a life of wantonness and despair.
I’m grateful to the booksellers, especially Suzanne Corson of Boadecia’s (Kensington, California); the women of Mama Bears (Oakland, California); and my many friends at Borders Books and Music. (Updated note for e-book versions of Damn Straight: Times sure change. None of those bookstores exist any longer in physical form, but the spirit shared by books, booksellers, and readers never dies!)
Special thanks to the people of the Kraft Nabisco Championship and Mission Hills Country Club.
I’m indebted to Joy Glover for sharing her medical expertise; Angela “Sensible” Brown for her good advice and encouragement; and Marcia, for everything.
Lucky Stiff
To my family and friends I offer up, as always, my deepest gratitude for their love and belief. Thousands of thanks go to my thousands of readers, whose pleasure means everything to me as a writer. And to the booksellers great and small: I’m obliged to you.
For special help given to me in writing this book I’m indebted to Sherry Viola, MD; the Wayne County, Michigan Medical Examiner’s Office; and the Detroit Fire Department, especially Wanda Jenkins. Thanks also to Randall and Patricia Lamb for two handy details.
If Shirley Ososkie were alive, I would thank her for expressing herself so memorably.
I received, as usual, sensible and intelligent advice from Angela Brown.
Most of all I thank my beloved Marcia for her support and inspiration.
Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Lillian Byrd Crime Novels 1-3. Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved.
E-book published by Spruce Park Press.
Cover design by TreeHouse Studio.
Copyright notes:
Holy Hell: A Lillian Byrd Crime Novel. Copyright © 2002 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved. This book was originally published in trade paperback in 2002 by Alyson Books, Los Angeles.
Damn Straight: a Lillian Byrd Crime Novel. Copyright © 2003 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved. This book was originally published in trade paperback in 2003 by Alyson Books, Los Angeles.
Lucky Stiff: a Lillian Byrd Crime Novel. Copyright © 2004 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved. This book was originally published in trade paperback in 2004 by Alyson Books, Los Angeles.