The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set

by Elizabeth Sims

  This book is going into my permanent library.

  Full of action and intrigue!

  One of the smartest novels I’ve read in a long time.

  Or you might try:

  I felt like I was right in the middle of the action!

  Who needs TV when you can read a book like this?

  This was just an outstanding read!

  Or even:

  Great books like this make me so happy!

  This was a once-in-a-lifetime reading experience.

  Just simply marvelous!

  There now! With thanks and love,

  Elizabeth

  ABOUT ELIZABETH

  Elizabeth Sims is the author of the Rita Farmer Mysteries, the Lambda and GCLS Goldie Award-winning Lillian Byrd Crime Series, and other fiction, including the standalone novel Crimes in a Second Language, which won the Florida Book Awards silver medal. Her work has been published by a major press (Macmillan) as well as several smaller houses, and she’s written short works for numerous collections and magazines. She publishes independently under her personal imprint, Spruce Park Press.

  In addition, Elizabeth is an internationally recognized authority on writing. She’s written dozens of feature articles on the craft of writing for Writer’s Digest magazine, where she’s a contributing editor. Her instructional title, You’ve Got a Book in You: A Stress-Free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams (Writer’s Digest Books) has been specially recognized by National Novel Writing Month and hundreds of other web sites and bloggers. She has taught creative writing at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and when time permits, she teaches at conferences and workshops around the United States.

  Elizabeth earned degrees in English from Michigan State University and Wayne State University, where she won the Tompkins Award for graduate fiction. She’s worked as a reporter, photographer, technical writer, bookseller, street busker, ranch hand, corporate executive, certified lifeguard, and symphonic percussionist. Elizabeth belongs to several literary societies as well as American Mensa.

  BOOKS BY ELIZABETH SIMS

  Have you read them all?

  Nonfiction

  You’ve Got a Book in You: A Stress-Free Guide to Writing the Book of Your Dreams

  Writing a book is easy and fun—yes, EASY AND FUN—but it may not always feel that way. How do you find the time to write? How do you keep momentum? How do you deal with the horror of showing anyone a single sentence of your work-in-progress? The answers remain fun and easy, and author Elizabeth Sims will take your hand, dispel your worries, and show you how it’s done in this stress-free guide to accomplishing your dream of writing your book.

  Buy it HERE.

  Fiction

  It’s not necessary to read either series in order.

  The Lillian Byrd Crime Series

  Holy Hell [#1]

  Lillian Byrd is a small-time reporter with a flair for making big-time mistakes—like getting fired for fending off the boss’s son with an X-Acto knife and breaking up with her girlfriend for no good reason—so her investigation into the disappearances of women in the Detroit area might not be the best idea. But when one of the missing women turns up dead and Lillian recognizes the bizarrely mutilated corpse, she’s in too deep to get out. Of course, it doesn’t help that she’s still fighting off the boss’s son and ducking the intensely aggressive amorous overtures of the roughest dyke in town. Now, after simultaneously blowing the case for the police and revealing herself to the off-kilter killers, she’s completely on her own. Can she catch the murderers before they catch up with her?

  Buy it HERE.

  Damn Straight [#2]

  - Lambda Literary Award Winner -

  After her narrow brush with death in Holy Hell, you’d think Lillian Byrd would have learned to keep her head down, but when a friend in crisis calls from California, Lillian jumps on a plane and wings her way from Detroit to Palm Springs—and danger. It’s the weekend of the Dinah Shore golf tournament, the wildest women’s sporting event in the world, when thousands of lesbians descend on the desert community and take over.

  At a pre-championship party, Lillian leaps into a slippery romance with a top LPGA star. But her superstar athlete has a secret: Someone is quietly terrorizing her. Lillian, eager to help, goes undercover as a high-profile reporter, an unhinged nun, and a professional caddie while uncovering layer after disturbing layer of the golfer’s past. Finally, with violence erupting at every turn, Lillian discovers her lover’s ultimate horrifying secret—and it is not at all what she had guessed. Damn Straight sizzles and zings and will have you laughing through your shivers.

  Buy it HERE.

  Lucky Stiff [#3]

  Once again Lillian Byrd is down on her luck, strumming her mandolin for spare quarters alongside Blind Lonnie, Detroit’s resident blues guitarist. But a chance encounter with her childhood friend Duane is about to completely turn her life upside-down. One summer night when Lillian was twelve, flames ripped through the Polka Dot, her parents’ beloved tavern. Three bodies were found in the ashes: those of her mother, her father, and the barmaid, Trix Hawley. Or so Lillian has always thought. But when Lillian and Duane put their stories together, the past erupts into a wild enigma.

  As the two friends travel—accompanied by the tenacious crime writer Minerva LeBlanc—to the underbelly of Las Vegas to find the truth about their parents, Lillian must face the demons of the past in ways she never dreamed possible.

  Buy it HERE.

  Easy Street [#4]

  Lillian Byrd’s battered Caprice is convulsing through the last of its death throes; her pet rabbit, Todd, ails; and as usual she’s single—and flat broke. For a few extra bucks she signs on to help an old friend, retired police detective Erma Porrocks, renovate her house, but of course nothing ever goes smoothly in the life of Lillian Byrd. The end of her first day on the job yields a partially demolished wall, a mysterious stash of cash, and a fresh corpse. And Lillian’s attentions are diverted by the appearance of a drop-dead gorgeous neighbor.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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. Whi
le 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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  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.

  Buy it HERE.

  Elizabeth Sims Short Stories Twinpack

  Get both collections of short stories—I am Calico Jones and Go-Go-Day—in one stylish, economical package!

  Buy it HERE.

  For up-to-date everything about Elizabeth and her books, visit:

  www.elizabethsims.com

  Elizabeth’s Amazon Author Page

  THANKS

  THE ACTRESS

  I’m grateful to my family and friends for their love, support, and belief.

  To my readers, thank you for your enthusiasm!

  Special thanks for excellent expert help to Jennifer Slimko, Philip and Monika Lenkowsky, Kate McNamara, Angela Brown, Margaret Baker, M.D., Ann Rosecrants, Solomon M. Cohen, and David Sims.

  I’m indebted to my agent, Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency, and to my editor at St. Martin’s Minotaur (the original publisher of this book), Kelly Ragland.

  Thank you to the Los Angeles Police Department; the Beverly Hills Police Department; the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, especially investigator Mel Wesson; the Los Angeles Central Library, especially the Children’s Literature Department; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

  Above all, thanks to Marcia, for everything.

  THE EXTRA

  I’m grateful to my family and friends for their love, support, and belief.

  Special thanks for excellent expert help to Margaret Baker, M.D., Angela Brown, David Hiltz and Lesley Hiltz of Starbuck Torbay Beagles, Joy Glover, C.N.M., Philip Lenkowsky, and Monika Lenkowsky.

  I’m indebted to my agent, Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency, and to my editor at St. Martin’s Minotaur (the original publisher of this book), Kelley Ragland.

  Thank you to the Los Angeles Police Department, especially the Narcotics Division, and the Los Angeles Mission, especially the Reverend Larry C. Brown.

  Above all, thanks to Marcia, for everything.

  ON LOCATION

  I’m grateful to my family and friends for their love, support, and belief.

  Special thanks for excellent expert help to Margaret Baker, M.D., Paul Crawford, Weldin’ Rod Hibbard, and Mary Jane Hilker.

  I’m indebted to my agent, Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency, and to my editors at St. Martin’s Minotaur (the original publisher of this book), Kelley Ragland and Matthew Martz.

  Above all, thanks to Marcia, for everything.

  COPYRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to act
ual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Rita Farmer Mystery Series Novels 1-3. © Copyright 2019 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved.

  Published by Spruce Park Press.

  Cover design by TreeHouse Studio.

  Copyright notes:

  The Actress: A Rita Farmer Mystery. Copyright © 2008 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved. This book was originally published in hardcover in 2008 by Minotaur Books.

  E-book published by Spruce Park Press.

  The Extra: A Rita Farmer Mystery. Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Sims. All rights reserved. This book was originally published in hardcover in 2009 by Minotaur Books.

  E-book published by Spruce Park Press.