swimming with the fishes

 

 

Swimming with the Fishes: An Ozarks Lake Mystery
by Marc Jedel

About Swimming with the Fishes

Swimming with the Fishes: An Ozarks Lake Mystery
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Arkansas
Publisher: BGM Press
Number of Pages: 220

She’s settling into a new life. But when a fishing trip totally capsizes, can she get a friend off the hook for murder?

Elizabeth Trout still feels awkward being back home. Discovering a BFF from her raucous high-school days has become the perfect mom is as weird as staying with her mother while awaiting construction of her new home. But she’s shaken to her core when her newlywed husband and beloved dog are nearly blown out of the water in a dockside explosion which leaves another woman dead … and her bestie is arrested for the crime.

To clear her friend, Elizabeth and her spouse set out to reel in a killer by sifting through the murky depths of small town drama. But between missing money, ominous strangers, and a shady ex-husband, these amateur sleuths net more motives than they can handle.

Can this dynamic detective duo dig up an answer before the big one gets away?

Swimming with the Fishes is the sensational second book in the Ozarks Lake Mystery series. If you like clever couples, delightful lakeside settings, and a rollicking good time, then you’ll love Marc Jedel’s hilarious whodunit.

 

About Marc Jedel

Marc Jedel writes humorous murder mysteries. He credits his years of marketing leadership positions in Silicon Valley for honing his writing skills and sense of humor. While his high-tech marketing roles involved crafting plenty of fiction, these were just called emails, ads, and marketing collateral.

For most of Marc’s life, he’s been inventing stories. As he’s gotten older, he’s encountered more funny and odd people and situations. This has made it even easier for him to write what he knows and make up the rest. It’s a skill that’s served him well, both as an author and marketer.

The publication of Marc’s first novel, UNCLE AND ANTS, gave him permission to claim “author” as his job. This leads to much more interesting conversations with people than answering, “marketing.” Becoming an Amazon best-selling author has only made him more insufferable.

Like his characters Jonas and Elizabeth from the Ozarks Lake Mystery series, Marc grew up in the South and spent plenty of time in and around Arkansas. Like his character, Marty from the Silicon Valley Mystery series, Marc now lives in Silicon Valley, works in high-tech, and enjoys bad puns. Along with all his protagonists, Marc too has a dog, although his is neurotic, sweet, and small, with little appreciation for Marc’s humor.

Visit his website, marcjedel.com, for free chapters of novels, special offers, and more.

Q&A with the Author

Q. When did you first consider yourself to be a writer?

I believe my entire professional life in marketing has been about writing fiction. We just called it emails, websites, and marketing collateral. After wanting to write a book for many years, I finally buckled down to actually trying it. Lots of work, walks with my wife and dog, and drafts led to my first novel getting published. The next ones have come easier, but still involved a lot of dog walking. Because my dog doesn’t laugh at my jokes nor contribute much in the way of dialogue, he doesn’t get co-author credit.

Q. What advice do you have for a new writer?

Read more and read widely. Reading different authors and genres is the best way to learn what works and what doesn’t. And, start writing. It’s easier than ever to become a writer but just as difficult as always to be a good one. Practice with a diary or use some of the writing prompts you can find on the internet.

Q. What is the easiest part of the writing process for you?

Besides working in an imaginary world where I can knock off anyone who displeases me in an instant? When I first started writing a novel, I was surprised to find that I was far better at dialogue than I had expected. My friends and family kept telling me that they weren’t surprised that I could write about talking since I do that so much.

When I have a good outline, I find I can focus on crisp writing and coming up with funny situations/anecdotes to throw in. This also means less editing and I can hang on to what little sanity remains.

Q. What is your favorite part of this story?

My favorite part of this story tends to be the interactions that the characters have with each other, especially when Elizabeth is scheming to make something happen and she has to work with, through, or behind someone else to achieve her goal. I enjoy how Elizabeth has different opinions from her husband, Jonas, on the same characters in the story. Her opinion on Lester Stapleton, or “Stapleton” since she refuses to use his first name, is quite different from Jonas’ take on the man who hired him as a substitute teacher in the high school. Her ongoing mutual dislike for her high school nemesis, Suzy Q, continues to amuse me as they find ways to annoy each other in each book.

Q. Which Character was the most fun to write about? Why?
I enjoyed writing Elizabeth, one of the protagonists, more than her husband, Jonas. They have very different personalities and I worked hard to make their voices sound different from each other in the roughly alternating chapters told from their respective first-person perspectives. Elizabeth is typically the one who provokes reactions and says or does the funny thing, while Jonas is very calm, accepting, and even a little obsessive-compulsive. He recognizes and appreciates funny things that happen around him but typically reacts to what’s going on around him.

I found myself enjoying how Elizabeth seemed to be the actual ‘fish out of water’ even though she grew up in the fictional small town. Throughout this book, she’s struggling with the idea of maturing and aspects of that which frighten her.

Q. Which Character was the hardest to write about? Why?

Writing the characters of Deputy Trent Walker and Sheriff Owen Tucker can be difficult at times. I dislike cozies where the police share all the details of the investigation with the amateur sleuths because that would never happen in the real world. So I try to make them both professional and effective at their jobs while still needing to find ways for Elizabeth and Jonas to uncover clues or connect dots before the sheriffs have solved the case. Elizabeth doesn’t like the sheriff but he’s just gruff, not bad at his job. Trent was her high school flame and she’s only slowly recognizing that he—like her—has changed over the last ten years.

Author Links

Website: www.marcjedel.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/MarcJedel.Author

BookBub: http://www.bookbub.com/profile/marc-jedel

Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18403497.Marc_Jedel

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mjedel/

Blog: www.marcjedel.com/blog

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Marc-Jedel/e/B07H7MVKJL

• Purchase Links: Amazon

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