BooksChatter: ☀ The Violet Crow: Bruno X Psychic Detective Mystery [1]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Violet Crow by Michael Sheldon (2 June 2015, Liberty Island, 292 pages).

This is the first book in the Bruno X Psychic Detective Mystery series. Follow Bruno X in Michael Sheldon's fictional début, The Violet Crow, as he fends off rabid journalists and feckless politicians; untangles webs of deceit in Professor Littlejohn’s Deviant Behavior 101 class; and reveals why the Quakers are still fighting over decades-old military medical experiments.

Check out the book's synopsis and the excerpt below. You can read the first three chapters of the Violet Crow on Amazon.

Author Michael Sheldon will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts and reviews, also the more comments you leave the higher your chances of being a winner.

Synopsis | Teaser | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

A brutal murder stuns the quiet South Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. No grieving parents come forward to claim the unknown girl’s body, and there aren’t any clues. The police are inexperienced. The local media are casting blame and demanding answers. A mini-culture war is brewing . . .

So what do the civic leaders do? They hire Bruno X, Psychic Detective.

No joke, the guy’s got talent. And a track record. Sure, his psychic shtick is a bit unorthodox. Yet, somehow, he gets results — solving long-forgotten mysteries locked inside the old brick Quaker meeting house, and uncovering closely held secrets hidden within the biotech company whose symbol is the Violet Crow.

Teaser: Excerpt

Introducing Bruno X

He was dressed in a black Vestimenta suit and white shirt with no tie. Classy Italian duds, but about 10 years old and showing obvious signs of wear. He was less than average height and slightly overweight—typical for a guy in his late 30s or early 40s who didn’t do much manual work. With thick dark hair, brown eyes and glasses with metal frames, he had the look of one of those orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, except he didn’t have a beard and he wasn’t wearing a hat.

Chief Black greeted him personally and began to show him to a room they’d prepared for him. He tried a mild pleasantry to break the ice. “We hope we got the feng shui right for your purposes…” The room was dark with a comfortable chair, incense holders, and other new-age paraphernalia.

“Feng shui, shmeng fui,” the psychic scoffed. “You should know, I can’t tolerate incense. And who wants to sit in the dark? Let’s go in your office. You can test me there.”

“Test you?”

“Sure. Don’t you want to find out if I really have psychic powers?”

The Chief said something lame about trusting the people who recommended him, then hated himself for saying it.

The psychic nodded and pointed toward the Chief’s office. “OK. I get the picture. Shut the door please. Thank you. So you don’t want to test my powers…? You say you believe me…? That’s baloney! You don’t care. You think I’m a shnorrer, a con man, a fake… But it was the newspaper lady’s idea—what’s her name, Cromwell, the one with the cute little tuchus?—to use a psychic, and you think I’m gonna do something that’ll make her look stupid. Am I right?”

He gazed with disconcerting directness; he was right in the Chief’s face. It was as if he had eavesdropped on the conversation with the Mayor.

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About the Author

Michael Sheldon was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His father was a dentist, which accounts for Michael’s sense of humor. His mother, a Jewish woman without peer, instilled in him the notion that the world doesn't owe you a living—and a love of raw oysters and dry martinis. His training in the craft of storytelling came from reading the masters, beginning with Chaucer and Rabelais, through Sterne, to MacDonald and Westlake.

He and his wife Ellie left New York City in 1980 and moved west--first to New Mexico, then Montana, and finally to Seattle, where they've lived since 1988. With daughter Giuliana off at college, the household includes Bunny, the Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, Oliver, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and Michael and Ellie's global mom-and-pop marketing shop, XMedia Communications.

Michael has been writing fiction throughout his adult life. Publishing credits include the business memoir of investment pioneer George Russell, Success by Ten (Wiley, 2009) and scores of articles on photography in PDN. He's also an accomplished photographer.

Adam Bellow and David Bernstein discovered Michael's fiction and have been publishing it at Liberty Island. Short stories include: "Better Than Fresh Apricots," "Dark and Stormy," and "T.B.O.P. (The Beast of Philadelphia)." His début novel, The Violet Crow, featuring psychic detective Bruno X, is Liberty Island's first offering in the mystery genre.

Michael has plans for at least two more novels featuring Bruno: The Louse and The Philly Dog.

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