Mike Martin was born in St. John’s, NL on the east coast
of Canada and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a long-time
freelance writer and his articles and essays have appeared in newspapers,
magazines and online across Canada as well as in the United States and New
Zealand.
He is the author of the award-winning Sgt. Windflower Mystery series set in beautiful Grand Bank. There are now 12 books in this light mystery series with the publication of Dangerous Waters. A Tangled Web was shortlisted in 2017 for the best light mystery of the year, and Darkest Before the Dawn won the 2019 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award. Mike has also published Christmas in Newfoundland: Memories and Mysteries, a Sgt. Windflower Book of Christmas past and present.
Mike is Past Chair of the Board of Crime Writers of Canada, a national organization promoting Canadian crime and mystery writers and a member of the Newfoundland Writers’ Guild and Ottawa Independent Writers and Capital Crime Writers.
You
can visit his website or connect with him on Twitter
and Facebook.
Release Date: April
30, 2022
Publisher: Ottawa Press and Publishing
Soft Cover: ISBN: 978-1988437828; 288 pages; $16.95;
eBook $4.99: FREE Kindle
Unlimited
Amazon
Old habits die hard...
Sgt. Windflower tries his best to ease away from life as a Mountie, but the
lure of an investigation is too hard to resist.
After a missing man turns up dead, Sgt. Windflower is pulled in to investigate.
Meanwhile, the arrival of a group of unique foreign visitors during a snowstorm
in Grand Bank offers up another mystery. Even with so much going on, Windflower
can't resist the enticement of a good meal and a trip to the island of Saint
Pierre off the coast of Newfoundland.
But when things get rough, Windflower can always rely on Eddie Tizzard and the
gang to have his back.
As always, Windflower's wife Sheila and their daughters are beacons of love and
support as he navigates dangerous waters.
Grand Bank beckons you to another great story
in the Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series.
Book Excerpt
Eddie Tizzard looked down at the three files on his desk.
Three men, all in their early sixties, reported missing from their homes and
families in Grand Bank. One, Cedric Skinner, was found floating at the far end
of Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s. The other two, Paddy Slaney and Leo
Broderick, were still missing.
He had just finished talking to Leo
Broderick’s wife. She was doubly distraught, first by the unexplained absence
of her husband, then by the death of Cedric Skinner and the disappearance of
Paddy Slaney. “What’s going on?” she’d asked Tizzard. He had few answers for
her or the other women in this small community on the southeast coast of
Newfoundland.
“We’ll do everything we can,” he
told Leo Broderick’s wife. But truthfully, right now, there wasn’t much
anything he or anybody else could do to bring her husband back. He only hoped
that it wasn’t too late.
Tizzard leaned back in his chair and
looked out the window. There was snow on the ground and more falling by the
hour. Nothing unusual there. February in Newfoundland at the easternmost tip of
Canada was cold, wet, and snowy. What was unusual was the fact that this wasn’t
his chair, and it wasn’t his office. He looked down and saw something else that
was new: corporal’s stripes on his uniform. Two chevrons, to be exact, and an
Acting Corporal title to go along with them.
He was acting head of the Grand Bank
detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties. He had been a
corporal before but was demoted when he had an altercation with a superior
officer. But now they needed him, so they gave him back his stripes, at least
on a temporary basis until they figured things out. What caused all of this to
unfold was the sudden resignation of his old boss, Sergeant Winston Windflower.
That’s whose chair Tizzard was sitting in as he looked out at the snowy morning
in Grand Bank.
Winston Windflower wasn’t looking
out the window, nor was he thinking about Tizzard or the Mounties this morning.
He and his co-worker, Levi Parsons, were nearly done refinishing the hardwood
floors at the beautiful old B&B that Windflower and his wife Sheila Hillier
owned and co-managed. Levi was a shy and quiet young man who had somehow built
a friendship with the much older Windflower, and under his tutelage, had been
working at the B&B for a couple of years now. He was even taking hotel and
hospitality classes to learn the management skills he needed to help run the
B&B.
But today the skills he needed were
more of the manual labour type. They had already sanded and buffed the floors
over the weekend, and now they were applying a new coat of stain. Tomorrow,
they would start on the finish, and three coats of that later they would have
perfect-looking hardwood floors to welcome their first dinner guests.
The B&B had been closed for over
a year since the pandemic, and they were using this time, and Windflower had
lots of it, to fix up the place before what they hoped would be a stellar
tourist season. It had better be, thought Windflower. They would soon be
without any steady income when his last few cheques from the RCMP dried up.
Sheila had lots of business ideas cooking, but none were ready to provide them
with the finances they would like to support their lifestyle and two small
children.
Levi went off to clean their brushes
while Windflower poured himself a coffee in the kitchen and walked upstairs. He
went to the small veranda on the second floor and opened the doors. The cool,
fresh air flooded in, aided by the ever-present wind. He stared out, past the
lighthouse and what was left of downtown Grand Bank, into the vastness of the
ocean. It always calmed him to have this view, and today was no exception. He
paused for a few moments, gave thanks for the view and the beautiful day, and
went downstairs.
He went out the back door of the
B&B so as not to disturb the good work they had done so far on the hardwood
floors. He was going to head home when he saw a familiar face waving at him
from across the street. Herb Stoodley was the co-owner of the Mug-Up café, the
best and only diner in Grand Bank. Herb and his wife Moira were also
self-adopted grandparents to Windflower’s two children. Stella was a bright and
curious five-year-old and Amelia Louise was a two-and-half-year-old whirlwind.
Herb and Windflower had hit it off
from near the beginning when Windflower was first assigned to Grand Bank. They
shared a love of the law, with Herb being a former Crown attorney, and under
his tutelage Windflower was learning to share his love of classical music as
well. The latest offering that Herb had provided was a version of
Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 recorded by the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. Windflower liked listening to classical music when he went on his
weekly runs on Sunday morning with Amelia Louise on his back. This piece was
perfect, thought Windflower as he thought about the swirling of the instruments
and the haunting piano that pulled you back in.
Thank you Freda!! Mike Martin
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