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Thea Kozak #11
Death Sends a Message
A Newborn, a Baby Carriage, and an Ice Cream Cone Leads to a Lingering Mystery in DEATH SENDS A MESSAGE by Kate Flora
--Massachusetts, North of Boston, Present Day--
Exiting a children's clothing store, Thea Kozak is adjusting to motherhood, having just purchased her newborn a hat when she encounters a frantic young mother claiming her baby had just been taken from her carriage. Determined not to get involved, Thea tells the woman she’ll call the police.
But, before the police arrive, a man in a fancy black Mercedes SUV arrives, puts the carriage in the back, drags the screaming woman inside, and speeds away.
When the police finally arrive, they aren’t interested in Thea's story.
Arriving at home, the mystery lingers in her mind. When Andre, Thea's detective husband, searches the Mercedes license plate, the mystery deepens.
Publisher's Note: Kate Flora is known for taking readers on a near breathless experience with a surprise at every turn. Fans of Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly as well as Faith Martin and Chris Collett will not want to miss this series.
--Massachusetts, North of Boston, Present Day--
Exiting a children's clothing store, Thea Kozak is adjusting to motherhood, having just purchased her newborn a hat when she encounters a frantic young mother claiming her baby had just been taken from her carriage. Determined not to get involved, Thea tells the woman she’ll call the police.
But, before the police arrive, a man in a fancy black Mercedes SUV arrives, puts the carriage in the back, drags the screaming woman inside, and speeds away.
When the police finally arrive, they aren’t interested in Thea's story.
Arriving at home, the mystery lingers in her mind. When Andre, Thea's detective husband, searches the Mercedes license plate, the mystery deepens.
Publisher's Note: Kate Flora is known for taking readers on a near breathless experience with a surprise at every turn. Fans of Janet Evanovich, Michael Connelly as well as Faith Martin and Chris Collett will not want to miss this series.
- GenresMystery
347 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2022
19 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Kate Flora
55 books128 followersKate Flora grew up on a chicken farm in Maine where the Friday afternoon trip to the library was the high point of her week. She dreamed of being able to create the kind of compelling, enchanting worlds of the books she disappeared into every week, but growing up in the era when “help wanted” ads were still sex-segregated, she felt her calling was to go to law school and get the job they told her she couldn’t have.
After law school, Kate worked in the Maine attorney general’s office, protecting battered kids, chasing deadbeat dads, and representing the Human Rights Commission. Those years taught her all a crime writer needs to know about the human propensity to commit horrible acts. After some years in private practice, she decided to give writing a serious try when she quit the law to stay at home for a few years with her young sons. That ‘serious try’ led to ten tenacious and hellacious years in the unpublished writer’s corner, followed, finally, by the sale of her Thea Kozak series.
Kate’s eighteen books will include eight Thea Kozak mysteries, five gritty Joe Burgess police procedurals, a suspense thriller (written under the name Katharine Clark), two true crime books, Death Dealer and Finding Amy (co-written with Joseph Loughlin, a Portland, Maine Deputy Police Chief), a Maine game warden's memoir, A Good Man with a Dog, co-written with Roger Guay, and a book about police shootings from the police point of view, Shots Fired: The misunderstandings, misconceptions, and myths about police shootings, co-written with Joseph K. Loughlin. Finding Amy was a 2007 Edgar nominee as well as a Maine Literary Award finalist, and has been optioned for a movie. Kate’s award-winning short stories have been widely anthologized and Redemption and And Grant You Peace, her third and fourth Joe Burgess mysteries, won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction.
Flora's fiction, nonfiction, and short fiction have been finalists for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer Awards.
She is a founding member of the New England Crime Bake, the region's annual mystery conference, and the Maine Crime Wave. With two other crime writers, she started founded Level Best Books, where she worked as an editor and publisher for seven years. She served a term as international president of Sisters in Crime, an organization founded to promote awareness of women writers’ contributions to the mystery field. Currently, she teaches writing and does manuscript critiques for Grub Street in Boston.
She has two sons (one into film and the other into photovoltaics) two lovely daughters-in-law, an adorable eight-year-old grandson and five granddogs, Frances, Otis, Harvey, Oscar, and Daisy. When not conducting research for her novels and nonfiction—research that includes riding an ATV through the Canadian woods or hiding in a tick-infested field waiting to be found by search and rescue dogs—Kate can often be found in her garden, waging war against the woodchucks and her husband’s lawnmower, or in the kitchen, devising clever and devious ways to get the men in her life to eat their vegetables.
After law school, Kate worked in the Maine attorney general’s office, protecting battered kids, chasing deadbeat dads, and representing the Human Rights Commission. Those years taught her all a crime writer needs to know about the human propensity to commit horrible acts. After some years in private practice, she decided to give writing a serious try when she quit the law to stay at home for a few years with her young sons. That ‘serious try’ led to ten tenacious and hellacious years in the unpublished writer’s corner, followed, finally, by the sale of her Thea Kozak series.
Kate’s eighteen books will include eight Thea Kozak mysteries, five gritty Joe Burgess police procedurals, a suspense thriller (written under the name Katharine Clark), two true crime books, Death Dealer and Finding Amy (co-written with Joseph Loughlin, a Portland, Maine Deputy Police Chief), a Maine game warden's memoir, A Good Man with a Dog, co-written with Roger Guay, and a book about police shootings from the police point of view, Shots Fired: The misunderstandings, misconceptions, and myths about police shootings, co-written with Joseph K. Loughlin. Finding Amy was a 2007 Edgar nominee as well as a Maine Literary Award finalist, and has been optioned for a movie. Kate’s award-winning short stories have been widely anthologized and Redemption and And Grant You Peace, her third and fourth Joe Burgess mysteries, won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction.
Flora's fiction, nonfiction, and short fiction have been finalists for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer Awards.
She is a founding member of the New England Crime Bake, the region's annual mystery conference, and the Maine Crime Wave. With two other crime writers, she started founded Level Best Books, where she worked as an editor and publisher for seven years. She served a term as international president of Sisters in Crime, an organization founded to promote awareness of women writers’ contributions to the mystery field. Currently, she teaches writing and does manuscript critiques for Grub Street in Boston.
She has two sons (one into film and the other into photovoltaics) two lovely daughters-in-law, an adorable eight-year-old grandson and five granddogs, Frances, Otis, Harvey, Oscar, and Daisy. When not conducting research for her novels and nonfiction—research that includes riding an ATV through the Canadian woods or hiding in a tick-infested field waiting to be found by search and rescue dogs—Kate can often be found in her garden, waging war against the woodchucks and her husband’s lawnmower, or in the kitchen, devising clever and devious ways to get the men in her life to eat their vegetables.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 13, 2024
I've read the whole series now and am completely addicted! I sure hope that there are going to be further books in the Thea Kozak series, Please!
April 4, 2023
I had a tough time starting this review ... Have been a huge fan of Thea Kozak from book one through this latest, book eleven; however, her attitude and general approach toward living her life has started to wear a little thin with me. Even though she's not a cop (married to one, but she and her partner own and operate a small independent education consulting firm) she usually exhibits all the hallmarks of the "I'm tough and don't need nobody" and "I can take care of myself thank you very much" TV and Movie cop mentality, supplemented with the "Yeah I'm a woman, but I am powerful and smart and don't you dare mess with me or my man 'cuz I have a gun and know how to use it" feminist, but now as of this outing contrasted with some weepy "I just want to bond with my baby, can't everyone solve their own problems without me for two seconds" new Momma Bear thrown in for good measure.
Of course she gets tied up in multiple murders, again! Of course she constantly holds back some of the key information to assist with solving the cases from her husband, as well as others in law enforcement. Of course she doesn't get to take maternity leave even though she covered for her partner's multiple births. Of course her newborn gets put in horrendously dangerous situations because of her poor judgement time and time again ... I could go on and on, but you get the point.
And at last I have finally got the point. The reason this book was so hard for me to digest was because it exposed the entirety of my own poor adult life choices. Leaving my carefree and privileged (although I didn't know it at the time) college existence behind, I was prepared when I saw the path in the wood diverge - I could either choose to be a stay-at-home Mom with six kids and all that entails - or - I could have a fulfilling career if I wanted to forego family and devote myself completely to that ideal. But coming from the generation where we were told we could have it all, instead I put my head down and plowed through the middle of that forest - between those two paved trails.
It is only now in early retirement, having to walk away completely, rather than trust myself to understand and believe that not everything is my responsibility to "fix" that I can look back and see that while you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. And rather than fight your way alone through the untouched wilderness, you can take any number of the small unpaved, but well worn, footpaths scattered between the two roads, anytime and as many times, as you want.
For god's sake Thea, SEIZE the rest of your maternity leave and make sure Andre does the same with his paternity leave - it's finally a different world now, but when you return the same problems will be there for you to attack and conquer like always ... because no matter what, you're still the ultimate badass.
Of course she gets tied up in multiple murders, again! Of course she constantly holds back some of the key information to assist with solving the cases from her husband, as well as others in law enforcement. Of course she doesn't get to take maternity leave even though she covered for her partner's multiple births. Of course her newborn gets put in horrendously dangerous situations because of her poor judgement time and time again ... I could go on and on, but you get the point.
And at last I have finally got the point. The reason this book was so hard for me to digest was because it exposed the entirety of my own poor adult life choices. Leaving my carefree and privileged (although I didn't know it at the time) college existence behind, I was prepared when I saw the path in the wood diverge - I could either choose to be a stay-at-home Mom with six kids and all that entails - or - I could have a fulfilling career if I wanted to forego family and devote myself completely to that ideal. But coming from the generation where we were told we could have it all, instead I put my head down and plowed through the middle of that forest - between those two paved trails.
It is only now in early retirement, having to walk away completely, rather than trust myself to understand and believe that not everything is my responsibility to "fix" that I can look back and see that while you can have it all, you just can't have it all at once. And rather than fight your way alone through the untouched wilderness, you can take any number of the small unpaved, but well worn, footpaths scattered between the two roads, anytime and as many times, as you want.
For god's sake Thea, SEIZE the rest of your maternity leave and make sure Andre does the same with his paternity leave - it's finally a different world now, but when you return the same problems will be there for you to attack and conquer like always ... because no matter what, you're still the ultimate badass.
February 19, 2023
I’ve read all the books in the series and really enjoyed them. While this one has parts that seem fleshed out, it seemed to be more convoluted without real substance to any of the characters or any real interaction between them, even the main characters. I didn’t even realize the book was about to end until I turned the page.
I’m not really sure what the point of the private school was in this book other than a check on the list that it was included.
I’m not really sure what the point of the private school was in this book other than a check on the list that it was included.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews