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Lucky Lexie Mysteries #6
Case of the Broken Bridge
Locking the doors may not keep a killer out
Lexie Lincoln hoped the Saturday outing Wes Mosby planned would be a date, a step toward defining their ambiguous relationship, but it turns out to be something better: a story. Wes fears there was something shady about the construction of a bridge that collapsed in a recent storm. It’s out of his jurisdiction, but he thinks Lexie’s just the person to dig into it.
She suspects Wes might be right when the county engineer she calls about the bridge invites her to his house for a cookout instead of arranging an interview. There must be something he doesn’t want to discuss at the office. But when she arrives, he’s nowhere to be found. His family can’t get into the house because it’s locked from the inside. After the police resort to kicking in a door, they find him dead from an apparent suicide.
Or is it? It doesn’t make sense for him to invite Lexie over, then kill himself before talking. On the other hand, there are those locked doors. How could the killer have left? Then again, this is Stirling Mills, where half the population can do seemingly impossible things. Getting in and out in spite of locked doors isn’t out of the question. If it was murder, was he killed because of the bridge, or was it something else?
Either way, Lexie’s investigation into the bridge has made her a target of threats. If she’s dealing with someone willing to kill to keep her from finding and publishing the truth, and if that person can lock or unlock any door, she won’t be safe until she brings the killer to justice.
Lexie Lincoln hoped the Saturday outing Wes Mosby planned would be a date, a step toward defining their ambiguous relationship, but it turns out to be something better: a story. Wes fears there was something shady about the construction of a bridge that collapsed in a recent storm. It’s out of his jurisdiction, but he thinks Lexie’s just the person to dig into it.
She suspects Wes might be right when the county engineer she calls about the bridge invites her to his house for a cookout instead of arranging an interview. There must be something he doesn’t want to discuss at the office. But when she arrives, he’s nowhere to be found. His family can’t get into the house because it’s locked from the inside. After the police resort to kicking in a door, they find him dead from an apparent suicide.
Or is it? It doesn’t make sense for him to invite Lexie over, then kill himself before talking. On the other hand, there are those locked doors. How could the killer have left? Then again, this is Stirling Mills, where half the population can do seemingly impossible things. Getting in and out in spite of locked doors isn’t out of the question. If it was murder, was he killed because of the bridge, or was it something else?
Either way, Lexie’s investigation into the bridge has made her a target of threats. If she’s dealing with someone willing to kill to keep her from finding and publishing the truth, and if that person can lock or unlock any door, she won’t be safe until she brings the killer to justice.
204 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 22, 2022
10 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Shanna Swendson
40 books1,132 followersOnce upon a time ...
A little girl learned to amuse herself by making up stories in her head. She turned everyday activities into exciting adventures, and she made up new adventures for characters from her favorite movies, TV shows and books. Then one day she realized that if she wrote down those stories, she'd have a book! But that was crazy, she thought. Real people don't become novelists. That was like deciding you were going to be a movie star. You couldn't just go and do it.
But, it turns out, you can, and she did. She realized her dream of becoming a novelist and seeing her stories in bookstores.
And then she started to wig herself out by writing about herself in the third-person.
This is her story.
The Novelist's Journey
As I said above in that bit of silliness, I've always been a writer at heart. My favorite way to play was to create stories and act them out with my Fisher-Price people, my Barbie dolls or myself and a box of play clothes. If none of those things were available, I could just sit and make up stories in my head. I occasionally got into trouble for being a little too creative, such as the time when I embellished a bit on my kindergarten experiences (where's the dramatic hook in coloring, cutting out and pasting?).
When I was in seventh grade and a bit old for Fisher-Price people, Barbie dolls or the dress-up box, I started writing these stories down in spiral notebooks. Later, I found an old manual typewriter, taught myself to type, then wrote a lot of first chapters of novels on it. I still hadn't figured out how to actually be a working novelist who gets paid for writing (finishing a book instead of writing a lot of first chapters might have been a good start), so when it came time to go to college, I went to journalism school at the University of Texas. While getting my degree in broadcast news, I managed to structure a curriculum that might also help me in my real career plans. I took fencing (which I thought would be useful for writing fantasy novels), an astronomy course on the search for extraterrestrial life (in case I wanted to write science fiction), psychology, interpersonal communication, and parageography (the geography of imaginary lands).
I got serious about pursuing my novel-writing ambitions soon after I got my first job in public relations (TV reporting, it turns out, would have taken away from my writing time) when I started joining local writing organizations and reading books on how to write a novel. Then I took the big step of registering for a writing conference. With the registration fee, you could enter two manuscripts in a contest that went with the conference. I figured if I was paying that much money, I'd get the most out of it, so I wrote two entries. At the conference, I met a real, live editor, who encouraged me to submit, and one of my entries won the science fiction/fantasy category of the contest. I hurried to finish the novel the editor had asked for, then mailed a proposal.
She ended up rejecting the book, but encouraged me to keep trying. I ended up selling that novel elsewhere, then sold two more books to that publisher before I had another idea for that original editor. That book ended up selling, and then one more.
And then I hit the wall. Due to a number of circumstances, some of which weren't my fault and some of which were, I didn't sell anything else for eight years. But then I had the idea that became Enchanted, Inc., I wrote it, sold it, and here I am.
Other Life Stuff
I think I need to get a few more hobbies or something else going on in my life that isn't related to reading or writing because currently my bio in my books is shorter than the "about the typeface" section. Yes, a typeface has a more interesting life than I do.
When I'm not writing, I'm most often reading. Otherwise, I enjoy watching science fiction TV shows and then discussing them on the Internet, working crossw
A little girl learned to amuse herself by making up stories in her head. She turned everyday activities into exciting adventures, and she made up new adventures for characters from her favorite movies, TV shows and books. Then one day she realized that if she wrote down those stories, she'd have a book! But that was crazy, she thought. Real people don't become novelists. That was like deciding you were going to be a movie star. You couldn't just go and do it.
But, it turns out, you can, and she did. She realized her dream of becoming a novelist and seeing her stories in bookstores.
And then she started to wig herself out by writing about herself in the third-person.
This is her story.
The Novelist's Journey
As I said above in that bit of silliness, I've always been a writer at heart. My favorite way to play was to create stories and act them out with my Fisher-Price people, my Barbie dolls or myself and a box of play clothes. If none of those things were available, I could just sit and make up stories in my head. I occasionally got into trouble for being a little too creative, such as the time when I embellished a bit on my kindergarten experiences (where's the dramatic hook in coloring, cutting out and pasting?).
When I was in seventh grade and a bit old for Fisher-Price people, Barbie dolls or the dress-up box, I started writing these stories down in spiral notebooks. Later, I found an old manual typewriter, taught myself to type, then wrote a lot of first chapters of novels on it. I still hadn't figured out how to actually be a working novelist who gets paid for writing (finishing a book instead of writing a lot of first chapters might have been a good start), so when it came time to go to college, I went to journalism school at the University of Texas. While getting my degree in broadcast news, I managed to structure a curriculum that might also help me in my real career plans. I took fencing (which I thought would be useful for writing fantasy novels), an astronomy course on the search for extraterrestrial life (in case I wanted to write science fiction), psychology, interpersonal communication, and parageography (the geography of imaginary lands).
I got serious about pursuing my novel-writing ambitions soon after I got my first job in public relations (TV reporting, it turns out, would have taken away from my writing time) when I started joining local writing organizations and reading books on how to write a novel. Then I took the big step of registering for a writing conference. With the registration fee, you could enter two manuscripts in a contest that went with the conference. I figured if I was paying that much money, I'd get the most out of it, so I wrote two entries. At the conference, I met a real, live editor, who encouraged me to submit, and one of my entries won the science fiction/fantasy category of the contest. I hurried to finish the novel the editor had asked for, then mailed a proposal.
She ended up rejecting the book, but encouraged me to keep trying. I ended up selling that novel elsewhere, then sold two more books to that publisher before I had another idea for that original editor. That book ended up selling, and then one more.
And then I hit the wall. Due to a number of circumstances, some of which weren't my fault and some of which were, I didn't sell anything else for eight years. But then I had the idea that became Enchanted, Inc., I wrote it, sold it, and here I am.
Other Life Stuff
I think I need to get a few more hobbies or something else going on in my life that isn't related to reading or writing because currently my bio in my books is shorter than the "about the typeface" section. Yes, a typeface has a more interesting life than I do.
When I'm not writing, I'm most often reading. Otherwise, I enjoy watching science fiction TV shows and then discussing them on the Internet, working crossw
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 25, 2022
I enjoy following along with Lexie's adventures and this one is a nice addition to the series. If you want a quick read, cozy paranormal mystery, I recommend this series.
November 19, 2022
I meant to save this to read on my flight home next week, but...I've never had very good self-control when it comes to books, and now didn't seem like the time to work on that. Plus! Book 7 just came out! So perhaps I can read that next week instead.
In Case of the Broken Bridge, Lexie's body count keeps piling up—this time it's an engineer with whom she was supposed to have an interview. Instead he's dead in his home, and it's up to Lexie to figure out who would have wanted to kill him and why.
Nice to see the recurring characters pop up, and for Lexie's friendship with Margarita to progress a bit further...although it looks like this will be a very slow burn with Wes. Occasionally I did have to wrack my brain regarding references to previous books, and I really have to adjust my mental image of small Texan towns to account for more than a dusty dirt road with clapboard buildings and perhaps a tumbleweed or two...but I'm glad this series continues apace.
In Case of the Broken Bridge, Lexie's body count keeps piling up—this time it's an engineer with whom she was supposed to have an interview. Instead he's dead in his home, and it's up to Lexie to figure out who would have wanted to kill him and why.
Nice to see the recurring characters pop up, and for Lexie's friendship with Margarita to progress a bit further...although it looks like this will be a very slow burn with Wes. Occasionally I did have to wrack my brain regarding references to previous books, and I really have to adjust my mental image of small Texan towns to account for more than a dusty dirt road with clapboard buildings and perhaps a tumbleweed or two...but I'm glad this series continues apace.
October 14, 2022
Always love a Shanna Swendson story
Shanna Swendson just does it for me in stories.
This one was another perfect storytelling with just the right amount of mystery and suspense, but also humor and a little bit of will they or won't they do something about their relationship already?! But I love that Wes gets to be a hero for Lexie so many times in this one and how each book so far is so vastly different in terms of the mystery and the super power being used.
I also loved that Lexie was able to give closure to Steve. As someone who also lost a family member at a young age, that fully brought a tear to my eye.
Shanna Swendson just does it for me in stories.
This one was another perfect storytelling with just the right amount of mystery and suspense, but also humor and a little bit of will they or won't they do something about their relationship already?! But I love that Wes gets to be a hero for Lexie so many times in this one and how each book so far is so vastly different in terms of the mystery and the super power being used.
I also loved that Lexie was able to give closure to Steve. As someone who also lost a family member at a young age, that fully brought a tear to my eye.
October 14, 2022
Shanna Swendson just does it for me in stories.
This one was another perfect storytelling with just the right amount of mystery and suspense, but also humor and a little bit of will they or won't they do something about their relationship already?! But I love that Wes gets to be a hero for Lexie so many times and each book so far is so vastly different in terms of the mystery and the super power being used.
I also loved that Lexie was able to give closure to Steve. As someone who also lost a family member at a young age, that fully brought a tear to my eye.
This one was another perfect storytelling with just the right amount of mystery and suspense, but also humor and a little bit of will they or won't they do something about their relationship already?! But I love that Wes gets to be a hero for Lexie so many times and each book so far is so vastly different in terms of the mystery and the super power being used.
I also loved that Lexie was able to give closure to Steve. As someone who also lost a family member at a young age, that fully brought a tear to my eye.
September 24, 2022
I really enjoy this cozy paranormal mystery series. Lexie is a journalist who can talk to ghosts; because of this ability she was recruited to edit a Texas newspaper whose owner and former editor is no longer alive but still very much in charge. In a second paranormal aspect, many town residents are descended from circus sideshow performers, from whom they inherited various psychic abilities. It's a lot of fun. This installment deals with a sort of locked-room murder mystery.
October 21, 2022
Another charming Lucky Lexie mystery novella. If you enjoy cozy mysteries with a hint of magic plus helpful ghosts, meet Lexie, small town newspaper editor.
October 22, 2022
Fun read. Awesome characters!
October 25, 2022
I always like the fun and twists that Shanna Swenson brings to her books. Another good one!
July 25, 2024
Another solid entry in the series.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews