A Terrible Enemy

Taylor & Graham Mysteries #7

by Jo A. Hiestand

Year after year, the villagers near Stanton Moor celebrate May Day with bonfires and the laying of rowan branches to seek protection for home and cattle. But the men who gathered this May evening hadn’t come for blessings. They had come for murder. The dead body is discovered on a lonely moor, decapitated in the fashion of a Muslim killing of sacrificial sheep or chickens. Which focuses the suspicion on the Muslim community, since the victim and his family are Pakistanis. Does someone in the village resent these outsiders? Or is their small import shop too much competition for another local business?Detective-Sergeant Brenna Taylor, her boss, Detective-Chief Inspector Geoffrey Graham, and other members of their Murder Team from the Derbyshire Constabulary are called in to investigate and soon a series of decapitated animals -- sheep and rabbits -- appears on the moor. Is the sheep, the style of death or the location linked with the man’s murder?As fear over a second murder grips the villagers, the Team soon discovers this dead man may have had connections with the local bed-and-breakfast establishment and an organization that smuggles illegal products into Britain. That is bad enough, but the smuggling turns from a mere criminal case to something that hits closer to home for Brenna.And through the tangle of smugglers, murder, village secrets and a marriage proposal, Brenna fights to keep focused on the case and nab the one person who may be responsible for the trail of villainy that threatens to engulf everyone--cop and villager alike--connected with the moorland murders.

Paperback

First published July 26, 2013

About the author

Jo A. Hiestand is the author of two British mystery series. While this may not seem so unusual, Jo was born in -- and still lives in -- St. Louis, Missouri.
To get around the technical difficulties dictated by living in one country and writing about another -- especially about police procedures and crime detection, of which she has no personal experience -- she travels to Britain every few years for research. It was on one such trip that she met English police Inspector Tony Eyre (now retired) who supplied police information for her first novel, "Death of an Ordinary Guy." Since then, two other English police officers have become close friends of hers and help with police procedure, catching American words that creep into her writing, and reading the novel manuscripts to eliminate police inaccuracies.

This is all well and good, but nothing beats hands-on experience for writing. Since one of her series features a team of police detectives from the Derbyshire CID and her other highlights an ex-cop who investigates cold cases on his own, Jo knew she'd either have to commit a crime to get first-hand police knowledge or enroll in a citizen's police academy course. The latter seemed safer, so she signed up through a St. Louis county's PD. It was there that she met future co-author police officer Paul Hornung. As Paul remembers their first ride-along, they talked more about writing than about police work. During several ride-alongs they established a bond through these two mutual interests; eventually they agreed to collaborate on books. They've done this with Paul supplying information, writing the fights scenes, and finally writing some of the chapters as one of the series characters. Writing together is definitely fun but sometimes a challenge. Neither knows specifically what the other person's chapter will be, as the storyline is never fully detailed to the other. This is so each can read the other's work with a fresh eye, untainted by "what I meant to say."

Jo took a short respite from novel writing to try her hand with a play. Her contest-winning play "Teething Pains" was produced on stage in 2010. She flatly denies that her fear of dentistry was instrumental in selecting the subject.

Her love of writing, board games and music combines in "P.I.R.A.T.E.S.", the mystery-solving game that uses maps, graphics, song lyrics, and other clues to lead the players to the lost treasure. She also enjoys walking through the woods, playing guitar and harpsichord, her animals (pets as well as backyard wildlife), and reading.

Jo realizes she's living many authors' dreams. Who else has three police officers helping her commit murder?
- Amazon.com