The Phantom of Oz, Installment #26
Plus book news, an asparagus bouquet, and Random Stuff That Makes Me Laugh
Hello! As most of you know, I’m serializing The Phantom of Oz here in a bit of an experiment. Once a month, you’ll still receive the “regular” Slightly Silly News. If you missed earlier chapters of Phantom, you can find links to all of the earlier installments here.
Wow! What a week and a half! The launch party at Annie Bloom’s was one of the best evenings of my life. Seriously. So many people showed up to support Echoes of the Lost—standing room only at the bookstore! The reading was fun, the cake was amazing (Costco!), and I received a lovely bouquet of asparagus from Anthony Petchel and Emily Rowley-Krueger. (The bag it came in was labeled, “Warning: Hazardous Materials.” Anthony knows me pretty well.)
And I’m already beginning to hear from readers - my favorite part of being published. It’s so wonderful to hear that someone connected with your characters, that the twists surprised them, or just that they spent their precious time reading my book. As musician Nick Cave said, “There is a unique joy, the deepest satisfaction and a kind of spiritual appeasement in knowing that something we have made, or worked on, means something to somebody else.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am happy and exhausted.
Echoes of the Lost News
Read more about my appreciation for readers and enter a giveaway in “The Magical Power of being a Reader” at Chicks on the Case. Thank to fellow author Marla Cooper for offering me a guest post!
More giveaways coming soon!
Bookclubs get a 10% discount and free shipping (to one destination) when they order five or more paperback copies of Echoes of the Lost. All the copies will be signed, and I’m happy to come to your bookclub on Zoom, or in-person if I can. Interested? Email me at info@cindybrownwriter.com or…
Great new review in Crime Fiction Lover! Warning: It contains a couple of spoilers. Here’s the good stuff:
“…Cindy Brown takes several fresh approaches to the classic whodunnit. Most striking is her evocative sense of place. She captures the oppressive feel of winter in the rainy, chilly city where she lives and backdrops a number of its problems in a from-the-ground-up, insightful manner…Especially compelling is her handling of what is now called neurodivergence, in all its varied forms and origins: unstable environments, substance abuse, mental illness and, in the case of her main character, traumatic brain injury…Brown does an excellent job describing the different personalities of several of the unhoused characters, about five altogether. She doesn’t gloss over their problems and the bad decisions and worse luck that created their current circumstances, but she makes them real people, with strong personalities, some good, some not.”
Find more posts, articles, and interviews here, as well as a list of upcoming events.
Want a sneak preview of Echoes of the Lost?” Follow this link to a hidden tab on my website, where you can read the first two chapters.
Exit book news. Enter Random Stuff That Makes Me Laugh.
From fellow author, Portlandian, and capybara-lover Liz Prato.
From an ad for Musical America Jobs:
From my brother, Dan Overton (it seems a love of puns run in the family):
Now, on to Phantom!
Chapter 19 (Part One)
The First Investigations After the Disappearance
In the last chapter, Ivy searches for her friend Candy, who disappeared after a soirée for The Friends of The Grand Phoenician. She doesn’t find Candy, but she does find her wallet and phone, which she would never have left behind.
“I’m investigating the disappearance of Candace Moon. I’m a PI.” I flashed a card at the front-desk guy at the Courtyard Marriot. My ID wasn’t real. I was still working on getting my license. I’d stopped by Duda Detectives’ office on the way to Candy’s hotel and created the card from stuff I found on the internet. My uncle would be furious if he knew. “So if the manager could just let me into her room—”
“Nice.” The clerk went back to his computer, his brown shaved head gleaming under the overhead lights.
“Nice?”
“As in nice try, no dice. You know how many of you journalists have tried to get into Ms. Moon’s room? If I weren’t a good guy, I could be rich by now.”
“So I guess that means you’re not taking...tips, right?”
“That’s right.” He straightened his tie. “And I’d give up the PI ruse if I were you. You obviously don’t have what it takes.”
I ignored the dig. Like a real PI would when she was on the case. “Would you let the police in?” Maybe I could call Pink—Detective Pinkstaff, as he was better known in the Phoenix PD.
“Not unless they have a warrant or probable cause.”
“Candy has disappeared,” I said. “That seems like probable cause.”
“Wouldn’t you disappear if all these scumbags were hounding you?”
He waved at the hotel lobby. I’d taken the crowd for a busload of tourists, what with the cameras around their necks, but I should have known. Their faces weren’t relaxed with the prospect of a sunny winter vacation, but scrunched up with concentration as they studied their phones between glances at the hotel entrance. Paparazzi.
I found a photo of Candy and me on my phone and held it out to the clerk. “Listen, I’m her best friend.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“And a PI. Really. I can’t find Candy and I’m worried about her.”
He glanced at the phone, then took it from me, examining the photo. “When was this taken?”
“August.”
“This past August?”
I nodded. The clerk handed my phone back to me. “You should be worried. I’d never have recognized her from that photo.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. What to do now? I hung out in the lobby with the journalists, trying to figure out my next step. I pulled up the photo of Candy and me again. We were at Hussong’s in Ensenada, Mexico, surrounded by baskets of tortilla chips and empty margarita glasses. I looked pretty much the same, except then my hair was shorter and strawberry blonde (a fix after one of my hair dye accidents). Candy, though...in the photo, her brown curls sprung off her head like they were trying to escape into the sun that glinted through the cantina window. She was laughing, showing off white teeth, and bursting out of her yellow sundress in all the right places. She looked like the farmer’s daughter in those old jokes: a luscious, friendly sexpot.
“Hey,” I heard from over my shoulder. “Aren’t you the one with the ghost photos?” The speaker was a hard-looking woman with dark lipstick. “Wait.” She grabbed at the phone in my hand. “Is that Candace Moon? Wow, she looks—”
“A lot like her sister, Mandy. Which is who this is.” I swiped the photo shut.
“Yeah? Twins?”
“No.” Twins sounded like news, like the press might try to find Candy’s nonexistent sister. “A year and a half apart.”
“Definite resemblance. You know, if Mandy lost some weight, she’d be almost as good-looking as her sis—”
“What is with you people?” I shouted. “Real women have curves!” The name of the play just sprung to mind. Besides, it was the truth.
“Touchy, touchy.” The woman had lipstick on her teeth. I decided not to tell her. “But about those ghost photos...”
I made myself calm down. Money was at stake, and it was a very precious commodity in my life. “How much are you offering?”
“Two thousand dollars?”
“Hey,” I shouted to the room. “This...lady just offered me two thousand dollars for my ghost photos. Anyone want to beat that?”
The mean woman looked crestfallen as I was surrounded by journalists with deeper pockets. Served her right—“if she lost a little weight.” Harpy.
I finally made a deal with a jowly older man, and had just finished stashing the cash (three thousand dollars!) into my wallet when some of the Wizard cast entered the hotel. I got into the elevator with them. The actress who played Dorothy said to the group in general, “Best reception ever. Babette deserved everything she got. Brownie butt, my ass.”
“Is that a joke?” Madison whispered to her mom, who ignored her, probably hoping Dorothy would too.
The entire group got off on the fifth floor. Good. Now I just had to figure out which room was Candy’s, and how I would get in.
Watch next week for the next installment of The Phantom of Oz!
And if you haven’t read the first four books in the Agatha-nominated Ivy Meadows series:
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