Everyone deserves a second chance, right? Jed Cooper’s past is rocky, but he has cleaned up his act. Now he is making an honest living as a handyman. But when he is found standing over his employer’s dead body by the local police, it looks as though his past deeds have caught up with him.
Jed sets out to prove his innocence. After all, he knows that he didn’t kill her, so who did? She had been acting lately as though she were afraid of something or someone, but unfortunately, she had never told Jed what was wrong.
While searching for her killer, he revisits his old haunts and takes us into a world filled with petty thieves, crime bosses, and hit men. Will he be successful at finding out who framed him for a murder he didn’t commit?
A huge fan of mystery stories, I grew up devouring mysteries by Agatha Christie and losing myself in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Shelly Frome writes a great whodunit. His action-filled mystery will keep you wanting to read more until it is revealed just who killed Jed’s employer and why.
If you are a fan of mysteries, you will love this book. I received a copy in exchange for an honest review. If you would like to buy your own copy, I have provided an Amazon link below. Click on it, and it will take you straight to the book on Amazon.
Amazon Link: Murder Run
Recommended Article: Shelly Frome Interview – Inspiration, Characters, and Writing
Favorite Sentences:
Rule of thumb—all folks do one thing and mean another.
Maybe if there was a starting point, a because-of-this-then-that.
By the time the door on the left had opened and that leprechaun face of his peered out, Jed was starting to think twice.
Though it was as stupid as can be, Nate thought of all those heart-of-darkness movies he’d seen as a kid as some dangerous beast lurked in the bush, wounded, ready to charge at the slightest incursion by a pampered greenhorn on his first encounter in the veldt.
New Words Learned:
capo – I was familiar with the word “capo,” but I knew it to be a clamp fastened across the strings of a fretted musical instrument to raise its tuning by a chosen amount. The way it is used in the book, it means the head of a crime syndicate, especially the Mafia, or a branch of one
champing – chomping
clematises, allthingsplants.com
clematises – climbing plants of the buttercup family that bear white, pink, or purple flowers and feathery seeds
comptroller – a controller
dreck – rubbish, trash
enigma – a person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand
farrago – confused mixture
Glenfiddich – a Speyside single malt Scotch whisky owned and produced by William Grant & Sons in Dufftown, Scotland
glom– to steal, to catch or grab, to look at
hinterlands – the often uncharted areas beyond a coastal district or a river’s banks
inviolate –free or safe from injury or violation
laconic – using few words; expressing much in few words; concise
lanai – a porch or veranda
non-sequitur– a statement containing an illogical conclusion
pergola, pixabay
pergola – an archway consisting of a framework covered with trained climbing or trailing plants
reticent – not revealing one’s thoughts or feelings readily
segued – moved without interruption
shill – an accomplice of a hawker, gambler, or swindler who acts as an enthusiastic customer to entice or encourage others
wangling – obtaining something that is desired by persuading others to comply or by manipulating events
wending – going in a specified direction, typically slowly or by an indirect route
About the Author:
Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, and a writer of crime novels and books on theater and film. He is also the film columnist for Southern Writers Magazine.
His fiction includes Sun Dance for Andy Horn, Lilac Moon, Twilight of the Drifter, and Tinseltown Riff. Among his works of non-fiction are The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage.
Murder Run is his latest foray into the world of mystery/crime and the amateur sleuth. He lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Website: www.shellyfrome.com/
This sounds intriguing! How I love a good mystery! I’ll definitely give this a go 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed ‘Murder Run’ so much!