Spotlight on Death in Delmarva by Caroline Taylor

 

 IN PURSUIT OF JUSTICE,  A GIRL’S GOTTA CUT A FEW CORNERS 

Caroline Taylor's latest crime thriller: the hot spring release everyone's waiting for 

PITTSBORO, NC – No stranger to the thriller world, veteran author Caroline Taylor is back with her latest thriller with more action, adventure, and narrow escapes.  Death in Delmarva  (Black Rose Writing, March 21, 2019)  will keep you turning the pages until every secret is revealed. 

Daphne Dunn works as a lowly stockroom clerk in her cousin’s Foggy Bottom grocery store. She’s also required to play bill collector to customers who aren’t paying for their food, including pregnant Beatriz Cabeza de Vaca, who used to keep house for Daphne’s family in better times. 

When Beatriz is stabbed to death outside her apartment, Daphne learns the baby has survived and sets out to find the baby’s missing father. She gets sidetracked when a friend facing life-threatening surgery asks Daphne to locate his sister, Charlie. Except for the lip ring and a nasty drug habit, Charlie could be Daphne’s twin. 

The search for both people leads Daphne to the Delmarva Peninsula and a woman so desperate to cover her crimes against undocumented workers that she will kill anyone in her way, including Charlie and quite possibly the girl’s mirror image, Daphne Dunn.

“An irresistible read filled with plenty of action—a dead voice coach, a missing junkie, a drive-by shooting, double murder-arson, shipments of mysterious merchandise—and the most inventive, tender-hearted amateur detective you’d ever want to meet. I loved this book and found it nearly impossible to put down.”— Vicki Salloum, author of Waiting for You at Midnight and Candyland

 

CAROLINE TAYLOR  is the author of four mystery novels— What

Are Friends For?,  Jewelry from a Grave ,  Loose Ends , and  The

Typist —and a collection of short stories,  Enough: Thirty Stories of

Fielding Life’s Little Curve Balls . A longtime resident of Washington, D.C., Caroline now lives in North Carolina. Read more of her numerous short stories and essays featured on her website at www.carolinestories.com.  

An Interview with Caroline Taylor

1.     Death in Delmarva  touches on issues of immigrant trafficking. What inspired you to use this in your story? 

The demand for workers in low-level, back-breaking jobs brings people here who are willing to do whatever it takes to support their families. This book was written before the migrant caravans of people seeking asylum filled the news. The caravans were begun as a way to achieve safety in numbers and avoid the plight of immigrants traveling alone and subject to trafficking. I wanted to showcase their desperation, which touched me deeply.

2.     Why did you choose for Daphne, the story’s protagonist, to work as a clerk in a grocery store?

I wanted her to have a job—like the immigrant workers—that sucked. She, in a different sense, is also desperate for a paycheck. So she has to do whatever she’s told, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it.

3.     You’re becoming quite the seasoned writer. Did the process of researching and writing this book take you, either mentally or physically, to any new places?

It would be presumptuous to imagine what it’s really like to be an immigrant worker in the poultry industry or a low-level stockroom clerk or a retired lady of the evening, so it was scary exploring these aspects of people’s lives. I can only hope I got it right.

4.     What advice do you have for writers experimenting with writing in different genres or styles?

Give it a try, but it may turn out your forte is in one or two genres. You really can’t write a western very well if you haven’t lived there, but you can write a historical novel with a little help from the library and the Internet.

5.     You seem to have mastered the cliff-hanger in  Death in Delmarva . Can we expect more to come in Daphne’s story?

Based on my experience with the first two novels, I am not a believer in trying to write a series character. It was fate that made the publisher of those two mysteries decide not to publish mysteries any longer, but I had trouble finding a publisher willing to pick up the series midstream. So I’ll just stick with the stand-alone.

This book may have been received free of charge from a publisher or a publicist. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.