Seven Eight Play It Straight (Grasshopper Lawns Book 4)
Page 20
sgian dubh – Gaelic – pronounced roughly skeean doo – a single-edged knife, usually horn-handled, worn in the sock with traditional dress.
Swithering – similar to dithering, to be unable to decide
Taken the huff – offended
Weans – children
Weegie—Glaswegian
A bit more about the books, and some specials for mailing list subscribers
If you enjoyed this Grasshopper Lawns book, please review it on Amazon or Goodreads, it is the best way a book can hope to grow a following and a review can be a sentence or two. When you say what you liked about a book (and even what you didn’t) you are telling hundreds, even thousands, of other readers whether or not they should read it, and a positive review makes more of a difference to a writer than you might believe possible. Amazon will have a link at the end of this book, and will probably send you an email requesting feedback, or you can click in via the links detailed below.
They are so valuable, in the crowded book world, that I am running a special offer; any of the series can be claimed for free as thanks for a fair review, even a critical one. One way to claim a book in return for your review is via my website: there’s a mailing list at the top of the sidebar, if you sign up you get an immediate free story from the series (currently a lead-in story for Eleven Twelve Dig And Delve), and I’ll keep you up to date with any special offers, freebies and promotions as they come up (you can unsubscribe at any time). Every new book, for instance, comes out at a special pre-launch price, which is only advertised on the mailing list and to followers of the series. The start of Three Four was revamped completely six months after its release, and I sent out a replacement to everyone on the list.
The Quite Contrary website is definitely casual, about life, the universe, and the occasionally alarming learning curves involved in being both a writer and a mature single. (If you are reading this electronically, and use the link, it takes you to the Detective Club oath - click on Home to be taken to the most current blog.) Going on the mailing list puts us in email contact, or you can email me direct on elegsabifff@gmail.com - attach the link to your review, and tell me which book you want (details of all the books coming up) and I will email you the book by return. You then forward the email direct to your Kindle address (which you will find under your Settings) and Bob’s your uncle. (EPUB version also available, just specify.)
I’m also on Facebook, with a page for every name I write under, and on Twitter, as on the blog, I’m Elegsabiff.
All the books are available on Kindle and are slowly going into paperback on Amazon. Searching the name EJ Lamprey will always take you to the latest list. There is an omnibus for the first three books. A second omnibus is looming.
In One Two Buckle My Shoe, the murder of an unpopular resident sparks off an investigation. The police could use some inside information— fortunately, Sergeant Kirsty Campbell’s slightly eccentric aunt is right on the spot. The investigation really starts picking up speed when Edge and Vivian make friends with bon vivant William and the sardonic new resident Donald. It wasn’t that the friends set out to solve it themselves. They are keenly interested, of course—and they do keep coming across clues that no-one is giving to the police. . .
In Three Four Knock On My Door, it is Sylvia’s handsome devoted nephew Simon, and the enigmatic Dallas from Louisiana, with life-changing news for Vivian, who come knocking. The amateur sleuths of the retirement village combine to solve murder in between unexpected family, winter picnics, a new resident dog causing havoc at the Lawns, and Death paying a visit. In person.
In Five Six Pick Up Sticks, website dating for the over-fifties is definitely a boom industry, but for some it has been a dead end, and the Scottish police want to know why. The third whodunit in the Grasshopper Lawns series dives gleefully into the murkiest end of the senior singles dating pool (where the predators lurk) with Edge secretly hoping to meet someone special. It’s spring, and it seems the rest of the world is in love, is there someone out there for her? Preferably not the murderer, of course.
In Seven Eight Play It Straight Edge’s actress stepdaughter is performing in a successful Fringe show during the Edinburgh Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and is always a busy family time at Grasshopper Lawns. Long-standing hostilities are set aside when a violent and bloody killing strikes all too close to home, but the temporary truce doesn’t last after Fiona accuses Edge of the murder.
In Nine Ten Begin Again there are, unsurprisingly, murky goings-on at the Grasshopper Lawns retirement village, but for once they’re not getting the attention they deserve. Between Edge, to her own astonishment, falling head over heels in love, and Vivian terrifying her friends by nearly dying of pneumonia, they’ve definitely taken their eyes off the ball. Can they settle down and get on with the job in hand in time? Well of course they can, they’re old hands at this by now. But it’s a close-run thing.
Eleven Twelve Dig And Delve (the Halloween edition) is a cross-genre mystery which has both delighted and horrified reviewers. There’s a newcomer at the Grasshopper Lawns retirement village, and she’s an absolute battle-axe. One requirement of residency is to have an interesting past and Beulah Quinn’s past has been interesting to the point of scandalous. Now nearly eighty, she was notorious for her lovers and her political machinations and has been described variously as the most beautiful woman of her day, a widow-maker, and a full-blown witch. Now, though, someone is trying to kill her; and family is family. To Edge’s horror, her aunt is moving in.
Thirteen Fourteen Maids A-Courting It’s off to the Canaries for the amateur sleuths this time, because Drew, who took Edge’s lovely niece Kirsty there to propose to her, has vanished instead. However, matters become even more complicated when they come to the rescue. In fact, downright sinister. Was Drew the real target, or just the bait?
Joanna and Clarissa
In the unlikely event you, as a whodunit reader, also enjoy SF (maybe not that unlikely—I enjoy both, after all) I also write as Joanna Lamprey in that genre. The books are a separate name because the styles couldn’t be less similar, although Sydni, in Place, would probably get on very well with the Grasshopper Lawns bunch. Abby and Kirsty would certainly like each other. Lucy, from Time, on the other hand . . .
Time After Time is a collection of microstories, shorts, and a novella about travelling to Neanderthal times. Lucy is the only major character I dislike, but she demanded creation and no-one says no to Lucy.
No Place Like Place, Book One is the first book in a planned series of three, set on a colonised planet with, however, a decidedly retro lifestyle. There’s steam. And, of course, eccentric characters.
And for something completely different: as any reader of my blog will know, writing Five Six Pick Up Sticks got me researching singles websites for mature singles, and Nine Ten Begin Again got me really involved. I wrote a book loosely based on the stories I heard, the shenanigans generally around a mature singles website, and my own experiences. The book is steamy enough, especially around the middle, to fog up the specs of some readers, and I wrote it under the name Clarissa Rodgers-Briskleigh to make clear it is a romp - funny, sad, sexy and an off-beat romance, all in one. It’s called A Second Rainbow.
About the author
Elizabeth (E J ) Lamprey lives on the Firth of Forth, within easy distance of Edinburgh, and only a few miles from where Grasshopper Lawns would be if there was a Grasshopper Lawns retirement village.
Originally from South Africa, she’s the daughter of a Scot, looks like a Scot, dearly loves Scotland, but accepts that with a mere fourteen years residence she is still considered a tourist, albeit a tenacious one.
She has been variously a book reviewer on a city paper, a columnist in a national magazine, a copy-editor and critiquer, a commercial blogger, and a reporter on a country newspaper, as well as earning an actual living with more conventional jobs.
She’s looking forward to becoming a grandmother when her b
usy daughter can find the time, but until then writing a series of cheerful whodunits about a Scottish retirement village is definitely her favourite occupation.