Shafted, or the Toastrack Enigma: An Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mystery

CJ Verburg

Oct 2021 · Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mysteries Book 3 · Boom-Books

About this ebook

400 years after the "first Thanksgiving," a luncheon for leaders of GreenHome LLC and the Wampanoag tribe ends in murder. Or does it? Was Harriet Benbow killed to stop her from building luxury condos on an ancient burial ground? As payback for snatching an Art Deco toastrack at a yard sale? Or mistakenly by a burglar? In the seaside village of Quansett, untangling a violent crime takes collaboration. Detective Pete Altman wonders: Why did the killer cut upthe victim's scalp? Soup-chef Lydia Vivaldi and Wampanoag pastry chef Mudge Miles wonder: Is someone trying to frame the Indians? Reclusive artist Edgar Rowdey, who'd rather be plotting his new Agatha Christie pastiche, wonders: What about the toastrack?

About the author

A storyteller ever since she could talk, CJ Verburg worked as an academic editor before branching into playwriting, directing, and mystery fiction. Her close friendship and numerous theatrical collaborations with the late artist Edward Gorey inspired her multimedia memoir Edward Gorey On Stage, her award-winning play Spin, or Twilight of the Bohemians, and her Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod mystery series. Along with the novels Croaked, Zapped, and Shafted, or The Toastrack Enigma, this noir-cozy series includes the stories "Disarmed" (99 cents on Kindle, free elsewhere) and "A Terrible Tragedy" (in Malice Domestic's 2021 anthology Mystery Most Diabolical).CJ's long-time dream was to travel to interesting places and write stories about them. Her Cory Goodwin mystery series stars the international journalist daughter of NY private eye Archie Goodwin. In Silent Night Violent Night, an old Mount Holyoke College friend lures Cory into the noir side of science publishing. Another Number for the Road dispatches her to France in search of lost time with an upscale exchange program and their Mystery Band. (Live original rock-&-roll soundtrack included!) Next in the pipeline: Gaudi Knight, a Quixotic adventure in Barcelona.CJ's short story "Birdbrain" appears in Sisters In Crime's anthology Fault Lines, and her story "Peccata Mundy" appears in Seascape: Best New England Crime Stories 2019. "Scandal at the Savoy: the Monocle Murder" was published in Mystery Magazine's October 2021 Sherlock Holmes issue. Coming soon (fingers Xd) is Edward Gorey's Art of the Theater, a nonfiction sampler of the scripts, set designs, and other drawings created by Cape Cod's most famous artist-author-thespian for local stages.As Carol J. Verburg, CJ worked as an in-house and freelance editor and writer for major publishers on both coasts. She broke into authorship with the pioneering international literature collections Ourselves Among Others and Making Contact for Bedford/St. Martin's. Since Edward Gorey's death she's lived in San Francisco and writes looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge. She's a Sister in Crime (Northern California and New England), and founded the Indie Publishers' Working Group at the Mechanics' Institute Library.