Title:
A Sacrificial Matter
Author:
Ilona Fridl
Genre:
Historical Mystery
Book Blurb:
A naked man in a graveyard… Detectives Amos and Sarah Darcy have dealt with quite a few unusual mysteries, but who cut down the naked man in the graveyard with a broadsword at midnight? When Sheriff Sam Lindsey calls on them to help solve the murder, Sarah risks her life to go undercover into a world of spiritualism and crime to find the murderer and the motive.
Excerpt:
Two deputies and Coroner Elmer Stanton stood a few feet away looking at the ground as if mesmerized. They glanced up as Sam, Amos, and Sarah joined them. The seventh member of this tableau lay crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood that covered two headstones. The body lay on its side with its arms extended out and the knees bent. An oak wreath lay a few feet away.
Elmer carefully turned the body over and Sarah sucked in a breath. There were different color painted spots on various parts of it and a large bloody gash over the heart.
Amos knelt for a closer look and pointed to the wound. “It seems like he was stabbed with a knife.”
Sam shook his head. “Not a knife, look.”
They turned the body over and there was a puckered outward wound that was a mate to the one on the front. Amos sat back on his heels. “It looks like he was killed with a broadsword. Why in all hell would someone be fighting with swords, naked in a graveyard?”
Sarah searched around the site. “There doesn't seem to be a sword around here. He may not have had one.”
“Or,” Sam put in, “the other person might have taken it with him.”
“Assuming it was a man. A woman could have dispatched him just as well.”
Amos rose and brushed off his clothes. “I don't think so, Sarah. It takes quite a bit of force to run a body completely through.”
Sarah studied the body again. “From the way his knees were bent, it looks like he might have been kneeling.”
Sam pointed. “What about those spots of color? Do any of the natives around here paint themselves that way?”
Sarah had her notebook out and was copying the pattern of the color spots in relation to the body. “There's ten spots all together. It doesn't seem familiar to me. Anyway, he doesn't look like a native.”
Amos turned to Elmer. “How long has he been dead?”
Elmer had been checking the body over. “It looks like he's been dead about eight hours.”
Sam stroked his chin. “That would put the murder around midnight.”
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-sacrificial-matter-ilona-fridl/1123611678?ean=2940157864286
What makes your featured book a must-read?
Amos and Sarah are two of fan favorites. They originally appeared in Golden North and Prime Catch. This was a novella of their own.
Giveaway –
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Open Internationally.
Runs February 19 – February 25, 2025.
Winner will be drawn on February 26, 2025.
Author Biography:
Ilona Fridl was born in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, where she lived the first twenty-one years of her life. In high school and college, she took Journalism and Creative Writing. She moved with her family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she met her husband, Mark. They started a locksmithing business and raised a daughter to adulthood. All the while, she dreamed about being a writer, but she hated typewriters. In the nineties, they purchased their first computer, and she never looked back. With some articles and short stories under her belt, she started her first novel. The eighth book is just being released by The Wild Rose Press. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, and a student of AllWriters in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://www.ilonafridl.com