Title: Death by Sample Size
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Book Blurb:
The last thing swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik expected was to discover ruthless buying office big wig Bunny Frank’s corpse trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey with a bikini stuffed down her throat. When Holly’s colleague is arrested for Bunny’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to find the real killer. Nothing turns out how Holly thinks it will as she matches wits with a wily murderer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
Before the first inkling of dawn, I said good morning to the nosy crane I shared my slip with as I hoisted myself over my houseboat’s forward deck. The halyards tinkled a soft sonata on my neighbors’ masts as the leeward wind luffed their sails. Damp fingers of morning fog curled over the dock and gave the briny air a chewy texture as I made my way to the gangplank.
I entered the parking structure and dropped the top on my sixty-five pink Mustang convertible. I settled into the worn bucket seat and cranked the heater to the blast furnace level. I hit the radio button for the oldies station and jammed the volume loud enough to wake the dead. I crossed Admiralty Way and glugged a fortifying gulp of unleaded commuter mug coffee strong enough to peel two coats of paint off my car.
It’s not like I’m even a morning person. But if you’re from LA the one thing you can always count on is, you’re gonna be stuck in traffic on the 405 whether you’re driving at three in the morning or three in the afternoon. The reality is either you’re gonna be two hours late or two days early. That’s how it is for us LALA Land commuters. What are ya gonna do? I traversed the Marina Freeway and merged into the heavy traffic already bottlenecked on the northbound 405. I crept along at a turtle’s pace for three miles till I transitioned eastbound onto I-10 and crawled my way downtown.
****
I finally arrived at the California Apparel Mart minutes before being on the road long enough to become the butt of the old joke I was a young woman when the day began. My footfalls echoed in the near-empty underground parking garage. I got to the elevator bank and pressed the button. When the elevator doors opened, I had to stop myself short not to step on her. There was Bunny Frank, the buying office bigshot lying diagonally across the car. Her legs were splayed out and her back was propped against the corner. Her sightless eyes were wide open and her arms reached out in a come-to-me baby pose. She was trussed up with shipping tape like a dressed Thanksgiving turkey ready for the oven with a bikini stuffed in her mouth. A Gotham Swimwear hangtag drooped off her lower lip like a toe tag gone lost. Naturally, I burst out laughing.
Before you label me incredibly weird or stone-cold, let me say genetics aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. If you’re lucky you inherit your Aunt Bertha’s sexy long legs or your father’s ability to add a bazillion-dollar order in his head and get the total correct to the last penny. Without even breaking into a sweat, it’s easy to spout at least a million fabulous traits inheritable by the luck of the draw. Did I get those sexy long legs or the ability to add more than two plus two without a calculator? Noooooooooo. Lucky me. I inherited my Nana’s fear of death we overcompensated for it with the nervous habit of laughing. A hysterical reaction? Think Bozo the clown eulogizing your favorite aunt.
I craned my neck like a tortoise and checked around. Then I clamped a fist over my mouth. Cripes, how could I possibly explain my guffaws with Bunny lying there?
Disappointment was simultaneously mixed with relief when no one else was in the parking lot. Where was security when you needed them?
I toed the elevator door open and bent over Bunny. I’d seen enough CSI episodes to know not to touch her. She was stiff as a board and I attributed the bluish tinge of her skin to the bikini crammed down her throat. I was no doctor, but I didn’t need an MD after my name to make this diagnosis. Bunny Frank was dead as the proverbial doorknob.
This was my first time almost tripping over a corpse, so, if there was one, the protocol wasn’t clear. Send Bunny to the lobby? As if. Since the lobby wasn’t an option, I pressed the stop button. Of course, every ten seconds the darned elevator pinged loudly as though begging me to let it complete its journey.
I was pretty freaked out; there I was, babbling to the body. “I should go for help, but I don’t wanna leave you here alone.” Naturally, Bunny Frank remained mute. She was way beyond giving a crap about what I did or didn’t do.
I leaned over and read the name on the hangtag out loud in case she was interested in which brand of bikini she had lodged in her mouth. “Gotham Swimwear; a sample size ten. I’m gonna take a wild guess the style didn’t make it to your retailers’ gotta get it on your floor list?” For someone never at a loss for words, Bunny Frank was mum as a cloistered nun. “With you, the problem is the style was probably a real dog and it still made the must-buy list.”
I’d swear she was staring disdainfully back at me as though somehow; I’d let her down. As if. Inside my head, Bunny snickered, “Oh, get over yourself.”
After the elevator made its millionth ping, Ernesto, the hunched-over, ancient security guard shuffled his way to the elevator bank. His wrinkled skin, the color of cracked clay, was partially hidden under a faded maroon uniform hung two sizes too big on his bony frame.
That he even responded was a surprise. He was normally holed up in the guard shack glued to the novellas on Estrella TV. Why let anything as mundane as an out-of-order elevator interrupt a juicy program? When you needed him to do something, he either became deaf as a post or lost his ability to understand English. It didn’t matter. The old guy was incapable of stopping a wayward bicycle let alone a real intruder.
Buy Links:
Universal buy link: https://books2read.com/u/3n2xYB
What makes your featured book a must-read?
Death by Sample Size is the debut book for the Holly Swimsuit Series and introduces the beloved main characters that made the series an award-winning must-read. There are now five published mysteries in the series and number six will be released on May 21st. Death by Sample Size is the story of one woman’s relentless quest for power regardless of the cost and set in the heart of the competitive Los Angeles apparel industry, Death by Sample Size shakes out the dirty laundry of the cutthroat fashion business. But this time it’s a female sales executive peeling back the underbelly of the clothing industry and revealing how the latest trends really get from the designer’s imagination to the store rack.
Giveaway –
Enter to win a $20 Amazon gift card:
Open Internationally.
Runs February 19 – February 25, 2025.
Winner will be drawn on February 26, 2025.
Author Biography:
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
Social Media Links:
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit