Books to the Ceiling

This week we travel back in time to go to a wedding, in 1965. Dot Morgan is getting married to the love of her life. Wedding preparations include cakes, flowers, music and murder. This is my fifth installment in the Swinging Sixties Series, but if you haven't read the first four, don't worry. Crying in the Chapel can be read as a standalone. So, grab your go-go boots and let's get that church.
It's August 1965, and Dot Morgan is finally getting married to the dashing reporter Ben Dalton. Her wedding day, August 14th, promises to be perfect—if only it didn't follow Friday the 13th. What could go wrong? Planning a wedding with the members of the Camden Chapel, Dot thinks she’s overwhelmed, but then it gets worse when a body is found on the church lawn. Dot decides to focus on her wedding to Ben, but when police reveal the victim didn't jump from the belfry he was pushed—she can no longer look away.
Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads
Music Credit
In Bloom
https://uppbeat.io/t/justin-lee/in-bloom
License code: KA73KM3FBUJ07XVN

Do you love Agatha Christie? As a mystery author, I've spent time reading her books and watching the movies made from them. Studying Agatha Christie can only help an author who deals with killers, red herrings, clues and pacing. I met this week's author at Malice Domestic, a mystery conference in Maryland, and even though I had no room in my suitcase, had to pick up a copy of her book, Agatha Christie, She Watched. Since then it has had a prominent place on my bookshelf and I am slowly getting through the movies Teresa Peschel researched. It's like a masterclass on Agatha Christie, and great for a dark and stormy night. Agatha Christie, She Watched is a big, well illustrated book, and worth every inch it will take on your book shelf. 
One Woman's Plot to Watch 201 Christie Adaptations Without Murdering the Director, Screenwriter, Cast, or Her Husband
Care to match wits with Hercule Poirot? Share tea and gossip with Miss Marple? Chase spies with Tommy and Tuppence? "Agatha Christie, She Watched" will introduce you to must-see movies (and must-avoid) dogs that prove Agatha's genius depicting the hopeful and dark sides of human nature. These movies will tantalize you, mystify you, and make you laugh at the folly of humanity.
Teresa Peschel watched and reviewed 201 adaptations, from the German silent movie "Adventures, Inc." (1929) to "See How They Run" and "Why Didn't They Ask Evans" (2022). Each film was rated for fidelity to the original material and its overall quality. Each review takes up two pages and comes with six cast photos, list of major actors, and known film locations. Foreign movies with English subtitles from India, France, Russia, and Japan are included. We include eight movies in which the fictional Agatha Christie solves murder mysteries, debates Poirot, battles a space wasp (in Doctor Who), and plots to kill her husband's mistress.
“Agatha Christie, She Watched” is the only comprehensive collection of reviews about Christie adaptations. Use it to find the movies made from the novels you love, fill in your movie collection or host an Agatha Christie festival of your own.
Book Links: Amazon | KindleUnlimited | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub | Peschel Press
Music Credits
Cloud Recesses
https://uppbeat.io/t/dada/cloud-recesses
License code: X51ZOXYCSFH8WALW

Would you ever climb into that box magician's have and then let them saw you in half? It's just an illusion, right? Or is it? This week we're heading to New Jersey for a little magic on Halloween in Zig Zag Girl. A person could really get sawed in half in one of those boxes, you're thinking. fuggedaboutit already. This week's podcast is all about a haunted magic show.
Synopsis
Zigzag Girl, by Ruth Knafo Setton, is a twisty contemporary mystery with a touch of magic, set in Atlantic City and the eerie New Jersey Pine Barrens. Lucy Moon, a brilliant young magician with a mysterious past, works in the town’s theatre, staging performances of enchantment and conjure. But one night, during the ‘Sawing a Woman in Half’ trick, Lucy discovers her friend’s body in the box, dead. As Lucy digs deeper, she uncovers a trail of murders and suspects. With the help of a fierce group of female magicians and mystics, she must expose the truth before she becomes the final act.
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | The Black Spring Press Group
 
Music Credits:
Open Up
https://uppbeat.io/t/euchmad/open-up
License code: XLFZAKI2QXIMI57C
 
Books to the Ceiling is part of the Teresa Trent Author Blog
 
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This week we are headed to the world of art collecting. Matisse, Monet, and a little art forgery that makes you wonder what is authentic and what isn't? Let's find out more in Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief by Sheila Sharpe.
Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief is a riveting, wildly entertaining, complex, and adrenaline-fueled art crime novel that is as intriguing as it is satisfying. Nick McCoy wants out of the art forgery business but not until he exacts revenge on the man who murdered his family years ago. Kate O’Dade, McCoy’s former therapist, comes to him for help after mysteriously receiving a painting of Matisse’s Open Window from an unknown benefactor. This seemingly innocent meeting to determine its authenticity sets off a chain of events that will take McCoy, O’Dade, Cromwell and his new team of investigators from San Diego to England, and from art forgery to murder.
Rarely do you find such complex characters, intricate plot, compelling subject, and cunning psychological jousting woven throughout such a memorable story like Sharpe does in Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief.
Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub
Music Credits:
Blank Light
https://uppbeat.io/t/adi-goldstein/blank-light
License code: 5AWUQ4EMO09CRT06

This week we're heading to Winchester, Virginia to do a little historical research while we hang out with the dead detective, Oliver Tucker. Get ready for helpful spirits, child psychics, and a man in love with an angel. All good stuff in Dying With a Secret by TJ O'Connor. 
THE DEAD DETECTIVE CASEFILES
Dying can bring out the best in people.It can also bring out the worst of secrets.If you want to know someone’s dirty secrets, kill them.It works every time.
Oliver “Tuck” Tucker, the dead detective, is back—not just for another case, but from the dead—or vice versa. It all starts when a Federal Agent is killed by a mysterious force in front of dozens of witnesses—including Angel, his historian wife, and Tuck. Among the many suspects is a dark, clandestine Federal agency responsible for advanced research and weaponry, a university doctoral candidate who won’t stay dead, and the leader of a secret southern society bent on rekindling the Civil War. With the aid of a ten-year-old psychic and the spirit of Tuck’s Civil War grandmother—Sally Elizabeth Mosby—Tuck has to stay one step ahead of the Feds who are hellbent on capturing him—alive? But through all this, what’s a two-hundred-year-old lost fortune in gold got to do with dead agents, secret death rays, and rogue policemen?
DYING WITH A SECRET Trailer:
Book Details:
Genre: Paranormal Mystery, PI Cozy MysteryPublished by: Level Best BooksPublication Date: December 9, 2025Number of Pages: 324ISBN: 979-8898201111 (pbk)Series: The Dead Detective Casefiles, Book 4Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub
 
Music Credits
Soft Landing
https://uppbeat.io/t/peter-lainson/soft-landing
License code: EV45YPBKFJWCTQBF
Internal Investigation
https://uppbeat.io/t/benjamin-botkin/internal-investigation
License code: T2MMNSQ0DSCNR0II
 
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Teresa Trent's blog

This week we're traveling back in time, I mean way back to ancient Crete. A murder mystery set in the Bronze Age? Listen and find out in A Murder of Furies.
AN ANCIENT CRETE MYSTERY
Bronze Age Crete, 1450 B.C.E.
When Tinos, the High Priestess's consort, asks Martis to search for his missing daughter, Martis becomes involved in the dangerous politics between Crete and Egypt. A minor Egyptian prince is courting Hele, the High Priestess's daughter, despite her persistent refusals. And despite the lobbying by Hele's brother, Khoranos, who seeks the Cretan throne for himself.
Then the High Priestess is found murdered, savagely stabbed multiple times. Martis discovers plans to kidnap Hele and she has to be spirited away to safety. Egyptian soldiers occupy Knossos and Khoranos installs his ally as the High Priestess.
Can Martis rescue the High Priestess's daughters and identify the murderer before Khoranos, with Egypt's help, takes the throne? Martis must embark on several dangerous quests to succeed.
Series: An Ancient Crete Mystery, Book 3Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Goodreads | BookBub
Music Credits:
Halls of Abaddon
https://uppbeat.io/t/aaron-paul-low/halls-of-abaddon
License code: W0FAZDX8HZAAPZ8N
Awakening
https://uppbeat.io/t/simon-folwar/awakening
License code: GEH8MJ8ARPPZUTE3
Visit Teresa's blog- Books to the Ceiling

When a hero dies and children vanish, PI JD Wolfe must confront a deadly conspiracy–and the ghost that’s haunted her since childhood.
A decorated military hero is found hanging from a rope. Two young boys vanish without a trace. And private investigator JD Wolfe’s world begins to unravel.
The deeper she digs, the closer the danger creeps–not just to her, but to the family that saved her and the career that keeps her sane. JD knows these crimes aren’t random. They’re a message. And she might be the target.
Once called Diamond in a grim orphanage, the Wolfe family adopted JD, but she’s never felt like she truly belonged. She harbors secrets too dark to speak. Secrets that landed her in an asylum. Secrets tied to a ghost that’s haunted her since the night her mother died in a fire.
This ghost doesn’t sleep. It invades JD’s cases, her dreams, and even her heart. She’s kept it buried for years. But now, with lives on the line, JD must do the unthinkable.
She must let the ghost in.
Book Links: Amazon | KindleUnlimited | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub
Dusk Light
https://uppbeat.io/t/all-ambient/dusklight
 
License code: F3JDTQO1UL0GCXYQ
The Longest Night
https://uppbeat.io/t/all-ambient/the-longest-night
License code: MFPJ1LEGHHT8VE9G
Books to the Ceiling is a part of the author blog of Teresa Trent at https://teresatrent.blog. 

This week we're headed to Oregon with Sheriff Jax Turner and a new Misty Pines Mystery. He and his ex-wife have been through a lot, so a weekend to work on reconciliation is in order. Too bad there's a killer out there in Killer Tracks. 
Sheriff Jax Turner is worried about going off-grid and leaving his young team of deputies behind. But while his getaway with his ex is meant to help them reconnect, Jax is distracted by signs of a break-in at their rented lookout.
After a string of unsettling events and an approaching wildfire turn their isolated retreat into a danger zone, he’s stunned to find a dead body with marks tying it to a killer he put away a decade ago.
Terrified that his attempt at reconciliation has led them both into a fatal setup, Jax rushes back to his estranged wife before she joins the list of victims. But his dedication to serving and protecting could become an Achilles heel as other players join them among the darkening trees.
Can he fight his way out of the woods before the flames of revenge consume everything?
Praise for Killer Tracks:
"Keliikoa is the Queen of immersive small-town mystery. Killer Tracks is cleverly plotted with deftly drawn relatable characters who face off with a deadly threat from the past." ~ James L’Etoile, award winning author of River of Lies and the Detective Nathan Parker series
"Mary Keliikoa’s Killer Tracks is a wonderful addition to the Misty Pines mystery series. Great pacing, strong plotting, and compelling characters. Highly recommended!" ~ Bruce Robert Coffin, international bestselling coauthor of The Turner and Mosley Files
Book Links: Amazon | Goodreads | BookBub
Music Credits:
Zero Pulse
https://uppbeat.io/t/iros-young/zero-pulse
License code: KT1IH621LC5BKDXE
Wait
https://uppbeat.io/t/greenhouse/wait
License code: RUPPIRTPCTYNEDFX

Behind the enchanting façade of the North Pole–the fantastical winter wonderland where sugary delights and candy canes reign supreme–exists a world of surprises and hidden secrets. When Jangles van Hoosen Keebler Frosten McFlurry, executive director of Santa Co. Limited, is discovered “wrapped up” in a deadly predicament, suspicion falls upon his mischievous brother.
Enter Ruddiger...just Ruddiger, the North Pole’s one and only private detective, to solve the mystery. As he delves into the investigation, he finds himself surrounded by a cast of colorful characters, including a vivacious showgirl from the Red Ribbon District, the ever-watchful Elftenant Blinker of the North Pole Constabulary, and Big LeRoy, the formidable leader of the elf union.
Can Ruddiger prove his client is as innocent as a snowflake and unmask the true culprit? Venture into the whimsical world of North Pole Noir to uncover the truth hidden beneath the snowy veneer.
Book Links: Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads | BookBub
 
Music Credits:
Christmas Mischief
https://uppbeat.io/t/floor-model/christmas-mischief
License code: KPFGFFIZCTA0DQL5
Snowy Road
https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/snowy-road
License code: 06Z5S9D9Y06KLAZJ

It's Christmas. It's cozy. It's culinary. It's chaos! It's the fourth book in this fabulous mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.
Have yourself a merry little . . . murder?
Ricki James-Diaz gets the best present ever when her parents arrive in New Orleans for the holidays. Not only is it a chance to catch up, it’s also an opportunity to jog her mom Josepha’s memory about Ricki’s adoption. The details have always been shrouded in mystery. And Ricki understands why when she learns her mother was blackmailed for years, simply for not wanting to lose her precious daughter.
But digging into the past soon lands the James-Diaz clan in water hotter than a big pot of gumbo! When the woman who extorted Ricki’s mom is found dead at her home, Josepha becomes the primary suspect. Now Ricki has another murder to solve, and tracking down a killer in Crescent City is going to take a miracle.
Luckily, ‘tis the season! And Ricki has all the staff at the Bon Vee Culinary House Museum on hand to help. Can she prove her mother’s innocence and have the case wrapped up in time for Christmas?
Series: A Vintage Cookbook Mystery, #4 • Learn More at Amazon & GoodreadsBook Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub | Kobo | Google Play | Apple Books | Severn House
 
Music Credits
Golden Moments of Christmas
https://uppbeat.io/t/vocalista/golden-moments-of-christmas
License code: MWYNNSUGASMNC3SG
Fireplace Ballad
https://uppbeat.io/t/avbe/fireplace-ballad
License code: OZKHKWOK4FDGQA2C
Visit Teresa’s blog, and the home of Books to the Ceiling at teresatrent.blog