Chris Crossed Murder by Lauren Carr Book Tour, Review, Guest Post & Giveaway! {Ends 4/7/23}

Review By LAWonder10:

This very talented writer, Lauren Carr, has once again created a thrilling, suspenseful mystery, with a touch of humor. It is always a joy to read one of her creations. I love the “dry” humor, her wonderful, intriguing characters, and the touch of romance found in all of her books.

As in her other books, Chris Crosed Murder seems like it is at the ending but then continues with a new scenario, several times. Her books are never boring or slow-moving.

In ti fourth book of the Chris Matheson Murder mysteries, Chris is retired, remarried, and living on a ranch. However, while on a trip with his newest daughter, to buy a retired racehorse, his family is in terror after hearing his body was found in a tree near an airport.

Chris is drawn into his past life in order to discover whose body was in the tree with Chris’s identity on it… Of course, he had the help of the”Geaser Squad”!

I felt quite pleased with myself for figuring out who the culprit was although I wasn’t sure until the very end. Even then, there were added surprises. As always, the reader/listener is left with the anxiety of having to wait until the next book of the series!

I offer a Five Stars rating for this book.

This book was gifted me with no pressure to post a positive review. This is my honest review.

Other Books in the Series:

Practical Tips for Beginning Mystery Writers By Lauren Carr

Everyone wants to be Jessica Fletcher. Do you remember Jessica Fletcher? Oh, that’s right. She was in the ’80s. I guess I’ve dated myself. Okay! I admit it! I’m THAT old. Do you want to make something of it?

All right. My mood is swinging back in the other direction. … Where was I? Oh, yes, you want to be a mystery writer:
Number One: Research. Research in mystery writing is very important. However, I strongly advise against hands-on research in murder mystery writing. No matter how good you may be, if you kill your ex-husband, they are going to catch you and you will go to jail. Then you will be spending so much time fighting off a muscle-bound, tattooed roommate calling you “Cupcake” that you won’t have time to write your book.
It is best to do your research online. Google is a good starting source. There is an unbelievable wealth of sources on the internet now, geared specifically toward writers for research in law enforcement and forensics. I know one author who found a video on how to build a bomb.

Number Two: Once you’ve done your research into murder, you now need to come up with a storyline.
The best place to start is to come up with a protagonist. Another word is ‘hero.’ Some writers base their detectives on themselves. Others base them on their fantasy hero. At this point, ask yourself: Who do you want to save the day? You or some dashing, sexy, man with piercing eyes and a big gun? (Hold that thought while I go get a glass of cold water.)

Number Three: Your victim. You can’t have a murder mystery without someone getting killed. You may already have a murder victim. Many murder mystery writers have victims in mind before they have even thought of writing a book. To tell you the truth, many mystery writers were driven to write murder mysteries because of their victims.

This is the one case where it is okay to ask, “Who would I like to kill?” Bosses are a favorite. At a book event, one reader told me that she had two ex-husbands that she wanted me to kill between the pages for her.

Number Four: How are you going to kill your victim? If you are basing your victim on someone in particular, you may already have a murder method in mind. Or you may have so many ideas that you don’t know which one to choose from. It is all a matter of preference. Do you want your murder victim to go out with a whimper or a bang? Is he or she worthy of going out in a blaze of glory? If not, maybe you want a particularly tortuous death, like being dined on by a kamado dragon. Or, you could have him die “off-stage”. In this case, you don’t need to write it out. You could simply have the reader hear about it later.

Number Five: The solving of the case. This is where many mystery writers get tripped up. They have so much fun with steps one through four that they’ve forgotten that someone must solve their victim’s murder. Maybe because subconsciously, they don’t want their victim’s murder solved. That is something for the writer to take to Dr. Phil to sort out.

As much fun as it was killing their boss or ex-husband or nasty neighbor or lawyer who rolled over and played dead in divorce court or—How about that teacher in high school who gave me a “B” on the essay when I bloody well deserved an “A” and because of that I didn’t get into Harvard and my life was ruined and now I’m cleaning gutters for a living—

Excuse me. Back on track.

Your mystery does need to get solved. After the murder, you need to lead the reader on the path through the detection, solving of the crime, and the capture of the killer. That’s right. In the end, the killer is captured by the detective. That’s why in the beginning I warned you not to practice this at home in real life—unless you want to evade capture when they find out by getting cosmetic surgery, going off the grid, and then spending the rest of your life on the lam—which is another blog post.

Happy Mystery Writing!