Hannah HoweThis has taken a while, mainly due to contractual reasons, but I am pleased to say that the ebook version of Sam’s Song is now available FREE from all leading Internet outlets. Please click on a link at the foot this post. If you want to enter Sam’s world, here is your chance to do it. And if you do enter her world, I hope you enjoy the book.
Exciting times…production on Love and Bullets, the second Sam Smith Mystery Series audio book, is about to start. Once again, Suzan Lynn Lorraine will narrate the book and we aim to release it in mid-October. Suzan did an outstanding job on Sam’s Song so I’m delighted that she has agreed to narrate Love and Bullets. You can listen to a sample from Sam’s Song by following this link and if you only want to own one copy of the book I urge you to own the audio book version because the narration really is of the highest quality. Audio Book Link
The Queen of Disguise
Known as the ‘Queen of Disguise’, Annette Kerner was a leading detective in the 1940s. Born into a wealthy family, Annette trained as a mezzo-soprano with Ivor Novello’s mother, Clara, before opening the Mayfair Detective Agency in the 1920s.
Annette’s parents opposed her singing career so, aged seventeen, Annette secretly negotiated a singing contract with a nightclub in Geneva. While crossing the Channel to France, she flirted with a fellow passenger who told her that he was an intelligence officer keeping an eye on a suspected foreign agent. The passenger went on to explain that the agent’s briefcase contained vital evidence of his guilt. Eager to impress her new friend, Annette calmly stole the briefcase and presented it to him. The agent responded by contacting his London headquarters; he urged his bosses to employ Annette as a freelance, and they agreed.
Annette Kerner, in disguise
Drawn into the world of spying, Annette left the Geneva nightclub and sang instead at a Zürich club, a popular haunt of intelligence agents. She mingled with those agents with ease and when the time arrived for her to return to London she decided that a routine career was not for her and so opened her detective agency.
Although small in stature, Annette was a fearsome opponent and from her Baker Street office she mixed with criminals from all classes. During one investigation in the 1920s, Annette posed as an opium addict. She entered an opium den and to allay suspicion she sampled the drug. She was also held captive during the same investigation and had her wrists slashed, though ultimately she did assist the police in arresting the culprit.
In 1948, Leader magazine described Annette as ‘the woman of a hundred faces – at one moment she is a neat, matronly children’s nurse pushing a pram, only to confront a gentleman blackmailer, then she is an untidy waitress in a dingy backstreet restaurant mixing with fences.’ During her eventful career Annette took on the role of a cheerful char lady, a society vamp and a modest widow proving that female detectives can be as tough as their male colleagues, and just as resourceful.
Book Four in the Sam Smith Mystery Series, published 4.9.2015 on Kindle, in print and with an audio book to follow. The Kindle version of the book is now available to pre-order at the special price of £0.99/$0.99 for this weekend only. Regular Kindle price £2.49/$3.99.
“I love breaking the rules.” – Cardiff Jack.
Someone was murdering prostitutes, placing their bodies in the Bay and covering them with roses. To the media, he was ‘Cardiff Jack’, to the rest of us he was a man to avoid and fear.
However, when hired to find Faye Collister, a prostitute, the trail led to Cardiff Jack, and I came face to face with a modern-day Ripper. Furthermore, along that trail I made a shocking discovery, a discovery that would resonate with me for the rest of my days.
Ripper – the story of a week in my life that reshaped my past, disturbed the present and brought the promise of an uncertain future.
The audio book of Sam’s Song, narrated by Suzan Lynn Lorraine, is now available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes. Please follow the Amazon links below to hear an extract from the book.
Hannah Howe