Uncle and Ants (A Silicon Valley Mystery Book 1) by Marc Jedel is on virtual book tour. The cozy mystery stops at Read...
Uncle and Ants (A Silicon Valley Mystery Book 1) by Marc Jedel is on virtual book tour.
The cozy mystery stops at Readeropolis with an interview and excerpt.
Be sure to enter for a chance to win the giveaway for a signed copy of Uncle and Ants and follow the Silver Dagger book tour (for other dates see the link at the bottom of the post).
Guest Post by Marc Jedel: An Interview with his protagonist, Marty Golden
My book, Uncle and Ants: A Silicon Valley Mystery, is a humorous murder mystery.
Silicon Valley is not your typical, cozy mystery locale and Marty Golden doesn’t fit the normal profile of a mystery protagonist. Despite finding himself thrust into challenging situations, Marty isn’t exactly hero material. He has a wonderful combination of wit, irreverent humor and sarcasm mixed in with nerdy insecurities, absent-mindedness, and fumbling but effective amateur sleuthing skills. With an active inner voice and not a lot of advanced planning, he throws himself into solving problems.
To get a better understanding of Marty, his Silicon Valley and his friends, here’s the transcript of a recent interview I completed with Marty. [Responses have been edited for clarity.]
Marc [Author]: Thanks for meeting with me today. How do you feel about all this attention?
Marty: Have to tell you the truth, it makes me uncomfortable. Is everyone here because I did such a good job at work? Am I getting a bonus or something? Is there going to be cake?
Marc [Author]: Mmhmm
Marty: Wait, are you writing that down? Geez, you seem a little obsessed with my life. Every time I turn around it seems like you’re hanging over my shoulder.
Marc [Author]: Calm down. You’re imagining things. I’m not obsessed with you. I’ve got my own life. I’m just being friendly and supportive. You’ve had a tough week recently, didn’t you?
Marty: I sure did. Work was crazy busy. On top of that, I had to take care of my nieces while my sister was in the hospital all week. And then everything went off the rails when I started investigating her clients. It feels like I barely kept my job. I don’t know how people do it.
Marc [Author]: Yes, raising kids while working is really hard, especially if you have to do it by yourself.
Marty: Oh, I meant being a detective. But, sure, I agree with you.
Marc [Author]: Do you have a personal motto?
Marty: What?
Marc [Author]: A motto. You know, something that defines who you are and helps remind you how to live your life.
Marty: That’s kinda out of the blue and seems weird. I mean I know this is California and all. Well, I guess I’d say I try to live by words from my dad: “If the appetizers are good, eat them. You never know what’s coming for dinner.”
Marc [Author]: Interesting perspective. Speaking of dinner, tell us about your unusual dining experiences with your nieces the other week.
Marty: Every night, something bizarre seemed to happen. I’m not the greatest chef in the world, although I do make a mean chocolate-chip pancake. On the positive side, we did find an amazing El Salvadorean restaurant. Well, the food is great. I, uh, can’t go back there for a while, but I’d recommend it.
Marc [Author]: You mentioned being a detective. Is that something you’ve always wanted to be?
Marty: I’d rather be a superhero, to tell the truth. Not so much for the costume, but I’d like to have superpowers and some really cool gadgets. Oh, oh, instead of a cool car, could I have something that flies? Then I could bypass all the traffic around here. Since I work at Rover, I get free access to our self-driving car service. When it’s working, at least.
Marc [Author]: Thanks Marty! Now’s a great time to read Uncle and Ants (available on Amazon and free via Kindle Unlimited) because Chutes and Ladder, book 2 in the Silicon Valley Mystery series, will be released soon. Read the first chapter of either book free, learn more about the author or books, and find out about special offers at www.marcjedel.com.
Uncle and Ants
A
Silicon Valley Mystery Book 1
by
Marc Jedel
Genre:
Cozy Mystery
Mysterious attacks. Mischievous nieces. Can a clueless uncle catch a tech-savvy killer … and be home before bedtime?
When
a freak accident hospitalizes Marty
Golden’s sister and condemns him to
babysitter duty, he thinks it’s just another case of hardwired bad
luck in Silicon Valley.
Until a suspicious murder suggests the mishap was no mere
coincidence. Something must be done.
Too
bad this quirky, fashion-backward
uncle isn’t exactly hero material.
Convinced
his sister is in mortal danger, this
amateur sleuth follows clues to an
oddball array of suspects. Armed with nothing but an eye for detail
and powers of self-delusion, Marty
tangles with gangsters, a cantankerous school secretary, and a
perplexing woman he can’t help but fall for. Glitches in his
investigation seem like a piece of cake compared to dinner-prep and
bedtime stories with his two precocious, pre-teen nieces.
Can
Marty catch the culprit, save his sister, and get his life back in
order before he gets unplugged?
Uncle
and Ants is the first novel in
a refreshingly modern mystery series set in Silicon Valley. If you
like clever humor, sassy side characters, and average Joes facing
extraordinary circumstances, then you’ll love this twisty mystery.
Buy Uncle
and Ants to login to a fresh,
funny mystery today!
Chutes and Ladder
A
Silicon Valley Mystery Book 2
Can super-agent (in
his own mind) Uncle Marty solve not one, but two mysteries without
becoming a victim himself? Will he ever be forgiven for bringing
Buddy, the Labrador, into his sister’s house?
All your favorite
characters from Uncle and Ants are back in a crazy, new adventure.
Plus, introducing a new member of Marty’s family!
Coming
Soon!
Marc Jedel writes humorous murder mysteries. In his high-tech marketing roles, he's also written fiction. These are just called emails, ads, and marketing collateral.
In
his family, Marc was born first — a fact his sister never lets him
forget, no matter what milestone age she hits. For most of Marc’s
life, he’s been inventing stories. Some, especially when he was
young, involved his sister as the villain. As his sister’s brother
for her entire life, he feels highly qualified to tell tales of the
evolving, quirky sibling relationship in the Silicon Valley Mystery
series.
Family
and friends would tell you that the protagonist in his stories, Marty
Golden, isn't much of a stretch of the imagination for Marc, but he
proudly resembles that remark.
Like
Marty, Marc lives in San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley, where he
writes within earshot of the doppler effect of the local ice cream
truck. Unlike Marty, Marc has a wonderful wife and a neurotic but
sweet, small dog, who much prefers the walks resulting from writer’s
block than his writing.
Visit
his website, marcjedel.com, for free chapters of upcoming novels,
news and more.
ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE!
In the lobby, I found a quiet corner to call Sergeant Jackson.
If this wasn’t all just a crazy series of mishaps, then I had no idea who might have tried to kill Laney. It could have been someone good with technology, like me, who tried to get the drone to crash into her. Maybe they’d heard she survived the crash on the news, instead of getting a call from the nurse, like me. They could have learned what hospital room Laney was in by checking the directory … just like I did.
I put the pieces together. Either I had tried to kill her, this was all a crazy coincidence, or someone else was trying to murder Laney. I knew I hadn’t done it so that left a valley full of other techies. Or, my imagination was overheating again.
Sergeant Jackson’s voicemail answered on the first ring. I hadn’t prepared a crisp summary of the situation. Instead, I left a lengthy, and likely confusing, message for him.
Perhaps in another lapse in the childhood etiquette lessons from my mother, I’d never practiced crafting a voicemail message to a police officer that someone might have tried to kill my thirty-seven-year-old sister with a rogue drone and then had accidentally killed a terminally ill, elderly Vietnamese woman in a room with my sister’s name on the door. Or that the elderly woman, who wasn’t my sister, had a really loud and close family in a city outside of the officer’s jurisdiction, and was in the process of distracting those police officers from investigating the possible attempted murder of my sister.
Well, maybe crazy people practiced things like that in their head. Too many people already thought I was wacky. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was paranoid. But as they said, just because you were paranoid didn’t mean they weren’t after you.
Or your sister.
Posts
Best of luck with the book and book tour! I included the tour in the Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 edition of The BookTube Your Shelf Daily Reader: https://paper.li/Readeropolis/1517059010#/
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Thanks so much for hosting me today. I hope your readers will enjoy reading my book as much as I did writing it. At www.marcjedel.com, your readers can get the first chapter FREE for UNCLE AND ANTS (book 1) or CHUTES AND LADDER (book 2) simply by signing up for my newsletter.
DeleteUNCLE AND ANTS (ebook) is only $0.99 at Amazon during this Silver Dagger tour. And CHUTES AND LADDER is coming soon, in March, so this is a great chance to enjoy Uncle Marty, his family, and go along for the ride as he bumbles through the investigation to a surprising ending.