When a Minor Character Takes Over a Book by Jacqueline Diamond
Feisty, eccentric old ladies have always intrigued me. It’s long been my goal to become one, although I’m in no hurry to get there. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise—but it did—when a 96-year-old lady nearly ran away with my latest mystery, The Case of the Surly Surrogate. Every character in my Safe Harbor Medical Mysteries leaps off the page for me. Primarily, though, I live through my hero, Dr. Eric Darcy, a young physician who cares deeply about his patients and assists his private investigator sister-in-law in solving murders that affect them. In the new mystery , the father of a baby about to be born via surrogate is murdered. Eric’s patients include not only the surrogate and the widow (the intended mother of the baby), but also the widow’s great-grandmother. Lenore Bryerly, diagnosed with mild dementia, has a tantalizing habit of dropping hints to Eric about her family’s troubled history, hints that point in a different direction than police are pur...