The Mystery Section: Politics Makes Strange Deadfellows by Jane DiLucchio

Politics Makes Strange Deadfellows

Kate Matthews Mystery Series Book 2

by Jane DiLucchio

Genre: Cozy LGBTQ Mystery

Kate Matthews expected to face challenges when she was elected to the Santa Barbara City Council. She hadn’t counted on her sister-in-law, Michelle, being one of them.

Kate understood that Michelle was mentally ill and periodically homeless. What she didn’t understand was why Michelle turned up in Santa Barbara only to disappeared again—until the police announced that Michelle was wanted in connection with a murder.

Wading through the morass of Michelle’s life in order to find out the truth while also handling Council politics and issues proves to be more complicated than Kate could ever have anticipated. When her wife and children become entangled in the quagmire, Kate finds out just how much she is willing to do to save her family.

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Going Coastal

Kate Matthews Mystery Series Book 1

A client dying on her massage table is traumatic enough for Kate Matthews, but when the police declare that death a homicide, her life is upended as she is cast as the major suspect.

None of this is what Kate expected from her move to the peaceful, beach town of Santa Barbara, California. After a near-fatal heart attack, an early retirement from her Los Angeles law firm, and a change in careers, Kate envisioned a quiet life with her wife, Alicia, and their grown children.

Since her client, Celia Tucker, held a politically-influential position on the California Coastal Commission, the murder becomes a media event. Kate finds herself and her family sucked into the maelstrom. The former lawyer has all she can do to find the truth behind Celia’s death without adding her own name to the body count.

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Jane DiLucchio is a late bloomer when it comes to writing.

She spent many years as a teacher (first elementary school and later at the community college level), massage therapist, and backyard farmer before giving in to the little voices that kept sounding off in her head.

Since there’s a thin line between a psychotic and a writer (psychotics try to convince everyone that the voices they hear are real; writers write it down and tell everyone its fiction), Jane finally decided to give in to the voices rather than undergo intensive psychotherapy.

Jane and her wife are raising their two cats in a loving home in Southern California. (Actually, the cats allow Jane and Sue to live with them in return for certain personal services, but that’s another story entirely.) Jane continues to raise crops, travel, write, and spend time with her friends and family – all activities she loves.

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You’ve probably heard of pantsers verses plotters, i.e. writers who plan out their books (plotters) as opposed to those who start out with a vague idea of where the book is going. I definitely fall on the seat-of-your-pants side. In fact, my writing life began with a scene that played in my head so vividly that I was compelled to write it down. I had no idea who the people were or why they were dancing in the middle of a ballroom at a teacher’s conference, but there they were in my head, and now they were down on paper. That first scene I wrote ended up being in the middle of the story, absolute evidence that nothing in that novel was planned. I’m getting more organized in that I mostly write in the order that things happen in the book, but I don’t always know the victim or murderer before I start. Six published books into this adventure (Politics Makes Strange Deadfellows comes out in November), I am still surprised by what my characters do and say. Hopefully, it will always be that way.