Shudder Pulp
Series: Charley Scott Mystery #2
Author: Vanessa Westermann
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Setting: Canada’s Cottage Country
Release Date: May 3, 2025 by Cormorant Books
Pages: 368
Summary:
Leaves are turning red in cottage country, and Charley Scott is putting together a Halloween pulp art installation inspired by local lake monster legends. Life imitates art when Laura, a mercenary newcomer with a controversial agenda to upgrade the dam, claims she was attacked by Charley’s monster.
Hours later, Laura is found dead by dry drowning.
Accident, murder, or something supernatural? Charley’s Shudder Pulp exhibit is meant to be immersive, but could she truly have summoned a beast from beneath the waves?
Charley and chocolatier Matt Thorn team up to investigate, but it’ll take more than seafoam toffee to bait this beast. To discern the truth among myths, Charley will have to risk it all to look the monster in the eye.
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Excerpt
The door handle jiggled. One sharp, impatient twist.
It was probably just an after-effect of the faux horror she was painting on the walls of the gallery, but Charley’s heart started to pound faster than before. In a voice not nearly as steady as she wanted, she called out, “Who’s there?”
A fist banged against the glass. Not a polite knock. A hard rap of knuckles.
Charley glanced at Cocoa. “Sit.”
With a warning bark, the dog lowered her rump to the hardwood floor.
Imagination on overdrive, Charley fought back the vision of a curved blade stained with blood. She flipped the deadbolt, yanked open the door.
Laura Bouchard stood on the deck. Water dripped from the ends of her grey hair, from the sleeves of her white cotton sweater. Her red designer jeans sagged at the hem, the pricey denim smeared with dirt. Or sand? Splotches of water spread on the wooden slats around her leather boots.
“Are you all right?” Charley held onto Cocoa’s collar. “What happened?”
“What” — Laura forced the word through clenched teeth — “does it look like?”
An image flashed through Charley’s mind: John Everett Millais’s Ophelia. Ophelia’s face glowed with life and showed no hint of panic and despair, despite the pools of water at her stomach. The looming leaves and brush. The forget-me-nots floating around her, painted with forensic precision en plein air, capturing the moment just after her fall into the weeping brook. Before her muddy death. “Like you were half drowned.”
Charley Scott Mystery Series
About the Author
An avid reader of mysteries, Vanessa Westermann is a former Arthur Ellis Awards judge, holds an M.A. in English Literature and a Bachelor of Education, and has taught creative writing. Cover Art, first of the Charley Scott Mysteries, was published to great acclaim in 2022. At the heart of all of Westermann’s stories are strong female protagonists inspired by the heroines in her own life. She currently lives in Ontario.
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Giveaway
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