Digging into Death starts the Into Death series with the artist Isabella Newcombe.

Has the love of her life beguiled her straight into Death?

 

Cover Image by Deranged Doctor Design

What is Digging into Death?

Stranded on Crete, Isabella Newcombe finesses a refuge with English archaeologists resuming their dig after WWI.  Her sketches fortuitously land her a job illustrating the dig for Prof. Gawen Tarrant.  His magnetic brother Madoc charms her with his interest.

The dig seethes with undercurrents, revealed when a worker is murdered.  The archaeologists dismiss his death as a village vendetta.  Then the dig sites are vandalized.  Artifacts go missing.  And Isabella’s former employer may be involved in buying stolen artifacts.  With evidence amassing, they must admit the worker was killed when he spied something incriminating—but what?  And who murdered him?

Suspicions escalate.  All three professors have motives beyond simple profit.  Are the Tarrant brothers stealing to fund more digs?  Is Nigel Arkwright undermining the dig as revenge for Gawen’s flirtation with Nigel’s wife?  Is Monty Standings damaging Gawen’s reputation?  Even the archaeological students could be involved, for their own profit or to assist a professor.

Falling in love with Madoc, Isabella doesn’t know who to trust.  Then one of the students is murdered while his photographic archive is destroyed.  With her illustrations as the only record of the artifacts, Isabella belatedly recognizes the dangers of Digging into Death.

 

Links to the Individual Novel.

All three novels in the series also available :: Digging into Death / Christmas with Death / Portrait with Death

View the Digging into Death Trailer: Click here.

Available ebook and paperback from Amazon and Worldwide Distributors.

Paperback on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1981014187/

Ebook on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXPRKHM

Worldwide Distribution https://books2read.com/u/bzdM72

The 3 Novels Collected in Into Death

Worldwide https://books2read.com/u/baDN1L

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MRBNCH7

 

Read on for the Opening Chapter.

Here’s a glimpse for Digging into Death, a post-WW I mystery set on the island of Crete.

Chapter 1 :: Saturday, October 4, 1919

If ever a maiden needed a hero, Isabella did.

Crete was the famed birthplace of Zeus, the god who granted supplicants’ prayers. Standing on the steps of the Heraklion Hotel, Isabella hoped her hero appeared before a blood sacrifice was necessary.

She plunked down her suitcase on the hotel steps and fanned her wide-brimmed straw hat.  In ancient Crete the rulers had offered shelter and protection to strangers.  Yet in the closed faces of the passers-by, intent on their errands, she did not see any hospitality offered to a foreign woman alone.  She needed a recognizable and friendly face.  She didn’t see one.

Men talking, engines sputtering, horns blaring, dogs barking, donkeys braying:  after the hotel’s quiet, the cacophony assaulted her ears.  Men poured past the steps with scarcely a glance at her.  Most wore the dark Cretan jacket and loose breeches, although a few suits testified to modern Europe’s inroads on island culture.  A few women in unrelieved black walked along the dusty road, but they ignored the lone foreigner on the hotel steps.

Isabella saw no one familiar and definitely no one who looked like the reincarnation of a protective god and certainly no one who could rescue a stranded governess.

Continue reading “Digging into Death / Into Death I” →