Cait Morgan here, just checking in with you before I head
off to Amsterdam – a wonderful city steeped in history and art . . . and with
lots of excellent restaurants. Just my cup of tea! I haven’t been there for
many years – not since the days when I was a student at university. This time, Bud and I
have booked a hotel; last time I had to rough it. How rough? Let’s just say
that my boyfriend of the time and I almost split up because of it!

However, that’s not what happened. At all. First off, we had
another couple tag along with us – they had their own tent and we all agreed
four people pitching in for food costs etc. was a great idea. However, when we
arrived in the bulb-field area of Noordwijkerhout, the weather was “unseasonably
wet”. (That’s a nice way of saying the rain lashed down every day and the
campsite turned into a muddy quagmire.) This resulted in there not being as many casual
jobs as there usually were so, while the two female members of our foursome
managed to get work, the men didn’t. The poor things had to lie around doing
nothing all day, while I and my “new chum” sat peeling the skins off thousands
of tulips, which are grown in sandy soil that’s rich in dung. Yes, dung. Lovely.
For each bushel we cleaned we were paid a pittance – though at
least the more you peeled, the more money you were paid, so I got really fast
at peeling bulbs…much faster that She Who Should Remain Nameless (not fair to
her to give you her name). Lo and behold, at the end of the first week we all four
had a right old argument about why it wasn’t fair to split the money she and I
had been paid four ways; I’d made twice as much as her because I’d peeled
twice as many blessed bulbs!
My friends in the department of criminology at the University
of Vancouver, where I’m now a professor of criminal psychology, tell me the fingerprints
that “grew back in” would be exactly the same as those I had before. Isn’t the
human body amazing?
![]() |
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (from their website) |
Anyway – this time it’s all going to be different. Like I
said, Bud and I have a nice hotel booked and we’re likely to have a good amount
of time to visit galleries and
enjoy long, leisurely meals basking in the summer sunshine. We’re going because his Uncle
Jonas asked us to – the slight complication is that Uncle Jonas is dead, and we’re
supposed to do something with an old iron key he arranged to be sent to Bud
after his death . . . but it can’t be that complicated to follow a dead man’s
last wishes, can it?
You can find out just how complicated Cait and Bud’s trip to
the Netherlands gets in THE CORPSE WITH THE GARNET FACE, the seventh Cait
Morgan Mystery. It’s published on April 5th – and you can find out
more about the book, read what early readers have said about it, and even pre-order
it, here: http://cathyace.com/cait-morgan/
Cathy Ace’s criminal psychologist, and overindulgent-foodie sleuth, Cait
Morgan, has stumbled upon Corpses with a Silver Tongue, a Golden Nose,
an Emerald Thumb, Platinum Hair, Sapphire Eyes, a Diamond Hand and a
Garnet Face (April 2016) during her globetrotting. Ace’s other series
features the women of the WISE Enquiries Agency (one is Welsh, one
Irish, one Scottish, and one English) who solve quintessentially British
cases from their office beside a stately home deep in the Welsh
countryside. BC bestselling author Cathy Ace won the 2015 Bony Blithe
Award for Best Canadian Light Mystery for The Corpse with the Platinum
Hair.
What could possibly go wrong...???
ReplyDeleteExactly! :-)
DeleteIsn't it nice how people jinx themselves. There are some things best left unsaid. A fun read for sure. On my TBR. Thanks for the heads up. Della
ReplyDeleteYou're so right ;-) Thanks for adding Cait to your TBR pile :-)
DeleteIt sounds very interesting. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteThanks Elaine - I hope readers enjoy it....not long before the launch now :-)
DeleteLooking forward to the next installment of this series. Love the books.
ReplyDeleteSo pleased you enjoy spending time with Cait! :-)
Delete