Donor 73101: A PIP Inc. Mystery
by Nancy Lynn Jarvis
About Donor 73101
Donor 73101: A PIP Inc. Mystery
Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Setting – California
Publisher : Good Read Mysteries (August 15, 2024)
Paperback : 243 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8990936607
Digital ASIN : B0DC5H77N2
Aiden O’Rourke needed cash to help pay for college so he made money by selling his sperm. He was young, attractive, smart…and popular. Now many years later, his offspring are coming forward—eleven of them and counting—and connecting on a website they created called Donor73101.com.
Pat Pirard, Santa Cruz County Law Librarian turned PI, is approached by next door neighbors Tina and Robin who want to start a family. Because Tina was conceived via sperm donation, they want to be 100% certain that their baby and Tina won’t have the same father.
It doesn’t take Pat long to determine that Aiden O’Rourke was Tina’s sperm donor. It also doesn’t take her long to discovers that one by one, his offspring are being murdered. By whom and why? Well, that’s a mystery.
Excerpt
Although it was only a few minutes past 6:30pm, it was dark, not unexpected in Santa Cruz in early January. The Uber driver popped his hatchback and offered to help them with luggage. Tim declined, moving the four suitcases―one for him and three for Pat―on to the sidewalk.
Pat started to pick one up. “Leave it,” Tim instructed. “We can come back outside for those in a minute, but before we bring in suitcases, I want to carry my bride across the threshold.”
Pat giggled. “I’m a modern woman. No carrying needed.”
“That may be, but I’m feeling old-fashioned at the moment.” He smiled at her, put one arm around her back just above her waist, and attempted to scoop her into his arms.
She slipped away from him, laughing as she did. “I bet you can’t catch me before I get inside on my own, my old-fashioned caveman,” she flirted, heading for the front door.
“I can be a caveman if that’s how you want to be carried, but you’re being carried,” he said, his tone full of playful mischief. He gave chase and tossed her over his shoulder when he caught her.
Pat squealed, but was laughing too hard to resist, which is how she came to greet her tail-wagging Dalmatian, Dot, who jumped against Tim’s backside in an attempt to get her head up high enough for the backward slung Pat to scratch her ears; her cat, Wimsey, who abandoned his rule about avoiding Tim and rubbed against his legs, and Tina and Robin, their pet-sitting next-door neighbors, butt-first, draped over Tim’s shoulder.
GUEST POST
Why I write cozy mysteries
Besides cozies, I’ve written one other type of novel, “Mags and the AARP Gang.” That book was heavily influenced by everyone in it and in some ways that book wrote itself, though. Mags dictated much of it and the character of Melvin, who was only supposed to have a cameo role in the book kept telling me, “I’ve had an interesting life, you need to use more of it.” By the end of the book, he even felt that he had written it.
As I said, the story was a dictation by Mags who began as an annoying voice in my head interrupting me when I was almost finished with one of my cozies, “The Widow’s Walk League,” book four in my Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series, and a book I loved writing. Mags kept tapping me on my shoulder in a palpable way as I sat alone in my office working, and when I finally yelled at her to stop it and leave me alone because I was almost finished with TWWL announce that I should, “write fast because I’m eighty-three, have a story to tell, and don’t know how much time I have left.”
I did as she told me, and when I was ready, sat at my computer with a blank screen, no idea what was going to happen, and asked, “Okay. Who are you?”
“My name is Margaret Broadly Benson,” she said, “but you can call me Mags.” Writing that book was such an adventure because I usually write mysteries where I at least need a timeline before I start so I know who knew what when and don’t get lost. For my cozies, by the time I start writing I’ve done a backstory or psychological profile of the characters so I know who they are and why they act the way they do. I also always have the story in mind and usually have some sort of outline of it, an idea for the cover, and certainly the title.
I’ve always loved mysteries, especially what are now called cozy mysteries where sex, violence, and harsh language my take place, but are implied and off page. That’s because my grandmother encouraged me to read her favorite author, Agatha Christie.
When I decided—at age fifty-nine—that I was bored and would see if I could write a mystery as a game, I had just finished reading everything Tony Hillerman wrote and thought I could use my real estate profession as my Navaho Nation and Santa Cruz, where I live, as my Big Reservation, but smaller like a village inhabited by Miss Marple. I knew all my characters—I had worked with them—and I had real estate stories to tell because they had either happened to me or to my talkative associates. Having a real estate agent become an amateur sleuth worked well, and while my first book, “The Death Contingency,” is not my best effort, I learned as I told the story, and by the end of it, was confident if not yet happy with everything I wrote. Most Importantly, I had written a cozy mystery and loved doing it. I wrote for me because it was fun; if others read my books and enjoyed them, that was gravy. It turns out many readers do enjoy the books.
Cozies are my love, and along the way to writing more of them I got sidetracked editing a cookbook, “128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes.” The cookbook with recipes featured in cozy mysteries come from all over the world as well as timeframes from the Ice Age to today because you can find cozies in all those settings. Becoming part of the cozy mystery writer community is one of the best things about writing cozies because the writers in this category are some of the most generous and kind, as well as talented writers out there.
After seven real estate mysteries, I was ready for a new series, cozy, of course. For it, I relied—okay stole—the identity of a friend who had been the Santa Cruz Law Librarian for many years. She’s also an unlicensed private investigator, a good thing since being a professional law enforcement officer or private investigator forces those protagonists into police procedurals instead of cozies where a key requirement is that the protagonist is an amateur sleuth who investigates and solves mysteries while doing something else for a living.
My friend Pat became PIP Inc. Mysteries’ Private Investigator Pat, business cards and all. She’s only been a PI for seven months, but they’ve been incredibly life changing and adventurous days. In her fifth investigation, “Donor 73101,” Pat has to unravel the mystery of who is killing the offspring of sperm donor, Aiden O’Rourke. With a little help from her best friend Syda Gonzales and sheriff sergeant Tim Lindsey she does while keeping cozy the whole way.
About Nancy Lynn Jarvis
Nancy Lynn Jarvis wore many hats before she started writing cozy mysteries. After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News, as a librarian, as the business manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz, and as a realtor.
Nancy’s work history reflects her philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years, a philosophy she applies to her writing, as well. She has written seven Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries; five PIP Inc. Mysteries; a stand-alone novel “Mags and the AARP Gang” about a group of octogenarian bank robbers; edited “Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes,” and short story anthologies, “Santa Cruz Weird,” and “Santa Cruz Ghost Stories.”
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Purchase Link – Amazon
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