Metro Detroit author releases cozy queer murder mystery just in time for Halloween
PLEASANT RIDGE, Mich. (FOX 2) - When partners Peter and JP begin renovating an old house that is rumored to be haunted for their home renovation TV show, they begin questioning if a ghost really does roam the house - and if that ghost was murdered.
That's the premise of Metro Detroit author Frank Anthony Polito's newest mystery "Haunted to Death." It's the third book in the Domestic Partners in Crime series, though Polito wrote the novel in a way that it can be a standalone if you haven't read the others – "Renovated to Death" and "Rehearsed to Death."
The series follows queer couple Peter and JP around a fictional Metro Detroit, including Pleasant Woods, where "Haunted to Death" is set. The couple renovates homes for their show Hart to Hart while solving crimes along the way. In the latest novel, they set out to solve a cold case from 1913 while discovering hidden passageways, locked doors, an old diary, and other clues and snags along the way.
Polito visited Sidetrack Bookshop in Royal Oak (Royal Heights, if you're reading his books) on Tuesday to read from the book and sign copies, though the book has already been so popular at the local bookstore that it sold out before the event even started.
Sidetrack is ordering more, if you are looking for a copy.
Read the synopsis for "Haunted to Death" below:
"Kicking off season three of their hit reality TV show Domestic Partners is a home renovation project with an irresistible hook. Woods Hall is a lavish 1913 manor home in the Detroit suburb of Pleasant Woods, once belonging to the town’s founding family. It also comes with its own ghost. Twenty-five years ago during a Halloween night party, automotive heiress and beauty queen Emma Wheeler-Woods, wearing a white Princess Diana wedding gown as a costume, fell from a third-floor balcony to her death. Or was she pushed? Fiona Forrest recently inherited the home after learning she was Emma’s daughter, and she and her fiancé have hired the Domestic Partners to restore the family property to its original splendor. But ghostly sightings, injured crew, secret passageways, locked rooms, and sabotage beg the Is the place actually haunted? And perhaps more practically, was Fiona’s mother murdered? Hustling to have work finished in time to shoot the finale on Halloween — the anniversary of Emma’s mysterious death — do Peter and JP have a ghost of a chance of also solving a cold case from a quarter of a century ago before someone else takes a fall?"