Queen of All She Reads: Virtual Book Tour & Giveaway for Murder Is Our Mascot by Tracy D. Comstock

Murder Is Our Mascot

Schooled in Murder Book 1
Tracy D. Comstock

Cozy Mystery/Light Romantic Suspense

Gemma Halliday Publishing/65k

Murder is the new mascot at Ellington High...

A murdered coach and a missing counselor has thrown the school into a foreign curriculum of anger, fear, and suspicion. English teacher Emily Taylor is determined to prove that her missing friend is not a murderer. But if she's not, then who is? And where could her friend be?

Against the advice of fellow math teacher and former crush Tad, Emily and her best friend Gabby dig into the dead coach's past. But someone doesn't want Emily unearthing their secrets and is determined to see that she gets a failing grade in the sleuthing department. Soon, Emily finds herself scrambling for a new lesson plan to solve the murder...before the killer sets his own deadline!

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Excerpt

The clack of Emily Taylor's high heels echoed hollowly in the deserted high school hallway. Normally, she loved the sound her heels made on the tile floor. Her obsession with high heels began when her height topped off at a gargantuan five foot one inch, and their authoritative tapping sound typically made her feel confident and in charge. But not this morning. The click-clack reverberating off the rows of metal lockers seemed ominous, a warning of some kind.

Letting herself into her classroom, she decided that the school seemed somewhat sinister because she was unused to being there that early. Her great love affair with her snooze button meant that getting to school before it was filled with a mass of hormone-fueled teenagers was a rarity for her, but she had needed to get in early today in order to prep for a special before-school meeting with a student's mother. Stevie Davis was new to Ellington High and was really struggling in Emily's junior-level English class.

Something about Stevie tugged at Emily. He usually hid his eyes behind his fringe of bangs, causing Emily to fight the urge to grab her scissors and hack away at his curtain of hair so that she could see what was going on behind it. The few times he had tossed his hair back with the irritated shrug that was his typical answer to any question, his eyes had seemed sad, lost, or…something. Emily wasn't sure what that something was, but she was hoping that this meeting with his mother would shed some light on his issues.

Her cantankerous old computer whined to life as Emily flipped on her desk light. Dark, swollen clouds crowded the sky, swallowing her early morning classroom in shadows. Emily felt jumpy and spooked, as if those dark clouds were pressing down on her, enshrouding her in their gloom. Must be an allergy medicine-induced hangover making her feel strange this morning. Nothing like fall to get her sinuses going. As soon as she got her notes together for her meeting, she'd grab a cold shot of caffeine from the stash of sodas she kept in the teachers' lounge fridge. That would help clear her head. Or at least it would if Tad, the conference-hour-sharing, next-door math teacher and fellow soda junkie, hadn't depleted her supply.

As she pulled out samples of Stevie's writing and wrestled her computer into spitting out a copy of his grade report, the lights flickered. Glancing out the back wall of windows, Emily watched the increasing wind whip the trees into a frenzy. Multicolored fall leaves rained down like confetti. She usually loved the electric feel in the air before a good thunderstorm, but a loss of power would ruin her day's plans. Figuring she better make her copies before the ancient, temperamental copy machine went on the fritz, she began sorting through the piles on her desk for the paper she needed. They were organized piles, of course. Oh, who was she kidding? Trying to find the one thing she needed on her messy desk was like trying to isolate a single snowflake during a blizzard. Shuffling papers and files, Emily jumped at the first boom of thunder. The accompanying flash of lightning happened to spotlight the copy of the quiz for which she was searching. Hoping to entice Stevie into becoming more involved in class discussions, she was starting a unit on mythology since he had shown some interest in legends. Today's quiz was over the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, or it would be if she got her copies made in time.

Tucking all of her information for the meeting with Stevie's mother into a stray file folder, Emily grabbed up a fresh legal pad and pen and headed out the door. Halfway there, she turned on her heel to go back for the quiz she needed to copy. Yep, she definitely needed that soda. A glance at her vintage Strawberry Shortcake watch showed she was, as usual, cutting it close on time. But first things first.

Popping the top on the last soda in the fridge, Emily silently thanked whoever was the God of caffeine for their nectar as she took her first icy sip of the sugar-laden soda. No diet drinks for her, no sir, as the extra ten pounds on her hips could attest. Tad had tried to hide the last can behind a pitcher of green tea, knowing Emily would never touch that, even if it might benefit her hips. She, however, was on to his nefarious ways. Practicing her evil victory laugh, she click-clacked her way to the copy room to get her copies started before the meeting. Another crashing boom of thunder rattled the windows as Emily threw the door wide, propping it open with those cursed hips while she flipped the light switch.

Nothing.

Scanning the hallway confirmed her suspicions. The power was out. She took a step backward, thinking she would head downstairs to consult with Principal Matthews. Rain began to lash the windows over the stairwell, making the darkness of the hall seem even more complete. She fumbled her way a few feet down the hallway until the lights flickered back on again. Not wanting to waste a second in case the power decided to blink off again, Emily dashed back to the partially open copy room door. Hitting the light switch again with one hand, she rushed toward the hulking machine on the far wall. That was when papers went flying and sticky, syrupy soda sprayed everything in its path. Emily went airborne. Throwing her hands out in front of her to break her fall, Emily winced as they skidded through sticky wetness. The picture of grace she was not, so finding herself flat on her face was actually not uncommon for Emily. She could trip on a completely flat surface.

The lights flickered again as she clambered to her feet, worrying about getting the sticky mess cleaned up before someone else slipped. Glancing down at her hands, she was busy cursing her lost lifeline, her last caffeine hit, when she realized that the sticky substance covering her hands was not soda. It was something thicker, and redder. Finally looking back to see what she had tripped over, Emily saw what appeared to be a head protruding from behind an office chair. Taking a cautious step closer, she could see that the head was surrounded by what looked like a puddle of congealing blood and was, thankfully, attached to a body. Unfortunately, it appeared to be a dead body. And that's when Emily began to scream and scream.

About the Author:

Tracy Comstock is a small-town girl from Missouri. She lives in a home where she is outnumbered 3:1 by the males in her life: her husband and their two extremely adorable, but terrifyingly ornery sons. She has no pets as all living things, besides humans, of course, come to her house to die, including the victims in her books. All her life Tracy devoured books. Her parents' most effective punishment was grounding her from reading. Although she has a B.S. in Education and a Masters in Literature, she was nudged down the path to publication by encouraging (and sometimes threatening!) family, friends, professors, and students. When not working on Emily's adventures, Tracy is an adjunct instructor for several local colleges, where she gets to teach others about her greatest passion: writing.

A teacher who usually gets to school barely ahead of her students, Emily Taylor arrives early for a parent-teacher meeting for a struggling student.  Realizing she’s got plenty of time to make copies of a quiz she’s planning to give her students, and that a thunder storm has begun, Emily walks down the hall to the copy room.  A room where the lights are out, and where she trips over something on the floor.  Something that turns out to be the dead body of the football coach.  So begins Murder Is Our Mascot by Tracy Comstock, the first book in her Schooled in Murder series.  Filled with colorful characters, snappy dialogue, a touch of humor and some light romance, Ms. Comstock’s book is a great start to a new cozy series.

I easily connected with lead character Emily Taylor; she’s smart, funny and has a unique sense of fashion.  She’s also a menace on the road (as some of the dents on her car can attest), tends to leap before she thinks things thru and has a slight crush on fellow teacher Tad Higginbotham.  A fan of mystery books, Emily is determined to uncover the identity of Coach Layton’s killer, a plan that doesn’t sit well with Tad, her parents, or with the Detective assigned to the case.  I really connected with Emily, she made me laugh and her “investigative” skills are not quite ready for the big time.

Ms. Comstock also does a good job developing the secondary characters and I really enjoyed getting to know Gabby, Emily’s best friend since grade school, Greg, Gabby’s husband, and Tad, who Emily likes.  They are all used to dealing with Emily and her leap first, think later, behavior.  Especially Gabby, who enables and encourages Emily by being her backup investigator.  Meanwhile Tad, who returns Emily’s affection, encourages her to think first and tries to keep her from getting physically hurt.

The mystery is well written and takes several interesting twists and turns.  Especially when the school counselor, and one of Emily’s friends, becomes the chief suspect when she doesn’t show up at school or at her house.  There is also an interesting twist regarding “Coach Layton”, the murder victim.  While I did discover the identity of the killer before it was revealed in the book (I figured it out about 2 or 3 pages ahead of Emily), I thought Ms. Comstock did a good job laying out the clues.

Will Emily uncover the killer’s identity and the whereabouts of her friend before there’s a second victim?  Will Tad and Emily take a risk on becoming more than friends?  You’ll have to read Murder Is Our Mascot to find out.  I loved it and can’t wait to read the next book.

My Rating:  4.5 Out of 5 Crowns