A Day in the Life of Cate Kinkaid by Lorena McCourtney

Hi! I’m Cate Kinkaid. I haven’t been able to find a job in almost a year, so my Uncle Joe, who has a one-man private investigative agency, Belmont Investigations, has hired me. It’s strictly temporary too, just until I can find something more suitable. Office Management, perhaps. Or Executive Secretary.

But, for the moment, here I am, with an official business card that identifies me as an Assistant Private Investigator. I can do most things a regular Licensed Private Investigator can do, but I can’t carry a gun. Not that I’d want to, of course.

Uncle Joe assures me that my first assignment is an especially easy one. All I have to do is find out if this woman named Willow Bishop lives at a certain address. From her description, she looks a lot like me. Red hair, blue eyes, 5’4″, 120 pounds. Odd that we look so much alike, isn’t it? Although I am 29, a little over Willow’s 26. Anyway, her great-uncle needs to know her address so he can make sure she gets an inheritance she has coming from her great-grandmother.

So there’ll be no danger or wild car chases, no mayhem or murder, unlike the troubles those private investigators on TV are always getting into. Belmont Investigations doesn’t do murder investigations now anyway. (Although I’m not sure about what Uncle Joe did in the past. He’s kind of cagey about that. And he does have this limp that he doesn’t talk about.) Anyway, all Belmont Investigations does now is routine surveillance work, background checks, serve subpoenas, etc.. Certainly no reason I’d need a gun, even if I were allowed to carry one.

So, no surprises coming up when I go to check out Willow Bishop’s address, right?

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You can read about Cate in DYING TO READ, the first book in the new “Cate Kinkaid Files” mystery series.

** Thanks to the Lorena, I have one (1) copy of DYING TO READ to give away. Contest open to residents of the US only. Contest ends August 4. Leave a valid-email address with your comment. The book will be shipped directly from the author. **

Meet the author
I grew up in various small towns in eastern Washington, and I started trying to write when I was in the fifth grade, usually horse stories. I sent them to magazines, but they were not impressed with my “talent,” and sent them right back. My interest in horses continued on through a university degree in agriculture. (Which I can assure you is not a particularly useful education for a fiction writer – but, of course, I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer then.)

When I did realize I really did want to be a writer, I began with children’s short stories. This seemed logical, since I had a small son at the time. It was quite a long time before I moved on to write romances for publishers such as Silhouette and Harlequin. Eventually I turned to Christian romances and now feel I’ve found my “real home” in Christian mysteries.

Some of my most popular books have been the lighthearted Ivy Malone Mysteries, about an older woman who finds she seems to have aged into invisibility. And invisibility can be a rather handy asset for a sleuth. The first book “Invisible” is currently a free download on Kindle, Nook, etc.

“Dying to Read,” my current release (and 42nd book altogether), is Book #1 in my new Cate Kinkaid Files series. Visit Lorena at www.lorenamccourtney.com
Books are available at retail and online booksellers.