School's back in session, football's started, and the leaves are dropping (partially due to their autumnal nature and partially due to Hurricane Francine). I'm in the mood for back porch fall reading and maybe you are, too.
Did you know Cherry Tucker worked in a school for a short time? About a week or so, but just long enough to solve the murder of Who Murdered Miranda Pringle and a few other related puzzlers. Today's #TBT comes from the first page of DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE, Cherry Tucker's fourth southern-fried mystery, set at Peerless Day Academy just as the leaves are falling in Forks County, Georgia.
DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE
Chapter One
Someone should have told me Maranda Pringle was dead.
For the past twenty minutes, I’d been sitting in her office, picking at my Toulouse La’Lilac painted nails and wondering where in the hell Miss Pringle could be. Hindsight later taught me she’d be found somewhere in that mystical realm between the Peerless Day Academy and the Great Beyond, but currently, it ticked me off that Miss Pringle had clearly forgotten I had a twelve o’clock appointment with Principal Cleveland. I had spent plenty of time waiting on principals in my previous life as a high school troublemaker, so waiting on one now had brought back feelings of anxiety.
Which was why my nails appeared so spotty.
Before I had the nerve to leave Miss Pringle’s small antechamber and knock on Principal Cleveland’s door, another woman entered Miss Pringle’s room and proceeded to stare at me for a long five seconds before finding her voice. Her blunt blonde bob, expensive blue suit, and no-nonsense designer pumps gave her a look of authority, but a snazzy, silk scarf knotted around her neck said, “I’m also fashionable.”
“Who are you?” she asked. “Why are you in Miss Pringle’s office?”
“I’m Cherry Tucker. I’m waiting for Principal Cleveland to discuss my clearance for working with the drama department on the backdrop and props for Romeo and Juliet.”
My fingers flew to smooth my cornsilk blonde strands and straighten my belted Bert and Ernie t-shirt dress. I had figured school personnel would appreciate Sesame Street characters as educational innovators. And as most teachers I knew wore khakis and polo shirts, and I owned neither a khaki nor a polo, retrofitted Sesame Street attire from the Big Boys department would have to do for an interview.
Continue reading in Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback, hardcover, or listen to the audiobook!
Comments