Soft Hearts: A Rett Swinson Mystery Excerpt and Giveaway

I love mystery novels, and can’t wait to share with you an excerpt from this novel. It’s actually on my list to read next! You also have a chance to win an copy for yourself!

What follows is an excerpt from Soft Hearts: A Rett Swinson Mystery, the debut novel by Eric Lodin to be released May 22, 2021. Immediately prior to this scene, Rett witnessed her neighbor Cynthia—with the help of Raleigh homicide detective Darryl Schmidt—confront an old enemy who had done her wrong decades earlier. Rett’s romantic interest in the detective is strong, but her confidence lags in the wake of a months-long separation from her husband. There is continued romantic tension as the pair work together to solve the Halloween murder of another neighbor, poetry professor Wanda Hightower. 

Back in the parking lot, Cynthia raised two fists to the sky and shouted to the stars. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve been waiting nearly thirty years to confront that beast!”

I watched Cynthia’s rapid breath blowing in the cold air as she looked up at the stars, her expression radiating bliss.

Darryl emerged from the bar a moment later, frowning. “Cynthia, if you were worried that Dennis had something to do with Wanda’s death, I think you can put that worry to rest. He definitely seemed confused when I mentioned Wanda’s murder. Plus, I just spoke on the phone with three co-workers who say they worked at the bar with him on Halloween from four until closing.”

“I’m so grateful for what you did tonight, Detective,” Cynthia said as we all got into Darryl’s car. “Thank you a million times over.”

“I’m glad you found it helpful,” Darryl muttered, clearly still uncomfortable with his decision to stage the confrontative scene.

“You were very kind to do that,” I told Darryl once Cynthia had disappeared inside her home for the night. “That’s not something that most women ever get to do safely.”

“I may have overstepped my authority,” he said nervously. “Honestly, I don’t know if I feel good about it. What if he harasses her now?”

“Dennis has long known that Cynthia was the one who burned his manuscript. Besides, I’m quite certain you put the fear of God into him,” I said. “At least no one died tonight.”

“Sometimes you know just the right thing to say,” he smiled.

We were standing just outside his car. Doris, having seen us arrive, was inside gathering her things. Darryl and I might have been sixteen trying to wrap-up a date. The air had grown bitterly cold, but I didn’t want the evening to end just yet. What is all this sweet work worth / If thou kiss not me?

“Who’s your top suspect now?” I asked, trying to draw out the moment.

“Now that Mr. Smith has an alibi? Nobody. Everybody.”

“But if you had to wager?”

“Lacking an individual with a strong personal motive, I’m still betting it was a crime of opportunity. Some sadist acting on psychopathic compulsion.”

The whisper of sweet nothings…

But I could tell Darryl was distracted by his own frustration with the case. There wasn’t going to be a moment tonight.

The cold finally nudged us inside where we found Doris standing just inside the door, wearing her coat and holding her purse.

“Is Lydia in bed?” I asked.

“Since seven o’clock. Said she was deathly tired.”

Bored to tears was probably more like it.

“I really do not like driving at night, Darryl,” Doris said.

“I’ll lead you all the way home, Doris. Thank you for staying late this one time.”

As Doris stepped onto the porch, Darryl rolled his eyes for my benefit and followed her out.

The second they were gone, the door to the master bedroom opened and a head peeked through the crack. 

I said, “She’s gone. You can come out now.”

Lydia beelined for her cigarettes, which she’d fished from the garbage and stashed under the cushion of her favorite chair.

“Excuse me?” I said. “No, ma’am.” She tried to protest, but when she couldn’t get a word out, she gave up and handed me the pack. I felt awful removing this long-held pleasure from her life, but quitting cigarettes had been her doctor’s orders.

“I know you’re bored, Lydia. Listen, tomorrow I’ll come by and take you quilting. You’ll be out of Doris’s hair for hours.”

She clapped again and, much like Cynthia had done, raised her hands as if receiving God’s infinite grace.

A couple of hours later Lydia was long asleep. I was nearly so when my cell phone rang. It was Darryl. He apologized for calling so late, but said he figured I’d want to hear the news.

The police had finally tracked down the person dressed as a dragon who was seen by the young trick-or-treater in our alleyway. Originally, they didn’t know he was their person of interest, Darryl said, but when the cops approached him for questioning, the young man—eighteen—made a run for it and tossed some drugs away. They tackled and arrested him. 

“His name is Trent Jones, and he’s a relative of Otis’s. And he’s got a bigger problem than a blister pack of Oxycontin. We matched his fingerprints to some prints that were found at the crime scene.”

His voice was upbeat.

“I think we may have caught our killer.”

Copyright (c) 2021 – Eric Lodin. All rights reserved by the author. 

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About Soft Hearts: A Rett Swinson Mystery

When Harriett “Rett” Swinson’s husband betrayed their twenty-year marriage, he destroyed their working relationship, too. Now Rett drinks too much wine and doesn’t see much reason to get out of bed in the morning—until one day there’s a knock on the door by the across-street-neighbor asking for a ride to quilting class. Before Rett knows it, the quirky, artistic community at Needless Necessities has roped her in as a volunteer and is making her wonder if she should pick up the painting hobby she abandoned long ago to make her husband’s real-estate venture successful. 

Rett is in the process of rebuilding her life when a group of Halloween trick-or-treaters discovers her neighbor, retired English professor and poet Wanda Hightower, an enigmatic shut-in known for her outlandish tirades, dead on her porch, stabbed in the back and through the heart. Was her killer a random psychopath in search of blood on All Hallow’s Eve—or one of the neighbors who helped with her lawn’s makeover gone wrong? Wanda claimed to have dirt on nearly everyone in the neighborhood, so the list of suspects is long.

Finding the killer will require Rett to reconstruct Wanda’s turbulent past. Meanwhile, she will have to weigh her growing attraction for Homicide Detective Darryl Schmidt against her desperate need for independence—and a growing feeling that an innocent man is being singled out by the police for the murder.

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About the Author, Eric Lodin

Eric Lodin (www.ericlodin.com) is the author of Soft Hearts: A Rett Swinson Mystery, which will be released on May 22, 2021. (Click here to pre-order.) Lodin lives in North Carolina where he enjoys hikes in the woods, backyard football, and spending time with family. You can follow Eric Lodin Mystery Author on Facebook.