J. M. lives in rural New England with her husband and two very mysterious cats.
Now you can own the first three books in the sassy and suspenseful Esposito Series by J. M. Griffin!
By day, Lavinia (Vinnie) Esposito is a criminal justice instructor at a college in Rhode Island. By night Vinnie is an amateur sleuth, solving murders while trying to avoid getting yelled at by her Italian father, her hunky protective boyfriend Marcus Richmond, and her sexy upstairs tenant, the mysterious Aaron Grant.
For Love of Livvy (Book 1)
Vinnie investigates the death of her beloved aunt, and a mysterious box is left on her doorstep.
Dirty Trouble (Book 2)
Someone is stalking Vinnie and that's just the beginning of her troubles.
Dead Wrong (Book 3)
Vinnie is out to save her brother from being framed after a valuable painting is stolen.
Excerpt from Book 1 (For Love of Livvy):
The front door knocker rapped twice after the door bell rang. I hustled from the rear deck of the gargantuan house to answer the summons. Someone seemed impatient, and I was curious as to who it was. My watch read just after eight o'clock. I swung the heavy door open to find my prospective visitor absent.
It was so quiet, the town ghostly in its seemingly deserted state. Sundays were always lazy days in Scituate, once church was over. With a glance up and down the street of the small historic Rhode Island village, neat colonial homes stretched along the sides of the road in both directions. No one came into view.
On the doorstep, a package addressed to my recently deceased Aunt Livvy sat wrapped in brown paper. Again, I gawked up and down the street, but only empty sidewalks and barren roadway appeared in the waning light. The idea of a jaunt along the main drag entered my mind. I figured it would be senseless since the street was visible for about two hundred yards in either direction. Whoever had left the package was gone, long gone.
An eternity passed, or so it seemed, while my gaze locked onto the square, little box. Reluctant to touch it, I decided to call the local fire company to come take a gander. Call me paranoid, but as a criminal justice instructor, a recent audit of a class on bomb components remained fresh in my mind.
I quickly stepped into the living room and grabbed the phone. I dialed the private number of the fire station up the street. A grunt came across the phone line that could only be Bill MacNert.
"Hey Nerd, its Vinnie," I said. "A package was just left on my doorstep, could you come down and check it out for me?"
"Sure, you got a secret admirer or somethin?" he cackled, as only senior men can.
"Not likely, but you never know. This package is addressed to Lavinia Ciano, not Lavinia Esposito and is wrapped in brown paper. Nobody's here to accompany this little surprise either."
"I'll be right down. Vinnie, don't touch it." He warned.
"Okay."
Anxious, I paced back and forth across gleaming hard wood floors in the spacious living room of my newly acquired colonial. My fingernails tapped the enamel on my teeth as I wandered to and fro. As irrational as it seemed, I finally leaned against the door jamb inside the entry to wait MacNert to arrive.
It wasn't long before the limber old guy came into view as he hot footed down the street with a stethoscope in his hand. This particular piece of equipment wasn't quite what I'd expected, but then he wasn't a bomb expert either.
When he arrived on the doorstep slightly out of breath, he glanced at the parcel, and then turned toward me.
"This was just delivered, you say?" MacNert squinted toward me with wizened brown eyes that twinkled all the time. It was as though there was a private joke going on inside his head.
"Yeah, someone just knocked on the door, and when I went to answer, there was nobody around. It didn't seem prudent to mess with it, so I called you."
"You just finished that bomb class, eh?" He chuckled and then sobered quickly. Since 9/11, everyone took stuff like this with a serious attitude. While he chuckled, I knew MacNert was no different.
The stethoscope ends plugged into his ears, Bill laid his diaphragm on top of the package. Removing it, he gingerly set it against the sides and listened again. I didn't make a sound as he stood and glanced up.
"There's no tickin but that doesn't mean it's not explosive. You should probably call the state police barracks up the road. Have them send their bomb guys down for a lookie see, just to be on the safe side."
"Geez, I hate to do that. I'll feel stupid if it's a joke," I whined.
"It's up to you, but if you were nervous enough to call me, then you should call them. It's just my opinion, Vin." He stepped over the box and wandered into the entryway. "Got anythin to eat? Wifey's out of town visitin her sister and I'm starved."
Bill didn't seem concerned, but then again, he hadn't recently taken a bomb class either. My eyes never left the box as I answered him. "There's food in the fridge, help yourself."
I'd known the homely man and his family for years and respected his opinion. Tapping my fingers against my lips, I called after him, "You're right. I'll ring the police now, but stick around okay?"
Unwilling to be nailed as over-dramatic by the staties, I reluctantly punched in the numbers. It was bad enough that the local cops had bugged the shit out of me for the first month after Aunt Livvy's death. They still stopped by now and then, annoying me even more with stupid questions. Questions for which I had no answers.
The box set of this trio of J.M. Griffin's novels can be purchased here:
Find more on J. M. Griffin at:
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/JM-Griffin/246751368685078
Her blog: mycozymysteries.blogspot.com
On Twitter: mycozymystery
