#NewRelease - THE CASE OF THE CROAKED COACH from Susie Black
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
I'm very excited to welcome cozy mystery author Susie Black to my blog. Susie is the author the Holly Swimsuit cozy mystery series and she now has a new series. Her #NewRelease - THE CASE OF THE CROAKED COACH, is book one in the Hannah White Mysteries. The character of Hannah posed some issues for Susie to work through since Hannah is a teenager. She tells us all about it in her post. Thanks for being here, Susie!
The Perils of Creating a Teen Amateur Sleuth
I am the author of seven published humorous cozy mysteries. While my adult female protagonist in The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series is younger than I, the age difference between us did not present any verisimilitude issues when I created her personality, lifestyle, or career. One key element that made it easy was that she was based on me.
But writing a series with a teen amateur sleuth who was again based on me, this time as a high school newspaper investigative reporter, presented several challenges that had to be overcome to make the tale realistic. The Case of the Croaked Coach, the debut title of The Hannah White Mystery Series, was simultaneously the easiest and most difficult manuscript to write.
How much danger could I/should I put my young sleuth into?
Would she tell her parents what she was doing or lie to them?
Who would take a teenage amateur sleuth seriously? If she interrogated an adult suspect, would they even give her the time of day, much less answer her questions? How would she know what questions to ask?
If she had suspects in mind, how would she go about investigating them? How would she know what to do? How would she gain access to conduct her investigations?
If she did somehow discover proof that a suspect was the killer, would the homicide detective take her information and look into it, or blow her off?
The scene where the protagonist discovered her classmate holding the bloody murder weapon over the victim was harder to write than any other. While the series is based on my experience as a high school newspaper investigative reporter, I thankfully had never made such a gruesome discovery as Hannah White did. How should she react? Terrified? Shocked? Faint?
So, how did I overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges?
I created two adult characters who interacted with the teenage sleuth:
Bart White: Hannah White’s uncle and the defense attorney for the teenage murder suspect.
H.S. Whiperski: A Private Investigator, Bart hired. H.S. tailored Hannah’s questions & the steps the teenage sleuth could realistically and safely take.
I incorporated Hannah’s investigative reporter skills into how she approached suspects and the methods she employed to question them. Hannah questioned several teacher/ suspects under the guise of interviewing them for a story she was writing for the school newspaper.
I created a group of Hannah’s friends called the Young Yentas. This group served as a sounding board for Hannah to bounce ideas off of. They were also enlisted as assistant sleuths at the victim’s funeral.
I created a teenage sidekick for Hannah who gave her access to a key site at the high school to search for proof that a teacher had committed the murder.
I created a janitor who served as a trusted source of information—a see-all, know-all adult at the school to bounce ideas off of.
Lastly, I relied on Hannah’s self-reliant personality and moral compass to dictate how she conducted her investigation. As such, I created a “rope-a-dope" mechanism Hannah employed to interview suspects without them realizing what she was doing until it was too late and they had answered her questions already.
Buy Link: https://t.co/X2W29k2Why
Blurb:
There wasn’t an honest bone in Buzz Bixby’s body. The Encino High School’s head football coach was an equal-opportunity scoundrel. Bixby cheated and lied his way to the top and screwed anyone and everyone in his wake. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the bastard dead. The question was, who didn’t? Student reporter Hannah White’s interview with the coach is a nonstarter when she discovers varsity football hero Dean Snyder standing over Bixby’s battered corpse holding a bloody trophy. Despite how guilty Dean looks, Hannah is convinced he’s innocent. When Snyder is arrested for Bixby’s murder, the wisecracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing turns out how Hannah thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
Logic said to either run for help or to run for my life, but a combination of fear— if Dean
did it, now discovered, would he kill me too— and the curiosity to learn the answer kept my feet frozen to the spot inside the doorframe.
Dean’s body shook like a leaf in a rainstorm as he stared at the bloody trophy in his hand
as though he had just discovered it. Either Dean was doing an Academy Award-worthy acting job for my benefit, or he was even more terrified than me. Flip a coin.
A reporter has to make snap judgments. Is it the same as trusting your gut?
Dad’s voice whispered inside my head. “Trust your gut.”
I guess the answer to my question is yes…
“Dean,” I spoke his name in the same soothing tone you do to a frightened animal.
He looked up at my voice, surprised to hear his name called. His eyes filled. “It’s not
what you think.”
Fairly confident Dean had no plan to smash my head to smithereens with the trophy, I
took a few tentative steps into the office.
I dipped my head towards the trophy still in his grasp. “Okay. Then what is it?”
Dean’s voice quivered. “After practice, I came here to talk to the coach.”
“About what?”
“To convince him to give me the starting position.”
The train has already left the station, so in my book, a big waste of time. Just sayin’.
I pursed my lips. “The word around campus is Bixby was a lame duck with no say in
anything anymore.”
Dean scowled. “He still had a lot of sway with Coach Bender. Bixby could convince
Coach Bender to make the change if he wanted to.”
“Why would he?”
Dean huffed with righteous indignation. “To do the right thing. Because I earned the spot
and he knew it.”
For Donna’s sake, I gave it my best shot to believe him. But Dean’s story had more holes
than a dozen glazed donuts.
I framed my hands like a movie director. “So, maybe this happened? You met with him.
No matter how much you pleaded, Bixby still refused your request. You got angry. You never
meant for it to happen, but things went way out of control.” I pointed to the trophy. “You
grabbed the trophy off the shelf behind the Coach’s desk and in a fit of rage, you hit him with it on the back of his head.”
Dean yelped, “No! I never got the chance to talk to him.” Dean waved the trophy at
Bixby’s torso, scrawled across the desk. “I walked into the office and found him slumped over
the desk with the back of his head bashed in.”
“How long have you been here?”
Dean scrunched his eyes closed. “Ten minutes. Maybe less. I-I’m not sure.”
“Besides the trophy, did you move anything else?”
He shook his head.
“Where was the trophy?”
Dean pointed to the carpet under the coach’s desk. “On the floor next to the coach’s desk.
I tripped over it when I stood next to him.”
“What on Earth ever made you pick it up?”
Dean shrugged.
“So, other than pick up the trophy for some idiotic reason, did you do anything else?”
He made a sour face.
I peppered him with questions. “Call 911? Try to help him? Check his pulse? Perform
CPR? Anything?”
Dean hung his head. “No.”
My jaw dropped. “What the heck is the matter with you?”
He bunched his shoulders.
“If you’d at least called 911 he had a chance of being saved.”
He pointed the trophy at the corpse. “Is he dead?”
It’s not as though I’m an expert on the subject. The only dead body I’ve ever seen in
person was Cindy Butler’s Grandma Ethel’s at the old lady’s funeral last June.
Dean bent over to examine the coach’s crumpled body. “I’ve never been around a dead
body before. How do you tell?”
Good gravy. The back of the guy’s head is smashed in like roadkill. How much more
proof do you need?
I rolled my eyes. “Well, since he hasn’t so much as twitched since I got here, I’d say it’s a
safe bet the next game Bixby coaches is gonna be played in the stadium located at the Great Beyond.”
I used my shirt sleeve to pick up the phone receiver.
Dean gulped. “Who are you calling?”
Is this guy for real?
“Donofrio’s Pizzeria. Dead bodies give me the munchies.” I smacked his forehead with
the heel of my hand. “For crying out loud, Dean! Who do you think I’m calling? The police!” I
tsked, “Something anyone with a brain does the minute Bixby’s body is discovered.”
Dean whined as cranky as a toddler who needed a nap. “Why? No one knows we’re here.
Can’t we just leave and let somebody else call the cops?”
I gritted my teeth. “Because it is against the law to leave the scene of a crime.”
Buy Link: https://t.co/X2W29k2Why
Author Bio, Susie Black:
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, multi-award-winning
cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern
California home. She has published eight books as of May 2025.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred
from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life
without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and is the mother of one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
Social Media Links:
Blue Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social
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