JURY DUTY IS MURDER
By Kate Damon
Publication Date: January 8, 2025
Cozy Mystery
The verdict is in; a famed athlete is headed for prison. The jurors have done their job and are free to go back to their lives. But after being sequestered for four months, life as some knew it no longer exists.
HAROLD ASHMAN’s house is almost destroyed by a careless driver. Exotic dancer, CEECEE LAINE, discovers that her boyfriend is two-timing her, and she no longer has a job. Actor ALEX MANNING learns his career is down the tubes, and 72-year-old, HELEN RYDER, discovers her family is plotting to put her in an old folks home.
Then things take a turn for the worse. When former jurors start dropping like flies, CeeCee, Helen, Harold and Alex are convinced there’s a killer on the loose. Now the feuding foursome must find him before he kills them—or before they save him the trouble by killing each other.
Jury Duty is Murder is available at Amazon.
Juror #9, Harold, known as Shoe
I didn’t want to talk about the trial.
I didn’t want to talk about the mind-numbing testimony, especially the scientific DNA babble that went on for days and no one understood. Nor did I want to think about the hundred and twenty nights sequestered in a lousy hotel, courting sleep.
Most of all I did not want to discuss the verdict: We the jury find the defendant guilty.
What I wanted to do was go home and veg out in my favorite chair and watch TV, which had been off-limits to jurors during the four months we were sequestered.
We weren’t even allowed to read a book, and our cellphones had been confiscated during court hours.
I longed to eat something other than fast-food and boring, tasteless hotel fare. Read an honest-to-goodness newspaper on my iPad and Google till I’m cross-eyed.
Have a conversation not monitored by a court official. Forget, absolutely forget, that I helped put a man behind bars, or maybe even death row.
But my wife Sylvia wanted to talk about it—all of it—the day-to-day details of how the jury had come to
its decision, the behind-the-scenes legal manipulations that Court TV had no doubt dissected for its avid
watchers ad nauseam. She was dying to know all the juicy tidbits, the gossip, who said what and why.
Writing as Margaret Brownley, she has published more than 40 novels and is a New York Times bestselling author. Known for her memorable characters and humor, she is a two-time Romance Writers of America Rita finalist.
Not counting the book she wrote in sixth grade, and the puzzle of the missing socks, this is her first mystery.
Website ➜http://margaret-brownley.com/
Twitter ➜https://www.x.com/katejuryduty
Facebook ➜https://www.facebook.com/MargaretBrownleyAuthor/ and https://www.facebook.com/p/Kate-Damon-61565155275435/
Instagram ➜https://www.instagram.com/katedamonbooks
BookBub➜https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kate-damon
Goodreads ➜ https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4072660.Kate_Damon and https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/163681.Margaret_Brownley
