Combining Mystery and Travel by Joan Havelange.

 

Havelange, Joan - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

 

Travelling to Egypt with one of my daughters is the inspiration for ‘Death and Denial.’ No, this is not a travel log, far from it. We flew to Cairo. There was so much to see, and I was awestruck the entire time. The museum and the great Pyramids of Giza. Those were just the teasers. There was so much more to explore, and we did. There was an issue in Egypt at this time. We may have been foolish to go. We had an escort of soldiers in jeeps with machine guns mounted in the back. But, of course, I am here to tell the tale. So, everything worked out. And because of the danger. Tourism was way down in Egypt. And we were able to get close to all the ancient monuments and ruins, even at Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. I could go on. But it’s all in my mystery.

Everything I saw could have been the inspiration for my story. But when we got to the Nile and stepped off the jetty. The germ of my murder mystery came to life. Riverboats are rafted together. And you walk from one riverboat to another until you get to yours. Some had not sailed down the Nile for some time. It was interesting to walk through these ancient riverboats.

The biggest challenge in writing ‘Death and Denial’ was not to make my mystery a travel log. And I have been told by readers they loved the mystery. They felt they had travelled with my protagonist and saw Egypt through their eyes. Here is a short snippet from ‘Death and Denial.’

Death and Denial

On her way to visit Egypt and its ancient past, Mabel Havelock stumbles upon a murder plot. Mabel is trapped on board a boat with a dead body and a boatload of suspects. And in the middle of the Nile River, a passenger disappears.

Although language difficulties put her at odds with the lone police officer on board the boat. Mabel is determined to untangle the web of lies and deceit. She will have to use all her wits and ingenuity to solve the murder in the locked cabin.

Excerpt from Death and Denial

Mabel Havelock felt a hot moist breath in her ear. She woke with a start. “What the hell?”

A strange man’s head rested on her shoulder. His mouth hung open, and his stale breath smelled of garlic. Mabel wiggled her shoulders, he groaned but didn’t move. She wriggled again with more force. The portly man snorted, and his chubby red cheeks puffed out, blowing more foul breath into her face. Wrinkling her nose, and using her fingertips, she pushed on the side of his forehead. The man snorted and turned his head.

Mabel sighed as she looked around the darkened airplane, everyone appeared to be asleep but her. She squirmed in her seat, the armrest digging into her side. She looked enviously at her best friend Violet Ficher, sleeping in the seat by the window. How could her six-foot-tall friend sleep in the pocket-size closet the airline provided for their passengers was beyond her? Mabel barely five-feet-tall, jammed in the middle seat, felt cramped.

Mabel and Violet, two retired nurses, were on an overnight flight to Frankfurt. There, they would change planes and continue their journey to Egypt. Being Mabel’s first flight out of the country, she was nervous, tired, and uncomfortable. She shifted in the seat, her back ached, and her legs were numb. Seven hours on the plane was way too long in her opinion. Unless you flew first-class, and they certainly weren’t. The big burly man in the aisle seat snorted, his head slumped onto her shoulder. She grimaced and jiggled her shoulders, and the man’s head slid back. He snored, sounding like a demented wild hog.

A baby’s cry mingled with the man’s snoring.

Mabel twisted and reached for the skinny little airplane pillow. It had slipped down wedged between her and the large man. She yanked on the pillow. It popped out, and the man turned to face her. She screwed up her nose and threw the thin airline blanket over her head.

Mabel sat under the blanket and sighed, her seat was hard, and now the darn armrest dug into her other side. The drone of the plane did nothing to drown out the snoring and coughing of her fellow passengers. Good Lord, she fumed silently. How on earth do these people sleep with all this racket? Wide awake, she threw off her blanket, deciding she needed to use the washroom. The thought of the tiny washroom with its supersonic flush made her grimace. But at least there would be no lineup, somehow everyone else was sleeping.

Her next obstacle was to negotiate past the big sleeping man. Half sitting and half standing, she put one short leg over the man’s crossed ankles. Grabbing the back of the seat in front of her, she pushed herself over the man. Her hand slipped, and she landed on his lap.

“Hey, what the hell,” grunted the red-faced man.

Embarrassed, Mabel quickly regained her seat. “Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t want to wake you,” she apologized.

“Well, you did,” the man snarled. He grabbed Mabel’s pillow and tucked it under his head and turned his back toward her.

“I’m on my way to the washroom,” Mabel whispered, it surprised her Violet hadn’t woken up.

“Whatever,” the man grumbled.

Mabel pulled the pillow from under the man’s head. “I still want to go to the washroom.”

The man’s head fell back against the seat. “What the hell?”

“That’s my pillow.”

“Humph,” the man mumbled, covering his shoulder with his blanket.

Mabel tapped on his arm.

The man snorted then glared at Mabel. “What the hell now?”

“Sir, I said I still need to use the washroom. If you don’t want me to sit on your lap again, I suggest you get up and let me by.”

The man lumbered himself out of his seat. “I suppose you’re going to wake me up again when you come back,” he complained.

“Unless I parachute out of this tin box, I suppose I will.” Mabel pursed her lips, what a rude man.

She crept down the darkened aisle, guided by the tiny lights on either side of the carpet, past the sleeping passengers. Were the first-class washrooms bigger than the broom closets in the economy section? She had seen the pod-like seats in first-class when they boarded. It was dark, and everyone was sleeping, she grinned to herself and turned around in the aisle. She would use the washroom in first-class. What could they do, take away her birthday?

Mabel quietly approached the first-class section. And poked her head through the curtain that separated first-class from economy. Everyone appeared to be asleep. She stepped through the curtain, but her first step was her last. She stepped on a discarded paper cup and fell with a thump, sliding halfway under the curtain.

Embarrassed, Mabel lay perfectly still, then she crawled crab-like back to economy. Rubbing her bruised bottom, she regained her feet, listening, did anyone in first-class see or hear her?

She heard a voice on the other side of the divider. “Did you hear that? What was that?”

Mabel bit her lip. She’d been spotted.

“Don’t worry, it was nothing. Something fell in economy,” whispered a gravelly voice.

“Anyway, I’ve thought about it, and you’re right. Egypt is the perfect place to kill her. The Egyptian police are not as smart as we are, our plan is perfect.”

“Shut up, you idiot, someone could be listening,” another voice whispered harshly.

“Everyone is asleep, don’t worry.”

“What about that noise? I’m sure I heard someone.”

“No, it wasn’t anybody. I told you something fell behind us in economy.”

“You better hope that’s all it was.”

Mabel stood stock still. She had just overheard a murder plot.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, she jumped.