The Story
Behind the Andi Comstock Supernatural Mysteries
Do you believe in ghosts? Andi Comstock had never given
ghosts much thought until she gets a new job and the dead begin to speak to
her.
Several years ago, I was responsible for finding a new building
for the nonprofit research center I worked for. I was also responsible for
supervising renovations and when that was complete, the move into the building.
From the first day, with all the remodeling dust settled, I smelled smoke. You
have to understand, I have an excellent sniffer, which means I can usually
smell things others can’t.
I live in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. We get smoke here
in the spring and summer, from field burning (grass-seed growers) to slash
burning (timber management) to structure fires to forest fires. Each time I
smelled the smoke, I’d walk around asking my co-workers if they could smell it,
too. No one could and I finally stopped asking. Once I was settled into my new
office, I began to walk around the area surrounding our building. Could the
smoke could be coming from the mortuary at the opposite corner of our block.
There was a chimney, but did that mean they had a crematorium? I checked. They
did.
That smoke stuck in my mind, waiting for a good story to
bring it to life. Long after I left that job, a story idea struck me out of the
blue.
My main character would follow my experience to a point.
She’d work at a new job and smell smoke in the building that no one else could
smell. Unlike me, she’d hear a voice each time she smelled the smoke. Mostly,
the voices would have a friendly chat, but once in a while, a voice would ask
for help concerning a murder. And that is how Andi Comstock came to be.
In Holy Smoke, the
first book of the series, one of the cremated souls asks Andi to help her find
her murderer. At the recommendation of another soul passing over, Andi seeks
out Father Riley O’Shaughnessy at St. Gemma Galgani Catholic Church for
guidance. Together, she and Father Riley approach the mortician at Chapel of
the Garden, who confirms that the dates and times of the cremations he’s
performed agree with the dates and times Andi has recorded in her journal.
Not to give too much of the story away, Father Riley
solicits assistance from Jack Harmon, a parishioner at St. Gemma’s, who is also
a detective in the Violent Crimes unit at Edgerton Police Department. Jack is
skeptical at first, but as the story progresses, he can’t argue with the facts
Andi presents. To compound matters, he and Andi are drawn to each other romantically.
Before I began to write Holy
Smoke, I researched crematoriums and discovered that these days, most are
“clean” of emissions, including the one near the building where I worked. That
surprised me, because with no other source of smoke in the area, how could I
smell it? That is a question that baffles Andi, too. That old chimney no longer
served a purpose.
Solving murders of people who are cremated presents its own
set of problems. For one thing, the only materials that survive cremation are
those made of metal—dental fillings, pins holding bones together, shrapnel,
bullets. In Holy Smoke, I wanted to
use a poison as the means of death, but when I contacted a well-known forensic
dentist, he listed all the reasons I couldn’t discover traces of poison from
dental remains, or cremains, as some call them. The challenge was on and it
took me on a path of discovery to Santería, a Catholic offshoot that some
consider more of a cult than a religion.
In Penitence, Andi
encounters a soul who wants her to help call off a hit he hired on his wife
before he died. That lead me down a dark path of killers for hire and provided
a whole new set of challenges. Andi isn’t the kind of woman who tells everyone
she meets that she hears dead people, but tracking down a hitman before he
completes the job he was hired to do presented an entirely new quandary, not
only for Andi, but for me.
After nearly a year on the job, Andi is still dealing with
the why of being able to communicate
with the dead. Each successive “case,” as she calls them, tests her mettle.
With Angel Babies, she wonders if
she’s reached her limits when the soul that seeks help from her belongs to an
unborn baby. After time spent in self-reflection, she devises a plan to entice
the snatcher of babies that even the most courageous and strong-willed would
consider foolhardy. But that’s what makes Andi so amazing. She’s committed to
righting wrongs, no matter what the expense to her psyche or her physical body.
Fortunately for Andi, who writes game apps, she has a
logical-thinking mind and she’s quite orderly. Unfortunately, her brain devises
schemes that tend to put her in danger. That’s where she and I part ways. I can
create the dangerous situations she faces, and get her out of them, but I’m
pretty certain I don’t have enough courage to attempt to solve crimes the way
she does.
Andi Comstock
Books Back-Cover Blurbs
Holy Smoke
Smoke doesn’t always mean there’s fire...
Andi Comstock loves her new job,
but she can’t figure out why she’s the only person in the building who smells
the smoke. And every time it happens, she hears a voice in her head.
One of those voices suggests
that she talk to Father Riley at St. Gemma’s Church, “a man of God and a
believer in the afterlife.” Stunned and hoping she hasn’t lost her mind or
developed a brain tumor, Andi takes a leap of faith and seeks him out.
Much to her surprise, she gains
a cohort in her effort to track down the source of both the smoke and the
voices.
Sometimes, it means murder...
It isn’t long before Andi hears
a voice that belongs to someone she knew years before, a voice that’s pleading
for help.
Andi and Father Riley soon
realize they may have stumbled upon a murder. The priest does the only thing he
can. He turns to homicide detective Jack Harmon for assistance.
Now if Andi can just figure out
why the voice keeps saying, “Look at my teeth.”
Penitence
Where there’s smoke...
Andi Comstock has grown used to
smelling the smoke that pervades her office every time a cremation takes place
in the mortuary next door. She even enjoys the moment or two when each soul
stops to chat with her on the way to the Pearly Gates.
But one day, a Smokie says
something that leads her to believe he may be headed in the other
direction. I did something bad, Andi,
and I don’t know how to fix it.
Sometimes, it means murder for hire...
Andi isn’t the type of person who can let a plea
for help go unanswered. Her sleuthing cohort Father Riley sometimes compares
her to St. Jeanne d’Arc, fighting battles on behalf of others.
Andi’s no saint, but neither is
she a coward. When someone – dead or not – asks for help, she can’t just walk
away. Not even if it means putting her own life on the line.
Angel Babies
Where there’s smoke…
Andi Comstock is not the type of
person to tell someone who’s been murdered to take a hike, especially if that
someone is an unborn baby. Angel-baby Lucy asks Andi to find the woman who
killed her and her mother before the baby-snatcher strikes again.
From past experience, Detective
Jack Harmon knows his most valuable information will come via the spirits who
talk to Andi after cremation, when they pass from this world to the next. This
time, though, something is different. Andi’s been told she’s The Chosen One and
for Jack, who is also Andi’s boyfriend, that’s a show stopper.
Sometimes, there’s a plea for help…
With Jack avoiding Andi while he
attempts to wrap his mind around what it means for her to be The Chosen One,
Andi is forced to devise a creative plan to find the baby-stealer on her own.
The resulting brainstorm is both outrageous and ingenuous, and it has the
potential to be fatal. For her, at least.
Andi’s sleuthing cohort, Father
Riley, who often compares her to St. Jeanne d’Arc, urges her to abandon the
scheme, but Andi is set on doing it her way.
After all, a girl’s gotta do
what a girl’s gotta do.
Ann Simas Bio
Ann Simas lives in Eugene,
Oregon, but she is a Colorado girl at heart, having grown up in the Rocky
Mountains. An avid word-lover since childhood, she penned her first fiction “book”
in high school. The author of 19 novels, one novella, and seven short stories,
she particularly likes to write a mix of mystery/thriller/suspense, with a love
story and paranormal or supernatural elements.
In addition to being a
three-time Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Finalist, Ann is also an
award-winning watercolorist and budding photographer who enjoys needlework and
gardening in her spare time. She is her family’s “genealogist” and has been
blessed with the opportunity to conduct first-hand research in Italy for both
her writing and her family tree. The genealogy research from century’s-old
documents, written in Italian, has been a supreme but gratifying and exciting
challenge for her.
Books
Chloe’s SpiritH
Chloe’s Spirit Afterstories
First StarH
First Star Afterstories
Blessed Are the EaglesH
Loose Ends
Heaven Sent
Black Moon Rising
Footsteps in the Snow (coming 2018)
Grace Gabbiano Mysteries
Dressed to Die
Sliced to Die
Buried to Die
Quilted to Die (coming 2018)
Andi Comstock Supernatural
Mysteries
Holy Smoke
Penitence
Angel Babies
Hellfire (coming 2018)
Christmas Valley Romances
Santa’s Helper
Candy Cane Lane
Let It Snow
Fruitycakes (coming
December 2017)
Sleigh Bride (coming December 2017)
Short Story Collection
All’s Well
HRWA Golden Heart Finalists
Contact Info
Facebook: Ann Simas, Author
email: ann [at] annsimas [dot] com
