To keep you up to date, here’s a piece of the new work in the Red Mist Girl series I’ve also put on my Facebook and Goodreads Author pages under ML Biddison. This is near the beginning of the novel, titled Dell’s Leap:

She enjoyed the routine, breakfast being her favorite and sometimes only meal of the day. She never cooked for herself. When called out early on some urgent matter, Dell would sometimes skip the breakfast and grab an apple or an orange on the way out.

No urgency awaited her today as she lolled in a booth at Molly’s, a small place by the bridge she frequented whenever overtaken by the need to refuel or reconnect.

Often she met her FBI friend there for a meal or just coffee. Today Agent Maddis had told her she would stop for coffee on her way down to the interstate. She wondered briefly why René was on the road today. Normally, Dell would seek to accompany her, but her new status as full-time deputy mandated she stick around Stanley County unless she had a good excuse to go wandering. Maybe René would give her that excuse.

Meanwhile, she would treat this weekend like any other. After her breakfast meeting with Maddis, she’d check in at the shop, make a couple of phone calls, then head up-river to the Parker Ranch. While still on call, Dell had not drawn patrol duty this weekend, so would be free to visit and help out where needed.

Agent René Maddis interrupted her reverie, sliding into the booth opposite Dell. She pushed a stray lock of short cropped black hair behind an ear. Dell noticed the agent wore a variation of her usual attire, a light gray, subtly pinstriped suit, white blouse opened at the neck to display a sparkling blue pendant on a fine chain.

“René! Hi. I didn’t even see you come in.”

“Looked like you were lost in space, Deputy.” Maddis raised her hand to flag down Marion, the server. “Coffee, please, Marion.”

Marion, a well-fed middle-aged woman, greeted the new arrival with her standard broad smile. “Sure thing, Agent. How you doing today?” It wasn’t really a question. She refilled Dell’s proffered cup, and whisked off to get another.

“So, René, what brings you out to this side of the river?” Dell blinked expectantly, hoping for a spark of calamity on an all too tranquil spring day.

---