She Knew Too Much

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Victoria Weisfeld will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Travel writer Genie Clarke arrives in Rome seeking inspiration, but her trip turns deadly when she overhears two mafia operatives discussing a secret "Project." Before she can escape, she's attacked and left for dead. Awakening in a hospital-alive but hunted-Genie finds the police unwilling to believe her. Only Detective Leo Angelini takes her seriously, uncovering ties between her assault, a murdered woman, and a powerful criminal network.

With the threat escalating, Leo moves Genie into hiding, where she becomes both key witness and prime target. Cut off from safety and unsure who to trust, Genie must outthink the conspirators determined to silence her.

From Rome's bright piazzas to its shadowed alleys, she faces a terrifying fight for survival-and an unexpected connection with the detective risking everything to protect her. She Knew Too Much is a lean, suspenseful psychological thriller about fear, courage, and the price of knowing too much.

Read an Excerpt

I crossed the one-way traffic to reach the Piazza del Popolo’s spacious central rectangle. People ambled toward one or another of the half-dozen streets that converged on the Piazza or to the steps leading up to the Villa Borghese Gardens, where I’d spent the afternoon. I was aiming for the Via del Babuino, street of the Baboon, which got its name from a particularly hideous sculpture. In a few blocks, that street ended at the Piazza di Spagna and the always-crowded Spanish Steps, a half block from my hotel.

On the far side, I again negotiated the circling rush of traffic and chanced a look behind. What the hell? The spiky-haired blond had crossed the first stream of traffic. Now he jostled through the crowd, coming straight my way. He was tracking me, and he didn’t care if I knew it. I was in trouble. And, if I didn’t want to believe my eyes, the hair on the back of my neck confirmed it. I picked up my pace, walking as fast as I could in my flimsy sandals.

Dozens of times I’d traveled the few blocks connecting the two piazzas. Now this familiar street radiated hostility, and the stones of the Sunday-shuttered buildings reflected no warmth. Surely something, some business, would be open. I sped past my favorite stationery store, the gallery whose owner I’d interviewed. Shut tight as oysters.

Why hadn’t I asked someone near the piazza for help? Could I have made myself understood? Would they have agreed to get involved? I shook my head in frustration.

About the Author Vicki Weisfeld is a Midwesterner (Go Blue!) transplanted to New Jersey. Her short stories have appeared in leading mystery magazines, including Ellery Queen, Sherlock Holmes, and Black Cat. Find her work also in a variety of anthologies: Busted: Arresting Stories from the Beat, Seascapes: Best New England Crime Stories, Murder Among Friends, Passport to Murder, The Best Laid Plans, Quoth the Raven, and Sherlock Holmes in the Realms of Edgar Allan Poe. She's a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, which awarded "Breadcrumbs" a best short story Derringer in 2017, and the Public Safety Writers Association, which gave a similar award to "Who They Are Now" in 2020. She's a reviewer of New Jersey theater for TheFrontRowCenter.com and crime/mystery/thriller fiction for the UK website, crimefictionlover.com.

Website: http://www.vweisfeld.com">http://www.vweisfeld.com
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Victoria-Weisfeld/author/B07J1X2B48
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6815763.Victoria_Weisfeld

Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/She-Knew-Much-Victoria-Weisfeld/dp/B0G56LHLLS/

***MORE PERSONAL "STUFF" ABOUT VICKI WEISFELD***

Does this book have a special meaning to you? i.e. where you found the idea, its symbolism, its meaning, who you dedicated it to, what made you want to write it?

I’m not a quick writer. I find that whenever I churn out a lot of pages, seemingly easily, the writing is not very good. It’s thin. If it’s dialog, it’s like bad television. Fortunately, I love the editing process, where I really have to dig in to find the real meaning of a sentence and the best way to convey that to readers. By the time I actually do finish a book like She Knew Too Much, I’ve spent a lot of time with the characters and know them well. I know their situations and why they act the way they do. Inevitably, they become important to me and what happens to them, good or bad, matters.

I think readers will recognize in the main character, Genie Clarke, the universal longing for a home, for a place in the world. She’s a travel writer, constantly on the go, and her brother says her suitcase is her home. Though the course of the book, readers will find out why that is and will form their own opinions about it.

She Knew Too Much is dedicated to my husband, because, as all writers know, unless you live completely by yourself, someone has to allow you the space to write. Faraway gazes, late dinners, forgotten appointments—they’re all part of the my-partner-is-a-writer package.

 

Where do you get your storylines from?

For me, a novel starts with a scene and a character. Something happens. Then what? What would a person like this character do in this specific situation? What would happen next? I guess, in a way, you could say it grows organically from there. Sometimes in expected ways, sometimes not. Like real life.

 

Was this book easier or more difficult to write than others? Why?

My first novel, Architect of Courage, is a mystery set in mostly in Manhattan, easy commuting distance from my home. I have friends there and visit the City multiple times a year. Writing a story set in Manhattan was fairly easy for me. She Knew Too Much is set in Rome. I’ve visited there, but I haven’t lived there. I had to be scrupulously careful about geography, daily life, police procedures, and so on. In that sense, it was more difficult to write, but all those details (like the fact that they now restrict automobiles near the Spanish Steps during daytime) not only had to be right, they figure into the story.

Do you only write one genre?

I write mostly mystery/thriller/crime books and stories, though a few of my short stories—more than 45 have been published—don’t involve a crime. I’ve published four Sherlock Holmes pastiches, a fun mystery subgenre. A horror magazine published one of my short stories, which surprised me, until I realized several actually are pretty horrifying.

 

Give us a picture of where you write, where you compose these words…is it Starbucks, a den, a garden…we want to know your inner sanctum?

I have an office in a converted bedroom in our home. It has a desk with cubbies, and a long table. There’s never enough tablespace because I accumulate paper in shocking amounts. There are three bookcases—one with reference books and “how tos,” one with genealogy books, and one with more reference books and quite a few of Dickens’s novels.

 

And finally, of course…was there any specific event or circumstance that made you want to be a writer?

Loving to read made me want to write. I hoped to bring other people the enjoyment and excitement of a good story that I experienced.

 

I hope your readers take the opportunity to read She Knew Too Much. I think they will find it a fast-moving story with touches of romance, humor, and a big dose of humanity. I welcome their responses. Thank you for inviting me to share these few words about the writing of this story.