As part of my blog tour, Sandra Lopez posted a teaser for the novel on her blog site.
For anyone who wants a taste of the adventure in THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER, you can find it here, at Sandra’s Book Club.
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Tag: Tinkerbell Series
Breaking News! Booklist Review of THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER is in!
I am tickled pumpkin by this review from Booklist that I just received this morning from my delightful publisher.
Booklist says:
An entertaining debut introducing PI Gina “Tinkerbell” Miyoko. At five foot nine and 94 pounds, she is a Harley-riding, San Francisco Bay houseboat–dwelling powerhouse who is met with frank amazement by most people. When her best friend, Rose, an undercover Park Service agent, is gravely injured, Gina takes her place, going undercover in Mexico in the company of archaeologist Cruz Veras, a Mexican Indiana Jones, to ferret out who is trafficking in looted artifacts. The gamin-like Gina adopts a teasingly glamorous persona looking to spend, spend, spend, and attracts a mysterious antiquities dealer in Cancun. She ultimately ends up, after an unexpected betrayal, trapped in the pitch-black guts of a Mayan temple where she must fight for her life, armed only with her wits and an odd assortment of lucky charms. Gina is a unique series lead, but she sweeps across the pages like an adrenalin-fueled soul sister of Janet Evanovich’s flamboyant characters, presented in an equally biting and outrageous narrative that turns on a dime. A promising start to an exciting new series with plenty of crossover YA appeal. — Jane Murphy, Booklist
Wow! “Adrenalin-fueled soul sister of Janet Evanovich’s flamboyant characters . . . .” I am thrilled. Thank you, Jane Murphy for such a terrific review—and thank you, Pegasus, for taking a chance with my diminutive detective.
Stay tuned for more about Gina’s adventures.
Gina and Boris (The Harley)
Every private eye needs a cool ride to get them around. In THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER, Gina Miyoko’s cool ride is Boris, the Harley. Boris is a Cherry Red, 1983 Super Glide II.
Pretty, huh? Boris has been known to go through carburetors, so Gina keeps a spare on hand at all times and picks up refurbished ones whenever the opportunity arises.
She talks to Boris on occasion and has been known to speculate that if a person’s home has domovoi (which is a Russian word for the spirit of a house), perhaps vehicles have some sort of similar spirit—a Harleyvoi, or maybe a motovoi.
If you asked her point blank she’d tell you that was ridiculous, of course. ”I’m a pragmatist,” she’d say. “It’s Mom who believes all those old wives’ tales from the Motherland.”
Gina’s mom, Nadia, is a professor of folklore and religious history in the cultural anthropology department at San Francisco State University. I’ll write more about Nadia in the future, but suffice it to say, she also sees herself as a pragmatist … which she feels is ample explanation for why she occasionally blesses Boris with the contents of a bottle of Holy Water that she keeps in her refrigerator, carefully labeled, ”Holy Water: Do Not Drink.”
Gina S. Miyoko, P.I.
She’s five-foot-two, gamine, and weighs ninety-four pounds in a soggy trench coat. The nickname “Tinkerbell” has followed her from high school. It’s hard to imagine her riding a Harley named Boris, or packing a baby blue .357 Magnum. She does both. She’s Gina Miyoko, private eye.
After a disastrous engagement, quitting the San Francisco police force, and going walkabout in Gold Rush country, Gina has opened her own detective agency. Her usual cases involve suspicious spouses and worker’s comp fraud, but when her best friend, Rose, picks up a stalker, she hires Gina to help her figure out who he works for. Both women quickly realize that Rose’s work as an undercover agent for the National Park Service is far more dangerous than they knew. The stalker is connected to a black market antiquities case Rose is investigating—and he’s more than a stalker; he’s a hit man.
When Rose is gravely injured in a murder attempt, Gina takes her place in an antiquities sting operation south of the border, and finds herself in a Mayan ruin deep in the wilds of Chiapas, pursued by a man she had come to believe was a friend.
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In months to come, I’m going to post little tidbits about Tink on my blog, so please stay tuned!
Oh, and that interesting image accompanying this post? That’s Gina’s secret tattoo. You can read all about it in my first Gina Miyoko Mystery—THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER.
It’s Official! I Am Now a Mystery/Crime Writer!
Yes, it’s true. I have sold my first ever mystery / crime novel to Pegasus Books—or rather my amazing and inestimable agent has. So, I have now stopped pinching myself and am ready to squee loud and long.
My first Gina Miyoko Mystery—THE ANTIQUITIES HUNTER—will release on October 2, 2018 in hard back.
Let me tell you a little about Gina Suzu Miyoko. She’s five-foot-two, gamine, and weighs eighty-nine pounds in a soggy trench coat. The nickname “Tinkerbell” (or “Tink” for short) has followed her from high school. It’s hard to imagine her riding a Harley named Boris, or packing a baby blue Taurus .357 Magnum. She does both. She’s Gina Miyoko, private eye.
Gina’s is a highly functional if quirky family. Her Japanese-American father, Edmund, is a retired police detective. He’s also the chairman of a Bay Area Sherlock Holmes Society, chews the stem of a Meerschaum pipe that he never lights, and wears a deerstalker cap while reading the mystery novels to which he is addicted. Her mother—a professor of Slavic culture and folklore at SFSU—carefully maintains a thick “moose and squirrel” accent (thicker, Ed Miyoko claims, than when he met her) writes tragic poetry, directs a local theatre group, and collects materia magica from all over the world. This includes a vast collection of obereg (Russian for good luck charms) one of which she insists Gina carry whenever she embarks on a case.
From these two characters, Gina has inherited a curious mixture of cultural and religious influences, a passion for law enforcement, and a penchant for Russian and Japanese arcana that gives her a unique slant on reality. Styling herself a Russian Orthodox Buddhist, Gina tells herself she’s purely pragmatic, but when it comes to pursuing a case, she hedges her bets—there is always an obereg somewhere on her petite person. Oh, and she wears a signature tattoo on her right hip—a Russian Orthodox Buddha.
She may look like a doll, but his exotic, Hog-riding, pistol-packing young woman is not to be judged by her stature.
Next time—more on Tink’s first major adventure.
Tinkerbell on Walkabout from Book View Cafe
She’s 5’2″, gamine, and weighs eighty-nine pounds in a soggy trench coat. The nickname “Tinkerbell” has followed her from high school. She describes herself as a Russian Orthodox Buddhist. It’s hard to imagine her riding a Harley or packing a baby blue .357 Magnum. She does both. After a disastrous engagement and washing out of Police Academy, Gina Miyoko is on walkabout in Gold Rush country, looking for clues to her own future. What are the odds she’ll end up in the middle of a mystery deep in the heart of an obsessively neat junkyard?
Gina Suza Miyoko is the protagonist of a detective series I would LOVE to launch and for which I have already got thumbnail sketches and outlines for six or seven novels. This novelette, which releases on September 15 at Book View Cafe, is Gina’s genesis story.
Come to the Book View Cafe online bookstore and meet Gina. Or purchase from Amazon.com.
