Vintage Trailers and Blackmailers by Heather Weidner

There is nothing like finding a dead body, clad only in a red satin thong, on your property to jolt you from a quiet routine. Jules Keene, owner of the posh Fern Valley Camping Resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains, is thrust into the world of the dark web when one of her guests, Ira Perkins, is found murdered in the woods near her vintage trailers. Jules quickly discovers that the man who claimed to be on a writing retreat was not what he seemed, and someone will go to any length to find what he left at her resort. Jules, along with her Jack Russell terrier sidekick Bijou, has to put the rest of the missing pieces of a blackmailing scheme together before her business is ruined.

Heather Weidner recently spent some time with The Big Thrill discussing her latest mystery, VINTAGE TRAILERS AND BLACKMAILERS:

What attracts you to this book’s genre?

I have loved mysteries since Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew. The cozy genre is a mix of fun and whimsey juxtaposed with a world of crime where justice is needed.

Heather Weidner

Was there anything new you discovered, or that surprised you, as you wrote this book?

I have been fascinated with glamping and tiny houses, and I didn’t realize until I started my research the actual size of some of these dwellings. The builders are so creative. I decided after watching hours of video and home renovation shows that this would be the perfect addition to the Fern Valley Camping Resort.

No spoilers, but what can you tell us about your book that we won’t find in the jacket copy or the PR material?

My aunt and uncle owned the Crab Tree Falls Campground in the 1970s. I based Jules’s resort on some fond summer memories from their place.

What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?

The many authors who shared the pseudonym of Carolyn Keene and Agatha Christie influenced my early reading and started me off on a lifelong love of all things mystery, thriller, and suspense.

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Through the years, Heather Weidner has been a cop’s kid, technical writer, editor, college professor, software tester, and IT manager. Vintage Trailers and Blackmailers is the first in her cozy mystery series, the Jules Keene Glamping Mysteries. She also writes the Delanie Fitzgerald mystery series set in Virginia.

Her short stories appear in the Virginia is for Mysteries series, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Deadly Southern Charm, and Murder by the Glass, and her novellas appear in The Mutt Mysteries series.

She is a member of Sisters in Crime–Central Virginia, Sisters in Crime–Chessie, Guppies, International Thriller Writers, and James River Writers.

To learn more about the author and her work, please visit her website.