Kaye Publicity

A Botanist’s Guide to Tradition and Treachery is the fifth novel in Kate Khavari‘s popular Saffron Everleigh Mystery series, and it is due to be published tomorrow (June 9th) by Crooked Lane Books. To celebrate the release, and give readers a taste of the novel (and series as a whole, for newcomers), CR has an excerpt to share! First, though, here’s the synopsis:

Brilliant botanist Saffron Everleigh has set sail on her first research expedition, but it’s disrupted by accusations of murder when one of her fellow scientists is murdered…

Saffron Everleigh is newly engaged and full of optimism as she sets off on the adventure of a lifetime for any scientist: a research expedition. She sails to newly formed Turkey with her fiancé, Alexander Ashton, and a bevy of fellow researchers under the watchful and reformed eye of Dr. Henry. With only two other women on board, Saffron soon finds she is right back in the same infuriatingly misogynistic environment that marked the earliest days of her career. Only this time, Saffron is determined to show everyone, including Alexander, that she can handle the trials of an expedition.

And trials she has in spades. Before the expedition team has even arrived, Saffron has managed to find an enemy in historian Joseph Clark, who frequently torments the assistant that Saffron has taken under her wing, Martin Neill. But when Martin unexpectedly dies, Saffron is targeted as the main suspect.

Falling ruins, venomous snakes, and mysteriously blocked passages are the least of Saffron’s worries. With unexpected help from a familiar face, Alexander and Saffron have to work fast to prove not only that Saffron is innocent but that they both have nothing to do with a larger conspiracy at play among the expedition crew.

And now, on with the excerpt…

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BaileyRD-PirateCoveUSHC We have something a little bit different, today: an excerpt from a biography about corporate intrigue and deception, and the dark side of finance: Robert D. Bailey‘s Pirate Cove. Due to be published by Bancroft Press on November 7th, the lovely people at Kaye Publicity have provided us with an excerpt from early on in the book. First, here’s the synopsis:

When Richard Bailey, a successful yet jobless businessman, receives a call from his old friend Jeff, he’s lured back into the high-stakes world of finance. Jeff, a charismatic corporate veteran, is now the number three guy at Southport Lane, a fledgling private equity firm. His boss invites Richard to inspect a pharmaceutical venture that reeks of mismanagement and financial disaster.

Bailey quickly finds himself navigating a sea of corruption as he attempts to rescue a floundering vineyard, Lieb Cellars, while unraveling a complex web of deceit at the heart of the corporate operations at Southport Lane.

Bailey provides an insider’s chronicle of a white-collar crime whose headline-grabbing elements first appeared on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal. It’s the true, unvarnished, previously untold, and fascinating story of how one honest man helped unravel the massive Southport Lane fraud perpetrated by the author’s former employer, 26-year-old, self-proclaimed financial prodigy Alexander Chatfield Burns.

A friend of the author once asked Burns how he got control of four state-regulated insurance companies. With a Cheshire cat grin, Burns cryptically responded, “Jesus with a telescope on Mars couldn’t figure out how I did this.”

But Bailey eventually did.

Now, read on for the excerpt, about the author’s early encounters with Burns…

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