With more hours of daylight, summer is a great time of the year to catch up on your reading list. Vacations and long flights give many bibliophiles the opportunity to read and also add new books to their reading lists. For those interested in spicing up their summer reading, Lovers and Other Killers by Penelope Karageorge is a well-written and entertaining murder mystery featuring strong characters and a compelling plot.

Karageorge, a longtime contributor to The National Herald and publications as diverse as Cosmopolitan and Mouth Full of Bullets, utilizes her journalistic skills and vivid description to draw readers into the absorbing world of this book. The dialogue also has a cinematic quality that seems destined for a film adaptation.

The protagonist of Love and Other Killers is New York journalist Cass Cooper, the prime suspect in the brutal stabbing death of her ex-husband Vance just after his release from prison. He served a mere five years for a Ponzi scheme that lost millions for investors. Psychologist Noah Lazeroff had testified that he was not evil — but a gambling addict who made the mistake of playing with Wall Street money. While in prison, Vance penned a tell-all memoir, a potential blockbuster that his friend, book publisher Dev Lal, looked forward to publishing — but the manuscript mysteriously disappears. Cass’ search for a killer takes her from her Greenwich Village apartment to a billionaire’s Park Avenue penthouse to the country retreat of an experimental group working with the new LSD. Lovers and Other Killers transports readers into a fictional world of love, murder, and addiction in all its forms.

Author and journalist Penelope Karageorge cultivates wide-ranging literary interests, including a passion for the mystery novel, as noted in her biography. Besides her latest novel, she is also the author of Murder at Tomorrow, published by Walker, set in the news magazine world. Her second novel, Stolen Moments, published by Kensington, a roman a clef of sex and intrigue in a publishing empire, was published in England as Winners, and in Germany where it became a best-seller as New York, New York.

Karageorge is also a prize-winning poet. Pella published her first collection, Red Lipstick and the Wine-Dark Sea, which contains the poem “New York Love Letter: P.S. You’re Crazy,” a winner in a city-wide contest sponsored by the Mayor’s Office. Somerset Hall published her second collection, The Neon Suitcase. Her poetry appears in twelve anthologies.

Karageorge’s feature-length film script, The Neon Jungle, a fast-paced neo noir, placed seventh out of 3,000 plus entries in the prestigious Final Draft competition. Karageorge has written and produced short films including Fat Tuesday, a mystery/romance; The Vanishing Typewriter, a documentary; and Shock Therapy, an homage to Alfred Hitchcock. She is in pre-production for Reach Out and Touch Someone, a dark comedy.

Karageorge began her journalistic career at Newsweek magazine, interviewing luminaries including Bette Davis and Frank Sinatra.

Love and Other Killers by Penelope Karageorge is available online.