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Overview
DEAF GOLD COUNTRY JOURNALIST INVESTIGATES
With a colorful cast of characters, a quick-paced plot, and a resourceful heroine whos as unusual as she is appealing, Penny Warner delivers another winner. Blind Side is lively entertainment that both surprises and satisfies.—Jonnie Jacobs, author of Murder Among Strangers and Witness for the Defense
Buford the Bullfrog is dead. And thats only the beginning...
Connor Westphal, the feisty deaf publisher of the weekly Eureka! jumps into the annual Jubilee festivities when her sidekick and main squeeze, private eye Dan Smith, is retained by Bufords jockey to find the murderer. With the help of Sheriff Elvis Mercer and the eccentric denizens of Flat Skunk, Connor and Dan think itll be a snap, until the sheriffs son Jeremiah comes under suspicion—and a human body surfaces in Critters Creek, along with a lot more dead frogs. Connor knows her assistant, Miah Mercer, is innocent, and with the aid of a new blind friend, sets about finding out who is killing the frogs—and people—of Calaveras County.
Blind Side is Connor Westphals fifth adventure. In this book and in Dead Body Language, Sign of Foul Play, Right to Remain Silent, and A Quiet Undertaking the intrepid deaf sleuth has investigated the mortuary business, family secrets, mining, the construction trade, overdevelopment, health care scams, and other ills of small-town life in the Gold Country. Warner has many devoted deaf fans, and her hearing readers have learned much about the deaf world. Blind Side similarly explores the world of the unsighted. But the most valuable lesson of the series is Connors fierce determination not to lether disability rob her of the fullest possible life.
Praise for Penny Warners Connor Westphal Mystery Series
Dead Body Language (Bantam, 1997)
Penny Warners Dead Body Language features an unconventional female sleuth, Connor Westphal, an ex-Chronicle reporter who now publishes her own small Gold Country newspaper, lives and works in Flat Skunk. What raises the book above the ordinary is its heroine, deaf since an attack of meningitis when she was four. Connors disability doesn't keep her down one bit. From Connor we learn about lip reading, sign language, and writing styles on the TTY. The novel is enlivened by some nice twists, an unexpected villain, a harrowing mortuary scene, its Gold Country locale, and fascinating perspective on a little known subculture.
—San Francisco Chronicle 6/97
Sign of Foul Play (Bantam, 1998)
Connor Westphal, deaf journalist/sleuth, is caught up once again in the more lethal happenings of Flat Skunk, Calif. After her successful first outing in Dead Body Language, the wisecracking, thirty-something Connor continues to search for any story other than the local frog-racing contest that will give her newspaper, the Eureka!, an edge over the competition. Through Connors spunky first-person narrative, Warner, a sign-language/special ed teacher, perfectly conveys all the ways a deaf person perceives and communicates. As in the first Connor mystery, it is not wise to read the last chapters before bedtime. This is delicious, with a fun, irreverent protagonist.
—Publishers Weekly 11/97
Right to Remain Silent (Bantam, 1998)
The best mysteries employ credibility of plot and originality of character, strictures not lost on novelist Penny Warner. Right to Remain Silent, Warners third novel featuring Connor Westphal, a deaf journalist, fulfills both requirements admirably. The plot is that of a classically executed whodunit, but beyond that, it spotlights, without being condescending or obvious, the methods used by a person with a hearing loss in tracking a murder. You grow so accustomed to Westphals whimsical first-person narrative that you occasionally forget her deafness.
—Chicago Sun-Times 1/99
Quiet Undertaking (Bantam, z2000)
This is the fourth in the Connor Westphal series. Westphal is a deaf journalist and publisher of a small weekly newspaper in Flat Skunk, part of the gold country of California. Westphal has recently joined a paint ball war game group. After her team has won she follows the sheriff to a storage facility where the owner has received a complaint about a rental space. When the owner opened the door she found many small boxes of ashes, apparently cremations....I like this series. I like the characters. I like Westphal and learning about how she copes with being deaf. She can read lips and manages pretty well in the hearing biased world, but Warner also points out the hazards and frustrations. One of the suspects is a man in a wheelchair, and I like the way Westphal occasionally underestimates a person with a different disability.
—Mystery News 4/00
Author Biography: Penny Warner is the author of over twenty-five books, including five in the Connor Westphal series. Dead Body Language was nominated for an Agatha award and won a Macavity award for Best First Mystery. Warner teaches child development and sign language at local colleges. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She lives and writes in Danville, California.
Croaked in Calaveras
Buford the Bullfrog is dead.
And thats only the beginning.
Connor Westphal, the feisty deaf publisher of the weekly Eureka! jumps into the annual Jubilee festivities when her sidekick and main squeeze, private eye Dan Smith, is retained by Bufords jockey to find the murderer. With the help of Sheriff Elvis Mercer and the eccentric denizens of Flat Skunk, Connor and Dan think itll be a snap, until the sheriffs son Jeremiah comes under suspicion—and a human body surfaces in Critters Creek, along with a lot more dead frogs. Connor knows Jeremiah is innocent, and with the aid of a new blind friend, sets about finding out who is killing the frogs—and people—of Calaveras County.
Advance Praise for Blind Side
Hurrah for Connor Westphal, the warmest, funniest, and most likable amateur sleuth in mystery writing today! Every trip back to Penny Warners town of Flat Skunk is always worth the price of admission, but Blind Side is my favorite so far. With an amazing cast of colorful characters, laugh-out-loud humor, chili-covered frogs, and the best literary treatment of a jumping amphibian festival since 1867, this book has it all. Mark Twain would be proud!
—Rick Riordan, Edgar winner and author of The Last King of Texas
With a colorful cast of characters, a quick-paced plot, and a resourceful heroine whos as unusual as she is appealing, Penny Warner delivers another winner. Blind Side is lively entertainment that both surprises and satisfies.
—Jonnie Jacobs, author of Murder Among Strangers
and Witness for the Defense
Synopsis
Buford the Bullfrog is dead, and that's only the beginning. Connor Westphal, the feisty deaf publisher of the weekly Eureka! in Flat Skunk, California, jumps into the annual Jubilee festivities to find out who is killing the frogs—and people—of Calaveras County.
Publishers Weekly
It's Jumping Frog Jubilee season, and Connor Westphal's PI boyfriend, Dan Smith, is investigating prized amphibian Buford's death. The next victim is human, and our heroine, deaf editor of a local paper, navigates illegal toxic-waste dumping, frantic frog owners, abominable poetry and the drug trade in Blind Side, the latest Connor Westphal mystery by Penny Warner. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.