Comic mystery novels grounded in the Golden Age tradition of mystery-writing, employing old-fashioned well-constructed plotting as seen in the work of mystery masters Ngaio Marsh and H. R. F.Keating.  
     
                                   
 

Rosalie Stafford,MA,
holds degrees in
art & architectural history, in
literature, &
in folklore.

Her pastimes include
playing bridge,
oil painting,
jewelry design,
web design,
weaving, and looking at buildings.


Cat-lover?
What mystery-lover doesn't love cats? See pics of beautiful

Pes Magnus and Furkifur.
                 
Thursday's Child &
The Queen of Swords:
A Flora & Shamus Large Print Mystery
                 

 

                   

Who killed Kyra?  Plenty of people wanted the blackmailing call girl out of the way.  Does a telephone psychic really know whodunnit - and is that really safe?  After all, the second murder is easier than the first.  And the third is easier yet.

 

 

This dark and richly-comic mystery, which examines San Diego's drug-fueled sex-for-hire underworld, introduces naive folklorist Flora Dimopoulos, private investigator Shamus Fitzmorris, and the redoubtable defense attorney MaryJo Clark.

In her search for a recherché thesis topic which will help her along her career path to a tenured position, Flora takes a job as a telephone psychic.  Occupational folklore abounds at the psychic hotline and the innocent Flora naively interviews her meth-addict workmates.  But the most pressing question turns out to be: could a telephone psychic really discover the identity of the call-girl's killer?

                       
Caution: read the fine print
Rosalie Stafford is
committed to excellence and is
proudly politically-incorrect:
her mordant satirical books pull no punches.
                 
 
                      Friday's Child &
The Five Diamonds:

A Flora & Shamus Large Print Mystery

FREE
Writing lessons


Steps of the
Writing Process:

Work smarter,
not harder

13 Rules
for
ridiculously
bad writing

Understanding
the Lard Ratio:

The secret to
low-fat writing

Three-Part
Visual Analysis:

Practice
Erwin Panofsky's
analytical techniques:

understand
how art achieves its aesthetic effects &
learn to read
the visual subtext of images ranging from
Old Masters
to billboards

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
How to Write a Paper,
Step by Step

Architectural History students:
Read this
before
you start researching
your first
formal analysis.

                                   
                 
Historic Brick Row, South Bay's elegant block of Victorian mansions, is not yet entirely gentrified ... and millionaire Marva Jankowsky is not happy with the slow pace of the process. The redheaded real-estate developer snaps up every property on the tree-lined block as soon as aged owners pass away. Lately, fatal accidents have been carrying away elderly owners of Brick Row homes at a statistically improbable rate.  Accidents?
 

Flora Dimopoulos is offered an exciting folklorist-in-residence position.  But —dreadful to imagine— possibly inside one Brick Row Victorian mansion resides a homicidal madman.

Is one of Flora's charming Brick Row neighbors killing frail and elderly home-owners?  Could the fiend be the historic preservationist Marva Jankowsky, who snatches up the precipitously-vacated Victorians for restoration?  Has Marva's love for Brick Row over-powered her reason or is abrasive Marva just the fall-guy: is someone else at work here, with motives inscrutably obscure?  

Flora, along with private investigator Shamus Fitzmorris and defense attorney MaryJo Clark, matches wits with an obsessed serial killer.

         
                           
                  Historic Brick Row, South Bay's elegant block of Victorian mansions

 

 
     
 
Thursday's Child &
The Queen of Swords

and

Friday 's Child &
The Five Diamonds

are available
through
Amazon,

Booklocker,
Barnes & Noble,
and neighborhood bookstores.
 
 
Flora & Shamus Mysteries
are published
only in
Large Print
 

 

Writing teachers: visit Rosalie Stafford's recent syllabi and course outlines.   Help yourself to any ideas you might like to use in your own writing classes. 

Email Rosalie Stafford [rosalie_stafford at yahoo dot com] with links to your own hybrid humanities courses or writing-across-the-curriculum courses.

Recent syllabi
New course outline
Survey of The Ethnographic Novel: 1722-2007

New Report
Three Streamline Moderne Houses in National City, California: Proposed Inclusion under Mills Act & Inventory of Streamline Moderne and Moderne Structures in National City, California

 

       
"Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think."
       

       
 

Comic mystery writer Rosalie Stafford is founding publisher of Web Mystery Magazine.

She is author of two Large Print Flora & Shamus Mystery comic novels: Thursday's Child & The Queen of Swords (theme: obsessive pride) and Friday's Child & The Five Diamonds (theme: obsessive greed). She is currently working on Saturday's Child & The Sad King of Clubs (theme: obsessive deceit). Low-vision herself, she is dedicated to crafting excellent mystery novels and publishing them in the Large Print format.

Rosalie Stafford holds a Lifetime Credential (California) to teach English at the college level; she teaches research writing, visual analysis, and humanities.

Unlike most sheltered academics, Rosalie Stafford has lived life to the fullest.  Having survived experiences which shock the soul, having seen first-hand the personal and cultural destruction wrought by liberalism, she has evolved into a committed conservative activist.  
       
                 
 

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.

Albert Einstein

             
 
             
 
Recommended Reading
             
 
             
 
'Zines
  Authors         Video              

 


 

*City Journal
*Commentary
*Cybercast News Service
*Daniel Pipes Newsletter
*Front Page
*GOP USA Eagle
*Hoover Digest
*Imprimus
*Intellectual Conservative
*National Review
*Power & Interest News Report 
*The Spectator
*The Weekly Standard
*The Wilson Quarterly
*The World Net Daily

 

Ann Coulter, J.D.
Anthony Everitt
Bruce Bawer, Ph.D.
Chad Millman
Christopher C. Horner, J.D.
Claire Berlinski, Ph.D.
David Horowitz, M. Lit.
Dick Morris
Dinesh d'Souza
Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihin, Ph.D.
Gregg Jackson
Gregory L.Schneider, Ph.D.
Heather MacDonald, J.D.
Jane M. Healey, Ph.D.
Jim Powell
Jonah Goldberg
Kevin R. C. Gutzman, J. D., Ph.D.
Larry Elder, J.D.
Laura Ingraham, J. D.
Lyle H. Rossiter, M.D.
M. Stanton Evans
Marie Winn
Mark Levin, J.D.
Mark Steyn
Melanie Phillips
Michael Savage, Ph D.
Michael D. Tanner
Michelle Malkin
Myron Lieberman, Ph.D.
Myron Magnet, Ph.D.
Nader Baydoun, J.D.
Neal Boortz, J.D.
Newt Gingrich, Ph D.
Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D.
Peter Brimelow
Peter Schweizer, M. Phil.
Richard J. Herrnstein, Ph.D.
Robert Spencer, M. Div.
Rodney Stark, Ph.D.
Ronald Radosh, Ph.D.
Rosalie Stafford, M. Lit.
Steven Farron
S. Fred Singer, Ph.D.
Sun Tzu
T. M. Moore
Terry Eastland
Theodore Dalrymple, M.D.
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Thomas Sowell, J.D.
Ward Connerly
William Wright
William F. Buckley

Mohammed, The Pervert Prophet
Originally posted on Youtube, this video was censored and removed from the web; thanks to IFilm, it remains available.  Caution:politically-incorrect.

Infidel Boggers Alliance

Some interesting points:
Islam, the cult invented by Mohammed, teaches that
that the Earth is flat,
that women are on a level with animals,
that making slaves of non-Muslims is okay,
that it is permissible for Muslim (men) to have sexual intercourse with infants,

Islam is a phallo-centric cult which was culturally backward when it was first invented in the Dark Ages. Islam is a fascist movement whose stated intention is the destruction of Western culture.  Ignoring the threat of Islamofascism is suicidal.

Quote:
"
Islam is a caustic blend of regurgitated paganism and twisted Bible stories. Muhammad, its lone prophet, conceived his religion solely to satiate his lust for power, sex, and money."

Organizations

  Anti-Islamofascism
*Anti-CAIR
*Anti-Defamation League
*Campus Watch
*Faith Freedon
*Infidel Boggers Alliance
*Jihad Watch
*Prophet of Doom

  Anti-Political Correctness in Education
*No Indoctrination
*Parents & Students for Academic Freedom K-12
*Students for Academic Freedom 


Anti-Illegal Immigration
*English First
*Numbers USA

 

 

 

             
 
Think Tanks
*American Conservative Union
*Cato Institute
*Competitive Enterprise Institute
*Center for Immigration Studies
*Center for Strategic & International Studies
*Heritage Foundation
*Hoover Institution
*Horowitz Freedom Center
*International Assessment and Strategy Center
*Judicial Watch
*Manhattan Institute
*Marshall Institute
*Online Library of Liberty
*Stratfor: Strategic Forecasting, Inc.