
Thank you for the opportunity to share my latest novel with you. I am always excited when people ask me about my Clara and Iris mystery series.
The two older women, in their seventies, were first introduced as side characters in my novel Sweet Dreams, Baby Belle. Clara Samples, a nurse, became privy to information that her boss was formulating a Ponzi scheme. It wasn’t long before she dragged her best friend, Iris Hadley, into the mix. The two, although a thorn in the local police department’s side, were crucial in solving the case. They found the excitement hard to walk away from and, after Clara’s retirement, they opened Hadley and Samples, Private Investigations. Readers loved them so much I had to keep writing more novels with them and it took off from there!
The characters were inspired by the fifty-year friendship between my real mother and her best friend. Their personalities were quite different but their strong friendship worked, just as Clara and Iris’s does. Their devotion to one another, their humor, and even their frustration with one another at times, make for the most entertaining novel. The feedback from readers of the Clara and Iris series has been so strong that it would be doing a disservice not to allow them to continue to solve crimes.
Clara and Iris struggle to keep up with the times, especially where technology is concerned. Poor Iris couldn’t even spell “Google”; however, they typically prefer to do things the old-fashioned way instead of getting the latest phones and computers. Fortunately for them, they have a young, street-savvy office manager who is willing to bring them up to speed. However, Clara and Iris have something that the younger generation is lacking: common sense and intuition.
Murder Among the Tombstones is the first complete novel dedicated to Clara and Iris, who had various characters help them along the way. From their office manager, whose work experience was limited to a few short stints in the fast-food industry, to the morgue attendant, who took a liking to the PIs, to the homicide detective, who finds them to be two nosey old women—they all played a necessary role in Clara and Iris’s success. The characters, in my opinion, are as critical to the storyline as the private I’s and I couldn’t imagine not carrying them on in future novels. I would miss them too much.
Clara and Iris novels are not your typical cozy mystery reads. They, more often than not, get themselves into some very harrowing situations. From being stalked by a murderous Russian mercenary to being taken hostage, they are forces to be reckoned with. But despite the boring days of endless surveillance, to literally dodging bullets, their delightful humor inevitably shines through. As Clara struggles to get Iris to think before she speaks, it never seems to pan out. If readers like edge-of-your-seat thrillers with an injection of laugh-out-loud humor, a Clara and Iris novel won’t disappoint.

The third installment of the series is The Root of All Evil. It’s an unusual mystery, in that the crime has already occurred and the perps have been incarcerated for the past seven years. However, there are two people who aren’t sure they’ve convicted the right people. One of the two is the sister of one of the homicide victims and the other is the sister of one of the men housed in one of Georgia’s most secure prisons.
As unlikely as it would seem for these two to form an alliance, they remain steadfast in their beliefs that the Atlanta Police Department should be looking for the real criminals. With both the detectives and the district attorney convinced the case has been solved and the right men are behind bars, they insist on putting the whole matter behind them.
Realizing they’ve run up against a brick wall, the skeptical pair turn to two unconventional private investigators. Clara Samples and Iris Hadley should be home crocheting blankets or attending garden club meetings, but instead, they’ve chosen to open up a PI firm in their twilight years. Full of wisdom, humor, and tenacity, these women will stop at nothing to unearth the truth.
But, as they delve deeper into the grisly crime, nothing is as it seems. From Iris working undercover as a waitress, to Clara scouring out-of-state pawn shops, the duo soon discovers more questions than answers. Has the state indeed locked away the wrong men or did they get it right? As Clara and Iris get closer and closer to answers, some people are determined for the past to remain buried. Will Clara and Iris unravel the truth before they become the killer’s latest victim?
I hope your readers will enjoy reading the series of Clara and Iris Mysteries as much as I enjoyed writing them!
“Kim Carter is a multi-award-winning author and critically acclaimed writer of gripping suspense, chilling thrillers, and haunting historical mysteries. Ms. Carter is widely known for her vibrant characters in her Clara and Iris Mystery series, a couple of overly curious widows who turn into private investigators. These funny women were inspired by Kim’s mother and her mom’s best friend. Book one of this series, Murder Among The Tombstones, was chosen as a Finalist for the 2018 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award and a recipient of the 2017 TCK Publishers’ Readers’ Choice Award.” —Kim Carter Official Website
Read more from Kim Carter here.
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