Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Where There’s Smoke . . . (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery) by E.J. Copperman. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Where There’s Smoke . . . (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery) by E.J. Copperman
Where There’s Smoke . . . (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery)
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Publisher : Severn House
Publication date : August 4, 2026
Print length : 256 pages
Hardcover
Paint store owner Laura Meehan must prove her amateur sleuthing skills (again!) when her small town’s public library starts burning in this installment of the Haunted Paint Store cozy mystery series.
Don’t mess with a paint store owner’s safe haven!
Laura Meehan has her hands full with her paint store, but also with another case (that she will definitely leave to the police to solve)! The Sea Breeze Public Library is burning and it’s clear from the beginning that it must be arson.
Who would want to burn a library down and why? Was it a group of moms protesting what they see as inappropriate book content? Maybe it was someone who didn’t like a title they lent? Or is there something more alarming going on?
As a library volunteer, Laura simply has to find out, and together with her IT-savvy husband Roy and her ex-detective father’s ghost (real or imagined still yet to be determined), she stumbles upon a lot of obstacles on her quest to find the truth—and maybe even an arsonist who might strike again!
A light-hearted cozy mystery with a paranormal twist and Copperman’s signature wit, humor, and zaniness. Perfect for fans of Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries and Cleo Coyle’s Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, as well as funny and cozy mysteries by Janet Evanovich, Elle Cosimano, and Amanda Flower.
Author Guest Post
A Colorful Explanation
E.J. Copperman
Cozy mystery series have been set in, among many other places, flower shops, bookstores, assisted living facilities, pet shops, and libraries. But to my knowledge, there has never been one set in a store that sells paint and wallpaper. Until now.
The Haunted Paint Store series, which continues now with Where There’s Smoke, isn’t really about selling paint, although paint is sold in both this book and its predecessor, All Spooked Up. And yes, the paint store is haunted, but by the main character’s beloved father, a former police detective who bought a paint store.
It might seem like an odd place in which to set a series about solving crimes. How many crimes take place among the drop cloths and roller sleeves? But in some ways this is my most personal series of books, because when Laura Meehan is communicating with her deceased father, I’m sort of visiting with mine.
My father was never a police detective, but he owned a paint and wallpaper store in our hometown for 40 years, and it was a central part of my childhood and adolescence. When I was old enough, I’d go to the store after school and “help out,” which consisted mostly of going to the appetizing store next to his and buy a soda for myself and maybe a decaf for Dad. Then we’d sit and talk when there were no customers present. I enjoyed those days, but didn’t realize how much until they were over.
When I wasn’t in the store, Dad used to sit in the back and read crime fiction between customers, which quite often was most of the afternoon. He’d tell me about the ones he liked (he could be a fan of both Agatha Christie and Mickey Spillane) and the ones with what he considered to be too much description. “I don’t need to know what color the drapes are.” To this day, I describe as little as possible because I harbor the same bias and get bored when I get detailed paragraphs about what the place looked like and what everybody was wearing.
Some of the interaction and incidents related in the books (although no murders or arson) are memories of mine. My father did, in fact, encourage me to wait on one customer in the store when I was about 12. I thought I did an adequate job, but when I came back to the rear of the store where we sat and drank our beverages, he said to me, “Don’t ever go into retail.” He was right, of course.
I set the series in a paint store for a number of reasons. Obviously, having grown up “in the business,” I could discuss what a paint store owner goes through better than I could, say, a furrier or restauranteur. That saves me from doing to dreaded “research” that goes into books so they’ll be more believable and realistic. In a series about a woman collaborating on investigations with the ghost of her father.
Also, the pace of a paint store lends itself to a story about anything but selling paint. Most of the selling is done in the morning, when painting contractors come by to stock up for the jobs they’re doing that day. So by ten a.m. at the latest, the frantic rush of sales has slowed to a trickle and there is time for my fictional store owner to look into whatever crime has snuck its way into her life that day.
It’s not easy to figure out a number of ways to get a paint store owner investigating a murder or an arson, but then, it was just as hard for authors whose characters worked at the florist or the local movie theater. The trick is to make the crime personal to your character, so she (in my case) will care enough to place herself at some risk in order to uncover the truth.
(You might not have noticed it in the stories about the ghost, but there is a certain amount the reader has to indulge in suspension of disbelief in these stories. I admit it.)
My dad was not a lot like Amos Meehan, Laura’s father. He was just as protective of his children and he was honest and caring about his customers. That part is the same. When Amos gets petulant or a little sarcastic with his daughter, that’s not my father. I got the sarcasm from Mom’s side of the family.
But writing the series at least makes it necessary to think about my dad, and that’s part of the allure of the books for me. I spend a considerable amount of time writing these novels, an getting to “spend some time” with my father is one of the most pleasant side effects of sitting behind a keyboard and thinking about what he would have done in any given situation, even if it’s not what Amos ends up doing. Amos is a fun character to write, but the character in my head while I’m writing him is a nicer guy.
My dad’s been gone for more than 30 years. But in my mind, he still has some space to sit and talk, and maybe drink a decaf.
About E.J. Copperman
E.J. Copperman is a figment of someone’s imagination. Sometimes E.J. writes as Jeff Cohen. Where There’s Smoke is his 36th published mystery. But he says he doesn’t write mysteries; he writes comedies that have a mystery in them. It’s up to you to decide if that’s true.
Enter the Giveaway
Where There’s Smoke… TOUR PARTICIPANTS
August 3 – Books1987 – SPOTLIGHT
August 3 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
August 4 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT
August 4 – Sarandipity’s – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 5 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW
August 5 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 5 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
August 6 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 6 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
August 7 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 7 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
August 8 – StoreyBook Reviews – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 8 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – SPOTLIGHT
August 9 – Deal Sharing Aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 10 – Romance Novel Giveaways – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 10 – Because I said so – adventures in parenting – REVIEW
August 10 – From the TBR Pile – REVIEW
August 11 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 11 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 11 – Salty Inspirations – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 12 – Sarcastically Yours, Jen – SPOTLIGHT
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