Book Club Reading Guide for Wilful Murder (Alicia Allen Investigates Book 2) as listed on LitLovers...

If you are a member of a book club or you want to set one up or you just love reading and books, then I recommend you check out LitLovers.

LitLovers features reading guides ( including discussion questions), book reviews, author bios and plot summaries and far more besides. The site was created by Molly Lundquist, a former English instructor who “loves to read and can’t stop talking about literature.” Many thanks to Molly for including Wilful Murder in the listings for book clubs and featuring the reading guide for the book. To read the full listing please see below or to go to the LitLovers website please click here.

Wilful Murder  (Alicia Allen Investigates Trilogy, 2)
Celia Conrad, 2011
Barcham Books
332 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780954623333

Summary
The second mystery in the Alicia Allen Investigates trilogy lures the justice-loving solicitor out of London and into the shadowy depths of the Land Down Under where nothing is what it seems and a risky Trust could lead to murder.

When an Australian-born heiress living in London asks Alicia Allen to draw up a Will in expectation of her forthcoming marriage and impending English fortune, she reveals that her family members have been meeting untimely deaths. After her fiancé is killed in an explosion, and her own life is threatened, she implores Alicia to investigate. Alicia soon finds herself hot on the trail of a psychopathic killer who could be responsible for the deaths and near-deaths that continue to occur in London and Australia—or are there two psychopaths working in tandem?

Alicia’s quest takes her to Australia—coinciding with an Australian friend’s wedding in Brisbane where Alicia’s old flame Alex Waterford has also been invited. Alex, a London lawyer now working in Singapore for a British firm, confesses his love for Alicia, but events conspire to make the pursuit of justice more important than personal desires, and the duo join forces to solve the crimes.

Putting questions of love on the back burner, they put their own lives on the line as they search for the answer to the murderous mystery that lies just beneath the misleadingly placid surfaces of Probate, Wills and a Trust.

This is the second book in the Alicia Allen Investigates Trilogy. A Model Murder (2011) is the first.

Reviews
Celia Conrad has composed a pastiche of cozy-cerebral murder mystery “must haves” plus a fresh blend of Travelogue, Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare and Love Story.
                                                Dancing in the Experience Lane Book Reviews Blog

Alicia Allen in Australia may seem a cuddly, fluffy, Pringle-crunching koala, but when needed she can show both class and claws! Conrad sets any number of teasing possible outcomes in motion, and reserving some daring bait-and-switch manoeuvres for the final chapters. For much of the novel Alicia is in Australia while many of the key plot developments take place in England…yet the pace never slackens.
                                             Ophideide, Amazon U.K. customer review

Discussion Questions - Partial List 
(For all, please go to our Discussion Questions page)

1.  What is your opinion of the bitter family feuds and inheritance issues as they are depicted in Wilful Murder?
2. In what ways can you relate to the concept of hostile and greedy relatives and toxic family ties?
3. Since Wilful Murder is Book 2 of the Alicia Allen Investigates Trilogy, did it strike you as a “stand-alone” mystery tale, or would you suggest readers read Book 1, A Model Murder, first? What is the reason for your answer?
4. What do you see as Alicia Allen’s strengths and weaknesses as a lawyer/detective?
5. Do you agree with Alex that Alicia’s feeling of obligation to do the best for her clients goes too far sometimes?
6. What do you think about Alicia’s on/off relationship with Alex? Why do you think Alicia pushes him away when it is evident she is so attracted to him?

Wilful Murder is currently available from:

Amazon (paperback & Kindle)
Smashwords
Itunes(iBooks)
Kobo
Barnes & Noble (Nook)

Contact details

Please contact me via the Contact Form on this Blog OR:
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Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
Celia Conrad

5 STAR SEAL FROM READERS' FAVORITE FOR "A MODEL MURDER"

Knowing that Readers' Favorite reviews books for industry icons such as Random House, Penguin Group, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette and many independent authors and publishers I decided to submit my crime novel, A Model Murder, which is book 1 of the Alicia Allen Investigates trilogy to them for review.

I was delighted to receive the following 5 star review from them today and the accompanying 5 star seal.

A Model Murder by Celia Conrad is an appealing new modern crime story. Alicia lives in England and is half Italian and I quickly found myself rooting for her. Alicia is a lawyer who is starting a new job in a law firm that turns out to be not exactly what she had expected. Her neighbor Tammy, trying hard to become a model, is raped and murdered while working at a low life hostess club. Tammy’s roommate Kim is absolutely devastated by the murder and begs Alicia for her help. Dorothy, an elderly lady living in the same flat, is badly beaten for what she has seen. At Kim’s urging, Alicia investigates and is faced with threats and near death experiences. It becomes difficult to be sure which of her friends to trust and which are really not whom they appear to be. Twists and turns abound as we are taken into the sleazy nightclub world and the inner workings of a law firm looking for the killer rapist.

It took me a while to get used to some of the British dialogue and I have no idea of what the Italian phrases sprinkled throughout meant, but it made no difference in the reading of A Model Murder. I was hooked on page one and completely and pleasantly surprised when I reached the conclusion. A Model Murder is subtitled Alicia Allen Investigates 1 and I am anxiously awaiting number 2. Celia Conrad has jumped to the top of my favorite author list and Alicia Allen is without a doubt my favorite new fictional lawyer/investigator crime solver. This book should be on the top of every woman’s reading list.

To read more about Reader's Favorite click here.

A Model Murder and the other two parts of the Alicia Allen Investigates trilogy, Wilful Murder & Murder in Hand are available from:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

New Book Review: "WILFUL MURDER" UNTANGLES BLOODY FAMILY TREE

I'm just delighted with this perceptive Open Salon review of "Wilful Murder" (the second book in my Alicia Allen Investigates Trilogy) that posted a couple days ago. Thank you!

Book Review

 "Wilful Murder" Untangles Bloody Family Tree.

Look to the past to see what the future holds. —Wilful Murder 

Who doesn't enjoy a ripping good tale of a Will, murdered relatives and love's labor rewarded? For Wilful Murder, the second book in the Alicia Allen Investigates trilogy, British author Celia Conrad has concocted a pastiche composed of the basic elements we expect in a murder mystery that spins on disgruntled relatives, and reinvented it as part-Travelogue, part-Greek Tragedy, part-Shakespeare and part-Love Story. 

 If you love "cozy mysteries" with their gentle no-sex-or-graphic-violence paradigms, and strong, intuitive female amateur sleuths; and you love "cerebral mysteries" with their complicated Ah Ha! plots, then I highly recommend Wilful Murder for your next great read.

And if you know nothing about cozies or cerebrals, but just love a bittersweet romantic subplot where a dynamic duo slug it out until they (almost) fall into each other's arms á la Hepburn and Tracy--then yes, this book's for you too. 

I do suggest reading Book 1, A Model Murder, first. Although  few of the first book's characters and almost none of its setting make their way into the second, there's little exposition to bring the newbie up to speed in terms of what has happened in the past to create the present circumstances that open the story.

 In the previous book, Alicia Allen--the Anglo-Italian woman lawyer with a passion for justice--makes friends with an Australian neighbor who works at the law firm where Alicia has just been newly hired.  The young, pretty Australian, Kim, has a crush on her boss, Alex, who in turn has a thing for the incomparable Alicia.

At the end of A Model Murder, Alicia and Alex appear to be merrily strolling off into the sunset. But alas, they are not a couple by the time we revisit Alicia in London. 

As Wilful Murder opens, Alicia is preparing to go to Kim's wedding in Australia. She is now estranged from Alex who once courted her, but took off to work in Singapore. They are still in touch, but Alicia carries resentment at Alex's decision to distance himself from her.

 "I don't think you can afford to trust anyone..."

Alicia Allen is nothing if not cautious. She is not a heroine who wears her heart on her sleeve, and in this, not unlike Patricia Cornwall's psychologically wounded medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. Like Scarpetta, Alicia plays her cards close to her chest. She's not one to swoon when Alex appears again--this time in Australia for Kim's wedding. For his part, Alex wants nothing more than to woo Alicia, and he nearly turns himself inside out trying.

Alicia has other things on her mind by the time she crosses paths with the most-desirable-man-on-earth (aka "Alex"). Before leaving London, she took on a client with more troubles than her own: Isabelle Parker, an heiress who is about to come into a magnificent fortune, if she can stay alive long enough to inherit it. Relatives and relatives-to-be have been dropping like proverbial flies, and the body count grows as the plot proceeds.

Having read Book 1, we know that Alicia would rather find the killer or killers than opt for a romantic fling with her ex-boyfriend while she travels Australia on a kind of "working" holiday to investigate the Australian-British ancestral ties of the endangered heiress.

She visits lovely beachy spots, dines in charming cafes on exotic fare and visits museums--without her solicitious solicitor suitor in tow. Quite frankly, those of us who might be lying boyfriendless on some beach reading Wilful Murder may wish to slap some sense into this righteous heroine, but thereis still that voice inside our heads that shouts, "You go, Girl!" when she finally gets physical in a life-threatening clinch with the killer as the story approaches its denouement.  

Conrad arranges for Alex to be out of the picture for quite some time, and we are left to follow Alicia's head as she works out the puzzle to solve these crimes. This is true to the "cerebral" mystery style, and reminiscent of Agatha Christie's careful detailing and construction. The plot is chock full of minor characters: most of whom we barely get to know.

In the first chapter, Isabelle's statements regarding her ancestral history were so complex, I ended up mapping it out on paper so I could keep track of who's who.

One of Conrad's great strengths is dialogue. I found that if I simply "saw" the story as a film and let the dialogue carry me through, A Wilful Murder came to vivid life in my mind's eye. 

"What are the two things most people kill for?" 

An ominous note received by imminent victims warns:

"Look to the past to see what the future holds and make recompense for what those before  you have done..." 

Conrad's handling of "the past" as it pertains to Isabelle's tangled family tree gives a (perhaps unwitting) nod to the Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex. The play is made up mostly of exposition. We hear about the past...the past...the past. The gory action of Oedipus gouging out his eyes when he realizes he's married his mother is saved for the end. Conrad saves up her big action scenes for the end--after we have been put through the wringer of cerebral dialogue that examines the unaswered questions of the Past.

"Indecisive." 

"Indecisive" is one of the last words in the book, and reflects this tale's Hamlet aspects. Yes, Alicia catches the bouquet, but it has no more active effect on her than Hamlet seeing his father's ghost. There is also something Shakespearean in the way Conrad tends to kill off her characters "offstage," so news of their demise are brought by messengers.

When the story comes together at the end--revealing truths, tying up some loose ends and leaving others still hanging--it leaves the reader feeling winded and yet oddly trimphant having made it across the various locales and dangers that abide in Wilful Murder, and having found tourist pleasures in the Land Down Under and returned to Great Britain, while still trying to figure out whodunit.

Wilful Murder is built around the fine art of looking at the past--where we came from, what made us who we are today, the skeletons in our closets that we may or may not know about, and it prompts questions about whether we can make positive changes such as opening our hearts again to someone in spite of all we've been through or whatever pain still resides in our DNA.

Looking forward to the last book in the trilogy, Murder in Hand and its take on Sicilian corruption. Brava, Celia! 

Sell Sheet Information

Title: Wilful Murder             Author: Celia Conrad        Publisher: Barcham Books (1 Dec 2011) 

Paperback: 336 pages          ISBN-10: 0954623339     ISBN-13: 978-0954623333 

Dimensions: 14.9 x 21 cm

Amazon Kindle - ASIN: B00A1NCNRO
Also available in all E-Book Formats 

Amazon U.K.:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wilful-Murder-Alicia-Allen-Investigates/dp/0954623339 

Amazon U.S.:

http://www.amazon.com/Wilful-Murder-Alicia-Allen-Investigates/dp/0954623339 

Author Website | http://www.aliciaalleninvestigates.com/

Twitter | iwrite2b

Facebook | Celia Conrad Author 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Celia-Conrad-Author-UK/475704772556784

Original Review can be found at: 

http://open.salon.com/blog/marlan_warren/2014/07/02/wilful_murder_untangles_bloody_family_treebook_review