Series: A Beaufort & Company Mystery | Publication Date: December 2, 2008
With a long list of ethereal clients who need her help, Savannah lawyer Brianna Winston Beaufort's career choice is beginning to haunt her…
An already dead businessman needs Bree's help to find his murderer and prove his innocence against the charge of greed, which comes from the mightiest hand of the law, the Celestial Court. And the verdict in this case could put Bree's life on the line--as well as her client's afterlife.
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Witty, charming, and briskly paced, this unique tale of angels and murder has to make [Stanton] a star in the paranormal mystery genre. --Romantic Times
Mary Stanton brings a unique mixture of charm and quirkiness in her newest debut series, Beaufort & Company Mysteries, with the launch of Defending Angels. Bree and her unconventional employees are impossible to resist." --Suspense Magazine
Defending Angels has every element needed that makes for a great story. The words will captivate you while the story will haunt you. This is a book that is going on my "must keep" pile. --Bitten by Books
A delightful new mystery series that contains just the right mix of the supernatural to appeal to both mystery lovers and paranormal fiction readers..a mix of hilarity, heart stopping danger, and clever story telling. --Roundtable Reviews
An erudite, supernatural murder mystery with a plot that is truly original...one of those books you can't put down until you finish. --The Compulsive Reader
Mary Stanton has been writing professionally most of her adult life. She divides her time between a goat farm in upstate New York near the Finger Lakes region and a small home in West Palm Beach.
Stanton is the oldest daughter of William Bishop Whitaker and Caroline Whitaker, both of whom were college professors for parts of their careers. She has two sisters; Cynthia Bishop Whitaker, Esquire of Seattle, Washington and Deborah Susan Whitaker Hairston of Ithaca, New York. She was born in Winter Park, Florida while her father was Dean of Men at Rollins College. When William Whitaker was recruited back into the Navy in the early fifties, he and his family were posted to Japan. Leaving active Naval service for the Reserves and a position in the State Department, Whitaker was posted to Hawaii where he occupied a position as Director of Educational Services for Southeast Asia.
Stanton grew up in Hawaii and graduated from Kailua High School. She left the Islands for undergraduate school in the late sixties. She attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota and received a B.A. in philosophy and literature from the University of Minnesota. She attended a year of law school, then a year of graduate school majoring in Rehabilitation Therapies. She worked at a series of jobs in Minnesota, including a year as a nightclub singer as part of Sheik's Singing Sextette, a medical examiner for Social Security, a claims adjuster for Crum&Forster Insurance Company and Director of Volunteer Services for Hastings State Hospital. She married Robert Tom Nelson in 1967. The marriage ended in divorce.
In the mid-seventies, Stanton left Minnesota for Rochester, New York. She worked for Aetna Life & Casualty Insurance Companies, one of the first outside female claims adjusters in the United States. She began a career as a copywriter in the early eighties, working for several advertising agencies and Xerox Corporation until she opened her own marketing communications company in 1985. The company specialized in the research and writing of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award applications. Clients included Xerox Corporation, Westinghouse, American Express, and Eastman Kodak Company. Stanton took on a junior partner, Daniel J.Hucko, in 1985, and sold the business to Young and Rubicam in 1992. She left the business in 1994 to write full time.
She married Robert J. Stanton Esquire of Walworth, New York in 1974. There are three stepchildren from that marriage; John Robert Stanton, Harry Cole Stanton, and Julie Stanton Schwatrz.
Stanton's career as a fiction writer began with the publication of her first novel, The Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West, in 1984. A beast fable similar in tone and theme to Watership Down, it was published in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. The sequel to that novel, Piper at the Gates, appeared in 1989. She sold her first mystery to The Berkley Publishing Group in 1994. In all, Stanton has written nineteen mystery novels, two adult fantasy novels, eleven novels for middle-grade readers (including the successful series, The Unicorns of Balinor), and three scripts for a television cartoon series, Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, as well as edited three short story anthologies. Her nonfiction articles on horse care and veterinary medicine have appeared in national and regional magazines.
Mary publishes the Hemlock Falls mysteries under the name Claudia Bishop. See the Claudia Bishop web site for more information: claudiabishop.com
Stanton's interests outside writing have remained consistent over the years. She is a horsewoman, a goat aficionado, an enthusiastic (if inept) gardener, and a fan of gourmet food, but not an expert. She has developed a writing program for teens and middle grade readers that has had considerable success in schools.
Stanton has been a dedicated reader all her life, with particular emphasis on biography, history, veterinary science, medicine, psychology and current affairs. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America. She may be contacted through her literary agent, Eleanor Wood of the Spectrum Literary Agency, 320 Central Park West Suite 1-D, New York, NY 10025.
This review is from: Defending Angels (A Beaufort & Company Mystery) (Mass Market Paperback)
Imagine this: You are new in town, ready to take on your late uncle's law firm, and totally gung ho about it. You finally find a place to set up your temporary office. Unfortunately it is in the middle of a cemetery that has only murderers buried in it, and your landlady seems a bit eccentric but hey! At least the rent is cheap. You finally hire two intelligent assistants who seem to be relatively sane. Then voila, you receive that first call from someone (and not just any someone, mind you, but one of the biggest and meanest tycoons in the state) who wants you to represent them. The only problem is, when you immediately call him back, you find out that he's been dead for hours. What would you think?
Brianna Winston Beaufort (but please call her "Bree") thinks it is nothing more than a practical joke brought on by her ex-boyfriend. It just HAS to be. Either that, or everyone around her is completely crazy or it is just her that is losing it.
Bree has to figure things out before she goes mad with frustration. Who are these people she has surrounded herself with? Why are they telling her to take on dead people as clients? Why have her nightmares been coming back? And why is that painting of the cormorant coming to life? What secrets had her uncle been keeping from her about his clientèle? She begins to think that maybe it would be best if she did not bother taking on her uncle's firm.
Defending Angels has every element needed that makes for a great story. The words will captivate you while the story will haunt you. There were so many elements to this story that simply cannot be expressed without giving away too many details. Simply put this is a book that is going on my "must keep" pile.
Reviewed at Bitten by Books Paranormal Fiction Review Site by Lyda
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This review is from: Defending Angels (A Beaufort & Company Mystery) (Mass Market Paperback)
I am happy to have found a new cozy mystery. This one was written by Mary Stanton (Claudia Bishop). I have enjoyed her "Hemlock Falls" and "Casebooks of Dr. McKenzie" mysteries. Now we have a new series called "Beaufort & Company".
This mystery centers around a woman lawyer named, Brianna Winston-Beaufort. Bree inherits her uncle's law practice in Savannah, Georgia.
Little does she know, her first client will be a ghost. This ghost is a tough cookie. He wants answers as to who killed him and he wants the answers NOW!
Bree has her hands full with some "unusual helpers" on the job ,to get the case solved.
With the "company of angels" by her side, she delvers the goods.
As Shakespeare wrote, "There are more things in heaven and Earth".
This mystery definitely shows us more. An interesting concept to be sure.
I am looking forward to the next installment in this mystery series.
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This review is from: Defending Angels (A Beaufort & Company Mystery) (Mass Market Paperback)
The author gets three stars for a good beginning, fun characters, and an intriguing situation. She loses two for the rushed ending and for having a heroine willing to continue day after day after day without asking these mysterious other characters what in the world is going on! Why does she accept the astonishingly thin story about why a job applicant replaces the one she expected? Why, when events play out as they do (trying to avoid spoilers here) does the character even bother with his story? What about the dog? What about the painting? Will I need a lawyer in the afterlife?
I'll definitely read the next book, because the first was loads of fun, but I hope the author will do some explaining!
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sea mew, corporate tax law
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Defending Angels, Mary Stanton, Professor Cianquino, Benjamin Skinner, Island Dream, Liz Overshaw, Miss Beaufort, Gabriel Striker, Grainger Skinner, John Stubblefield, Douglas Fairchild, Doug Fairchild, Carlton Montifiore, Sam Hunter, Tybee Island, Uncle Franklin, Bennie Skinner, Payton the Rat, Jennifer Skinner, Rise of the Cormorant, Savannah Daily, Angelus Street, Lavinia Mather, Rebus Kingsley, Lieutenant Hunter
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