Campari Crimson, the fourth Franki Amato mystery, is out today! Because this book is about the New Orleans vampire community and the city's creepy vampire legends, I decided to use my ex-colleagues as characters (think the “energy draining vampire” kind). So, if you think real people don’t act like my characters do, guess again. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

I’ve also included a picture from the event that inspired this book, i.e., a New Orleans vampire tour I took with my husband. There was a woman from New York on the tour dressed in a cute shirt and jeans who turned and smiled at me, and she had glowing white-blue eyes and Dracula teeth. I really think my blood turned cold. She doesn’t know it, but she’s in the book too.

And here’s the Campari Crimson blurb:

Halloween is looming large in New Orleans, and Private Investigator Franki Amato’s in a gloomy mood. Her boyfriend Bradley has to leave on an extended business trip, and her slacker brother is coming to town with her matchmaker nonna who’s determined to see a Sicilian lemon superstition bear fruit. Meanwhile, the entire city is spooked because a caped figure is targeting its blood banks. Things turn macabre when a psychic makes a dark prediction about Franki’s brother and a frat boy is found in a cemetery crypt with his blood drained. As bad luck would have it, Franki is hired to investigate the murder by the number one police suspect, an eighteenth-century vampire impersonator. A detective acquaintance offers to team up to find the killer, but he’s interested in more than Franki’s professional input. To solve the case, she goes solo into NOLA’s vampire community and immerses herself in local vampire legends. Can Franki prevent another bloodletting? Or will the next blood spilled be her own?

Campari Crimson is on sale for a couple of days, so get your copy quick—and get creeped out!