Book Giveaway and Review of Being Someone Else by J.R. Lindermuth

I can’t recall how J.R. Lindermuth came to my attention on GoodReads but when I read about his novel, Being Someone Else, it sounded like something I would like to read and tell you all about. Being Someone Else is part of a series but he assured me it could stand alone. Thankfully he was right. And even better, he’s sponsoring a giveaway so we can give an autographed copy to a lucky reader!

Dan “Sticks” Hetrick is the retired Chief of Police for the small rural town of Swatara Creek, PA. To support Chief Brubaker in transitioning into his new role, Sticks has agreed to lend his expertise as a consultant to the department on any crimes of violence for a short time.

One night Christopher Bachman, a news reporter from Baltimore, is murdered in a local bar. Could it have been that a story led him to Swatara Creek? Could it have been a drug deal gone bad? Of course, no one wants to think a local could have killed some reporter from out of state. Why on earth would they even know him, much less kill him? When investigations begin, things keep pointing back to one of the wealthiest families in town, the Schneiders. Maybe there was something there or maybe it was just folks pointing fingers. After all, the Scheiders were easier targets since they’d recently moved back to town.

“’Nathan Schneider married young the first time,’ Harry explained later as they ate lunch at Lena’s Diner. ‘Early twenties, I heard. He was in med school and the marriage failed – depending on the variation you hear – because of the stress of his studies, or, more likely, as a result of an affair that started some six years later when he came back here to establish a practice.’”

Small towns being small towns, everyone either knows what’s going on or makes it up if they don’t know, because they don’t want to seem out of the loop. And some people are all too ready to point fingers while others are reluctant to say anything about anyone, because it could come back to bite them. That makes getting to the bottom of things more frustrating for the police, but entertaining for us readers.

Secrets, indiscretions, family patterns, red herrings, small town politics and shenanigans – J.R. Lindermuth really captures what it’s like to live in a small town. I loved the scenes in places like the local diner, for example, because those scenes took me back to the small town I grew up in, with all of the fun characters universal to small towns everywhere. I believe Being Someone Else is as much a crime story/drama as it is a mystery and that, along with its small town authenticity, makes it an interesting read. One lucky reader will win an autographed copy!

Being Someone Else has already been released, so you can get a copy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble below as a hard copy or e-book. It may also be available from other booksellers; however, because this is an indie title, I’m can’t be sure about that.

If you liked this review, please “like” it, +1 it and share it with your friends!

Giveaway:

One lucky reader will receive an autographed copy of Being Someone Else by J.R. Lindermuth!

Giveaway Rules:
1) The deadline for entries is Saturday night, 10/22/2011, at 11:59pm EST. No entries after that date/time will be eligible.
2) This giveaway is open to entries with U.S. mailing addresses only because we do not ship books outside of the U.S.
3) You must be at least 18 years old to enter this giveaway.
4) You must use the Rafflecopter form. Even if leaving a comment is part of the giveaway, you must use the form in addition to leaving the comment for the comment to count as an entry.
5) If you already follow PopcornReads on Twitter or Facebook, you must still complete that part of the Rafflecopter form for your follow to count as an entry.
6) If you do not provide a mailing address in the Rafflecopter form, your entry will not be eligible. We will use your mailing address to ship your book to you.
7) That’s it – it’s a very easy giveaway, so have fun and best of luck!

Very Important Tip: Because of web page space limitations, the Rafflecopter form may not show up, depending on how you got to this review/giveaway. If you don’t see the form below this paragraph, click on the title at the top of this entire article/review. The review will then appear on its own page and the Rafflecopter form will appear below (like magic).

If you’ve never used Rafflecopter before to enter a giveaway, here’s a little 45 sec. video on how to do it:

How to Enter Rafflecopter Giveaways from Rafflecopter on Vimeo.

Tagged as: Being Someone Else, crime story, Giveaway, J.R. Lindermuth, mystery