ELDERCIDE is out at last!

[Julie Lomoe]

I'm delighted to report that ELDERCIDE, my new novel of suspense, is finally published. I took a break from CrimeSpace during the lengthy revision process, but I'm back at last.

The novel grew out of my experience as President of ElderSource, Inc., a Licensed Home Care Services Agency I ran for eight tumultuous years. We specialized in round-the-clock live-in care for clients nearing the end of their lives. Often the emotional toll for clients and their families was enormous. More than one bed-bound, terminally ill client openly longed for death. "I've had a good long life, but now it's time for me to go," as one woman put it. Often tempers flared, and relationships were stressed to the breaking point.

I closed ElderSource in 1998. Gradually, my imagination gave rise to Compassionate Care, an agency set in the fictional town of Kooperskill in upstate New York. My heroine, nursing supervisor Claire Lindstrom, sees the beginnings of a sinister pattern when her clients begin dying unexpectedly, but her boss Paula Rhodes doesn't want her raising questions - a rash of mysterious deaths could destroy the agency. All the while, a killer called Gabriel is watching, channeling his obsession with Claire into passionate paintings. Under another name, he's a man she already knows - but which one? And is he part of a far larger scheme of eldercide?

As our society ages, ethical questions like those raised in ELDERCIDE will grow ever more urgent. I plan to explore them in future novels in the Kooperskill series.

Thanks for reading through this bit of BSP. I hope you're sufficiently intrigued to go to my website, www.julielomoe.com, where you can read the first chapter. Then I hope you'll order a copy!