Author Charlene Wexler Earns Apex Award

June 9, 2015 - PRLog -- Author Charlene Wexler recently won a 2015 Communications Concepts Award of Excellence for her book Murder Across the Ocean.

         In Charlene Wexler’s Murder Across the Ocean, American Lori Brill thought she’d have a pleasant, uneventful vacation in London visiting her granddaughter, Cate.

         Lori’s trip started out even better than she could have imagined when she ran into Josh, her old high-school boyfriend, in line for the same flight at the airport—resulting in an unexpected night of passion in a London hotel room. Lori was all smiles as she stepped out of the shower the next morning, ready to slip back into Josh’s arms—until she saw his bloody corpse lying in the bed where they had made love only a few short hours before.

         The London police naturally suspect Lori of murdering her lover, but the case becomes more complicated when it is discovered that international ladies’ man and real estate mogul Josh has swindled millions of dollars from hundreds of people—a fact that broadens the case beyond the Scotland Yard team led by Inspector Geoffrey Holmes and brings in American FBI agent Jordan Gould.

         Also on the case are Lori’s granddaughter Cate and Cate’s fiancé Joseph, two London solicitors. Complicating matters are Cate’s and Jordan Gould’s growing mutual attraction as the investigation progresses; another growing mutual attraction between Lori and Inspector Holmes; and Lori’s family’s unexpected connection to Joseph’s father, Lord Roger Lunt, and to the wealthy German nobleman Baron Joseph Braun and the horror of the Holocaust.

         So who killed Josh? Was it Josh’s beautiful girlfriend Suzi, who unexpectedly appears in London? Was it Josh’s Chinese financial backers? Was it British mobsters, led by the evil Roland McKeifer, who kidnap Lori in an attempt to find Josh’s hidden millions? Was it Baron Braun, who summons Lori to Germany to tell her a 70-year-old secret? Was it someone whose money had been stolen or heart had been broken by Josh? Or was it someone else? Readers will find out in Murder Across the Ocean.

         Communications Concepts is a journalism and communications think tank based outside Washington, DC. This year’s Apex competition was the 27th annual.

         “Apex Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content, and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence,” said John De Lellis of Communications Concepts. “With close to 1,900 entries, competition was exceptionally intense.”

         “The Apex Awards contest is competitive and prestigious, and to win an Award of Excellence Award is particularly exciting,” Wexler said. “Murder Across the Ocean shows that a grandmother can be an exciting hero in a murder mystery, and the Apex Award recognizes this breakthrough.”

         The contest is an international one, and other winners hailed from Hong Kong, India, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Kingdom and from such prestigious institutions as the American Bankers Association, the American Bar Association, Bank of America, the Federal Aviation Administration, the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, the National Institutes of Health, Oxford University, T. Rowe Price, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

         Wexler resides in Richmond, IL, and is a graduate of the University of Illinois. She has worked as a teacher and dental office bookkeeper and as “a wife, mom, and grandmother,” she said. In recent years, Wexler has turned her lifelong passion for writing into her profession.

         Her work has appeared in many publications and websites. Her first novel, Murder on Skid Row, received an Apex Award of Excellence from Communications Concepts in 2010, and Milk and Oranges, her book of essays and short stores, received a rare Apex Grand Award in 2012.

Wexler is active with the Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity, the Authors Marketing Group, the Chicago Writers Association, Children’s Memorial Hospital philanthropy, Lungevity (an organization that fights lung cancer), the McHenry Bicycle Club, the Museum of Science and Industry, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Richmond IL Book Club, the Jewish United Fund, and the University of Illinois Alumni Association.

Wexler’s next appearance discussing her fiction will be Tuesday, June 16, at 2 p.m. in the Geneva Lake Museum, 255 Mill St., Lake Geneva, WI 53147. Call (262) 248-6060 for information.

         For more information, call (312) 622-6029 or e-mail anbcommunications@yahoo.com. Wexler’s website is http://www.charlenewexler.com. The Apex Awards’ website is http://www.apexawards.com/.