Talk Deadly to Me

 

Mystery books are my first love. My parents were big readers. My father favoried non-fiction--biographies, books about the Civil War, popular history. My mother was an insomniac and read a mystery book a night. My parents' bed had a built-in space for books (something I always tought was very handy) and while my father slept like a baby (I inherited his super-power of sleep), she would read. If she didn't have a book, she would read the small, digest-sized mystery magazines. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. As soon as I was old enough to read, I started with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books but I soon graduated to grown-up books.

I started out writing in the mystery genre as well. Short stories that were dark and mean and full of the tropes I grew up reading. My brother was a lawyer by then and he would sometimes tell me stories about his clients. I remember one was about a guy who killed his aunt and a fellow resident at a boarding house. The cops found him sitting on the steps, waiting for them, a bloodied hammer in his hand. I didn't want to seem blood-thirsty, but I told him to keep the stories coming.

Weirdly, I have no interest in lawyer shows or true crime. Except for Homicide Hunter. I love Joe Kenda. I love that he always caught the bad guys. I LOVE his wry delivery. I love the way he tosses off observations about how dumb crminal behavior is, or just observations in general. "Nothing good ever happens at two a.m."  

I have written a couple of cozy mysteries in the past couple of years, but it's been awhile since I went full-on mystery writer. So hen I got the chance to sign up for a list-aiming boxed set called Talk Deadly to Me, I was all in. My story has been percolating for a couple of years and I've had the cover for it a long time. Inspired by a news story I heard on NPR, my story A WOMAN PRESUMED, is about a woman who hears the report of her own death.

I'm writing it under my real name, and I hope people will like it. It's a return to my roots. And you know what they say about roots being noursished by blood.  You can pre-order it here.