Spinners Garden: A cozy mystery for dog lovers. (A Dannyboy Pointer Mystery Book 2)

Jan 05, Sheila Muckle is now friends with Mrs Andrea Stubbs. Dec 25, Sheila Muckle wants to read. Apr 17, Sep 15, Sheila Muckle has read. Jan 12, Jan 11, Sheila Muckle liked that Linda is now a friend of Sheila. Dec 08, Nov 10, Please be kind and courteous to others while in the group. No foul language please. Search for a book to add a reference. We take abuse seriously in our discussion boards. Only flag comments that clearly need our attention. As a general rule we do not censor any content on the site. The only content we will consider removing is spam, slanderous attacks on other members, or extremely offensive content eg.

We will not remove any content for bad language alone, or being critical of a particular book. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Janetta's Garden really liked it 4. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Spinner's Garden it was amazing 5. Want to Read saving… Error rating book. Romance of the Art it was ok 2. The adventures of five little dogs Annelise's Angela Book 3 0.

A cozy mystery with dogs. The Adventures of Five Little Dogs 0. This is a super little read and has some lovely touches of hilarity with the youngsters in the story. The Love Letters of George and Adelaide , a novella she wrote with Ron Marken, describing the post—World War I years as seen through the experiences of three characters who meet at a nursing home.

She has also written a half dozen plays, adapted Peter Pan and other works for the stage, and adapted Doctor Doolittle for CBC telecast. She has also written radio plays and an animated film script. For her first full-length fiction, Bowen created an academic heroine. The character Joanne Kilbourn is also a political columnist and journalist, as the occasion merits. Widowed, as the series progresses she makes new friends and eventually marries Zach Shreve, a paraplegic criminal lawyer.

During a panel discussion at the Festival of Words at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in , the author said that over her career as a mystery writer, she has seen Canadian 39 40 Gail Bowen characters come into sharper focus. Bowen is among many Canadian mystery writers who are no longer shy about their northern settings and have won a strong reader following in the United States and other countries as well as in Canada. The first six of her Kilbourn novels were adapted for Canadian telefilms and have been broadcast internationally. Actress Wendy Crewson played the heroine.

As of this writing, Bowen has no interest in leaving her series to try other characters. As a writer, the luxury of having 3, pages in which to develop the character of my protagonist and the people who share her life is seductive. Joanne Kilbourn encounters issues of getting older at the same time the author does. Because of my voracious and totally indiscriminate reading, I knew what I liked in a mystery: Obviously her legion of readers agree.

Bowen has also written plays, teleplays and radio dramas. Why Do Mysteries Matter? Gail Bowen biography, Crime Writers of Canada. Gail Bowen biography, Famous Canadians, http: Gail Bowen interview, MysteryBooks. Gail Bowen website, http: Killing Spring review, Publishers Weekly, April 7, She made up the community of Llanfair, based on childhood memories of staying with relatives there. However, I had to put it in a real valley, as the paths up Mt. Now all the locals know where it is. Evans the Law, for example.

But quaint goes only so far, and Llanfair also has a killer, whether an Evans or not. The constable has to find out who murdered three hikers on Mount Snowdon. The first of the cozy series, Evans Above, came out in , and nine sequels have followed so far. Molly has fled Ireland, having killed a would-be rapist.

But barely has she reached Ellis Island when she becomes a likely suspect in a new murder. The Molly novels are edgier than the Evanses, and for a third series, Bowen went for lightness. By the second book, as the author explained in a Novel Journey conversation, her hapless heroine is babysitting visiting German Princess Hanni, who speaks English like a character from a gangster movie, lifts things she wants from store displays, and flirts recklessly with men.

Oh, and our heroine is also solving an unexpected killing. Rhys Bowen is an alias. The writer was born in Bath, England, in She attended an all-girls school and sold her first short story when she was She was a folk musician and sang in nightclubs with Al Stewart and Simon and Garfunkel. She worked for BBC in London in various capacities, including radio scriptwriter and studio manager, before relocating to Sydney to work for Australian Broadcasting. She helped a textbook company develop new readers for urban children. She also wrote a few television tie-in books and historical novels.

Then she took the new name and began a new career shaping crime novels. So far, it looks like that was a good move. In a Novel Journey interview, Bowen offered this advice to writers: You have to write where your heart is. And she has written historical novels for adults: Madam Sarah and Amazing Grace Rhys Bowen interview, Book-Club-Queen, http: Rhys Bowen interview, Novel Journey, Aug.

Rhys Bowen website, http: Box was shaping his mystery novel Open Season —his first novel to find a publisher, after several unsuccessful tries with other manuscripts—he had a ready main character in mind: By his high school years, he was already taken with writing as a potential career and successfully applied for a journalism scholarship. In he graduated from the University of Denver with a B. Box has worked as a ranch hand, fishing guide, survey crewman, journalist, manager of travel development for Wyoming Travel Commission, and CEO and president of Rocky Mountain International Corp.

He and his wife, Laurie, have three daughters and live near Cheyenne. One time, while on a side job escorting fishermen to a likely spot, he observed on the river bank, observing him, a red-shirted game warden—ever alert, ever vigilant. Box later met and interviewed that game warden about a poaching arrest. Box has said on his website that Here was a man who was in charge of enforcing the law in a district that stretched 1, square miles. He did it without a real office, or a staff, or a supervisor. Virtually alone, he went out into that rough country every day with only his Labrador as his partner and backup.

Thus, Joe Pickett came to life. Two others are setting and regional morality. Box 47 endangered-species theme. Think larger-than-life characters with outsized carbon footprints or inflexible agendas. Box addresses issues with balance, which is not to say that he is neutral. Recently Box has accelerated his writing output with alternating freestanding novels. The first, Blue Heaven, was a popular success and has been optioned for a motion picture. The tough thing is to keep the characters and the series fresh.

Box interview, Readers Digest Select Editions, http: An Interview with C. Murphy puzzlers that she is well known for today. This work, one of the first to deal frankly with lesbianism, became a bestseller. In , she taught at Goddard College in Vermont. She founded or cofounded a number of gay rights organizations, was on the board of directors of the Sagaris school, and served as president of American Artists Inc.

Brown went through a very public relationship breakup with tennis player Martina Navratilova and had a relationship with author Fannie Flagg, as she discusses in her memoir, Rita Will She found joy in poetry. And her studies of Latin and Greek gave her a solid grounding in language.

She wrote more novels. Her ability with words took her to Hollywood, where a Writers Guild strike curtailed her potential career. On the advice of Sneaky Pie, her cat, she decided to write a mystery. Murphy and a Welsh Corgi named Tucker, sets out to solve the killing of a contractor his body parts are found in a cement mixer and a store owner who was tied to a railroad track just before a train came through.

In a review of another Mrs. Brown delights in her Virginia surroundings.

Sheila Muckle (Author of Janetta's Garden)

Watch what they do. In the sixth book, Hounded to Death , the death of a vile breeder of hounds and of a well-reputed horse veterinarian takes the heroine on a wild chase for clues and suspects. She asked on her website, What I have done that I care about is I have cherished life. Too many stay here, so I am wearing the same dress and shoes I wore twenty years ago.

Murphy Mysteries in One Volume: Murphy Mystery television movie, The author has also written several screenplays, including Slumber Party Massacre and Mary Pickford: A Life on Film My Life with Creatures Great and Small. Brown, Rita Mae, Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser. Rita Mae Brown interview, Bookreporter.

Rita Mae Brown website, http: Jack Taylor Ken Bruen with daughter Grace. Bruen was born in Galway, Connacht, Ireland, in Somewhat withdrawn and bookish as a lad, he found comfort in conceiving wild adventure tales of faraway places. He studied at St. For 25 years he taught English as a second language. He visited some of those places he had dreamed of as a youth. He traveled to Africa, Asia, and South America. Those dreams of youth became all too vivid when he was newly arrived in Rio de Janeiro in He became involved in a scuffle in a barroom, after which he was arrested, tried, and convicted.

Horrific months of being imprisoned followed. The extended physical and emotional trial allowed him to see how low the human condition can plummet. This ordeal and the healing that took place after his release helped to shape Bruen into becoming an outstanding novelist. Tired of seeing what he considered second-rate literary novels by others receive acclaim, he set about to become a writer himself. He had written poetry. His own experiences gave him dark themes to explore. Bruen wrote three crime novels before he introduced Jack Taylor in The Guards As it turns out, she is one of several young women who have gone missing.

Prose that has won Edgar, Shamus, and other awards? Among these are Max Fisher, a New York businessman who hires a hitman to remove his wife so he can be free to pursue an affair with Angela Petrakos. Bust was followed by sequels in which the protagonist takes to crime Slide and ends up in prison The Max.

Stepping up his writing pace has only given Bruen increased confidence. Tales of Irish Morbidities Sherry: Adaptations in Other Media London Boulevard announced , based on the novel. Guard review, Publishers Weekly, Nov. Ken Bruen interview, Askaboutwriting. Ken Bruen website, http: Sanctuary review, Publishers Weekly, Mar.

He wrote three books for three publishers. He quit for 13 years, but when he finally made another attempt, this time at a crime novel, his work was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Burke found his voice and his literary persona with Dave Robicheaux, who first appeared in The Neon Rain Robicheaux is a year member of the New Orleans Police Department in that story of violence, corruption, drugs and illegal arms.

Robicheaux and his half brother Jimmie were raised by their father, a commercial fisherman and offshore derrick man. A recovering alcoholic, the hero periodically faces new demons. He read an occasional Mickey Spillane novel but otherwise avoided mysteries. In Burke married Pearl Pai Chu. He describes himself politically as a Jeffersonian liberal. Avocational interests include fishing, weightlifting, sports, and bluegrass music. In the course of the series, he encounters right-wing retired generals, drug-smuggling Nicaraguans, a Mafia boss, and assorted psychopaths and thugs.

He also meets and falls in love with social worker Anne Ballard. It was an accident, but it is the reason Billy Bob is where he is when the book begins. I also believe that whatever degree of creative talent I possess was not earned but was given to me by a power outside myself, for a specific purpose, one that has little to do with my own life.

James Lee Burke web page, http: In she married musician Timothy Burke. Her first two chapters sat in a drawer for quite a while, not reaching the standard she had set for herself. That person steered the book to the top of the editorial slush pile, and Burke landed a three-book contract. The weapon was a bomb, secreted in a package.

Spinner's Garden: A cozy mystery for dog lovers. (A Dannyboy Pointer Mystery Book 2)

At first, she said in a Writers Write interview with Claire E. White, she meant Frank Harriman to simply serve as the obligatory cop in the background, supply information, harass the heroine, but blend in. However, Every time I had the two of them on the page together, the sparks were flying. Gradually, it dawned on me that I should give them their way. There was lots of conflict built into their situation, which is always a plus in fiction writing. And critics appreciated the strong character. Of course, coastal California cities are a dime a dozen in crime fiction.

Burke writes from a home office in southern California. Of the latter, she said on her Web website, I love writing short stories, both because I am a fan of the form as a reader and because they give me a chance to stretch as a writer. Jan Burke website, http: Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a Chicago private detective. He wears a duster and carries a. When he faces a being beyond his abilities to best, he relies on a posse of friends, among them Special Investigations Lt.

Karrin Murphy, who has no paranormal abilities but is nevertheless one tough cookie. Thus her frequent contact with Dresden. A Publishers Weekly reviewer, in praising the novel, explained, As a Warden of the White Council, at war with both the Red Court of blood-drinking vampires and the White Court of psychic vampires, Harry has to go into action, including a battle with ghouls on the lakefront that turns into a gripping flashback of another encounter with ghouls some years before in New Mexico.

He based his hero on Sherlock Holmes, after all. The author was born in Independence, Missouri, in He received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Oklahoma. He is married and has one son. He has worked variously as a sales rep, restaurant manager, computer support technician, and horse wrangler while trying to jump start his writing career.

How he became a professional writer has as many plot twists as one of his novels. He skipped high school classes one day and was present when Margaret Weis, author of the DragonLance fantasy books, gave a talk. Maybe, he thought, he would become a writer too. He wrote a manuscript. He wrote another, and a third. He rewrote 64 Jim Butcher 65 the first one and then conceived a fourth.

He took a writing class and wrote the first Dresden story. The next semester, he wrote the second. The third was well under way when he began to look for an agent. He ran into repeated dead ends until he began to attend fantasy fan conventions and seek out agents. Eventually an agent took him on, and six months later he had a contract with Roc.

• Upcoming Events!
• Patientenschulung und Patientenberatung (German Edition)?
• ?
• #bookswithdogs Instagram - Photo and video on Instagram.
• .
• Traders World.

Apparently, he said, the tipping factor was that he had three manuscripts already done. The moral of the story, the author said on his website, is you have to work to learn the craft. Everything Butcher knows about magic he learned from books— shaped to his particular needs. I wanted him to be a plumber, a carpenter, and engineer. Butcher expects the series to run to at least 20 books and has an idea of how things will come to a spectacular climax.

Butcher has meanwhile developed a second, more traditional horses-and-swords fantasy series, the Codex Alera books, published by Ace Books. The Little Author That Could. Banks, Rachel Caine, P. Elrod, Caitlin Kittredge, Marjorie M. Jim Butcher interview, Bitten by Books, http: White Night review, Publishers Weekly, Feb.

Tea Shop Mysteries Robert J. But it was not a ghost but a human being who was responsible for smashing Melody in the head and throwing her from a third-floor window—of that, her friends Carmela Bertrand, proprietor of the Memory Mine scrapbook shop, and her pal Ava Grulex are sure. The Jasmine Moon Murder , the first of the novels to appear in hardcover, typically revolves around the death of a cardiologist during a Ghost Crawl in Charleston, South Carolina.

Childs has a third series, this one featuring three amateur sleuths. They are also crime solvers by avocation. The thornier the puzzle in their town of Kindred, the better for these forty-something heroines. In Eggs Benedict Arnold , for example, they figure out who had it in for Ozzie Driesden, the funeral director. One might expect it to be a handful for Childs to juggle these continuing characters as she keeps all three series alive. She wrote and produced dozens of television commercials. On her website she explains how she became a writer of cozy mysteries: I wrote four screenplays, got one read by Paramount, but never actually sold one.

I then turned to writing mysteries. In fact, it was when she attended a Mystery Writers of America symposium featuring Clark that she became determined to take up a new career. Her first book was selected by the Literary Guild. Childs explains she tries to write 2, words a day and completes a book in three or four months.

She lets them percolate, then rereads the manuscripts, adding details and developing characters as needed. She credits watching the TV shows The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents with her cue to add bits of irony and humor wherever she can in the novels. She is adept at creating credible backgrounds for her books.

Oolong Dead , for example, impressed Booklist reviewer Judy Coon: I try to combine well-written prose with a carefully thought out plot and thin sprinkle in lots of twists and tension. Also, I try to make my books extremely character-driven. I want readers to think of my characters as dear friends they want to stay in touch with. The author and her husband, Robert J. Poor, a professor of Asian art history, live near Minneapolis, where she quietly brews ideas for new Tea Shop crimes.

Laura Childs interview, Mystery Lovers Corner, http: Laura Childs website, http: Tragic Magic review, Publishers Weekly, Aug. The honor, in a competitive field, left her speechless. She woke up the morning of the awards ceremony, unable to speak more than a squeak. She had a bad cold and had spoken too much to her library staff the day before. Her editor accepted the dagger on her behalf. While she may have briefly lost her voice, Cleeves has never been at a loss for words since she first embarked on a writing career in with A Bird in the Hand, the first of the George and Molly Palmer-Jones puzzlers.

The author was born in in Hereford, England. She graduated from Liverpool University in , two years after her marriage to Tim Cleeves. She worked as a child care officer for Camden Social Services in London from to , was a bird observatory cook on Fair Isle, Scotland, for a year, and then worked in the auxiliary Coast Guard from to From to she was a probation officer in Wirral and Cheshire, England.

And she raised two daughters. Her first writing was nonfiction, an essay about a coastal island near Wirral coauthored with her husband for a travel book. When she turned to crime, the author made good use of her knowledge of birds and birding. The Palmer-Jones books use as a background the competitive world of lifelisters, indefatigable birders who go anywhere and everywhere to extend their species counts. Cleeves eventually went on to create other series, including one featuring Inspector Ramsey. They also seem to have lots of energy, be very fit and can run without looking ridiculous.

Vera is middle-aged, overweight and a spinster. She deeply regrets not having a partner or children. Red Bones, the third in the series, finds Inspector Jimmy Perez on the scent of a shooter. The case becomes complicated when a body turns up at an archaeological site, leading to connections with a World War II resistance movement. What is the secret of this successful writer? Cleeves revealed some of her creative process in a Mystery News interview: I never plot in advance. I never know ahead of time who the murderer is. That means quite a lot of rewriting. How better to keep the audience in suspense?

Ann Cleeves website, http: Red Bones review, Publishers Weekly, July 20, Marshals , another his comic strip Dick Tracy and comic book Ms. Tree tales; a third holds his original crime Quarry and detective Nate Heller series. His collaborations with his favorite author, the late Mickey Spillane, on new Mike Hammer cases, are starting a shelf of their own, alongside the collaborations with his wife, Barbara Collins.

The author averages a rigorous three novels a year, with no letup in sight. And he still has time to script independent films. Collins was born in Muscatine, Iowa, in He was a professional musician off and on, a journalist, and an instructor, until he began to write fiction full time in His first crime novel, featuring a professional thief named Nolan, turned into a series. Westlake] and Parker, and the idea of the thief as protagonist. When his publisher asked for a second book featuring the hard-nosed antihero Nolan with a kid sidekick, Collins first asked Westlake if he objected.

Westlake gave his blessing, and more Nolan books followed. Next came Quarry books, about a professional assassin, and Mallory books, about a young writer and amateur detective. Longest running of his original novels is the Nate Heller series, set in the Prohibition era. With artist Terry Beatty, he produced what became the longest-running private detective comic book, featuring Ms. Michael Tree, who inherits an investigation agency when her husband is murdered. The character appears intermittently, with four independent publishers and also DC comics, from to She also appears in a prose novel, Deadly Beloved, in Collins also wrote the film novelization and sequels.

Living what was dream come true for a Spillane fan, Collins got to know the late author and was entrusted with his incomplete manuscripts when Spillane died in Their collaborative The Goliath Bone came out in I was born to do this, and Mickey trusted me. Marshals Regeneration, with Barbara Collins U Tree Series Files of Ms. Elrod, Ed Gorman, C. Kaminsky, Brett Matthews, and Robert E.

He has also written and edited nonfiction books. Max Allan Collins website, http: Max Allan Collins interview, January Magazine, http: Max Allan Collins interview, Mystery One, http: Max Collins interview, Spiderweb No. So it should be no surprise to learn that she also wrote her first mystery novel that year, A New Leash on Death , a crime story featuring a dog—a malamute, in fact. The author was born in northeastern Massachusetts in In , Conant graduated from Radcliffe College; in the same year she married clinical psychologist Carter Umbarger, who maintains a private practice in Cambridge.

She received an Ed. Then she started to write mysteries. All Shots , typically, is set in Massachusetts and finds Holly Winter, Malamute trainer and author of a column for Dog Life magazine, stumbling on the body of a woman who has in her possession papers that identify her as Holly Winter. Then she finds a living and breathing Holly Winter. And it all becomes a big case of confusion and identity theft.

Similar authors to follow

Turn Up the Heat , the third Gourmet Girl case, sets heroine Chloe Carter in quest of whoever killed a waitress named Leandra in the back of a refrigerated fish truck. Mother—daughter writing teams are atypical in publishing. Jessica Conant-Park, whose husband Bill Park is an executive chef, said that she devours chick-lit. Susan Conant does too, but she also adores Jane Austen, the classic mysteries of Margery Allingham, and the contemporary procedurals of Reginald Hill. Mother and daughter share a love of fine food, however, and, as Susan Conant said on the Berkley Prime Crime website, We are also only children.

Our writing process allows each of us considerable independence. Maybe we fit the stereotype of the only child in the sense that we are happier when we are taking turns than we are when we have to share. Scratch the Surface review, Publishers Weekly, May 9, Susan Conant interview, Trashionista, http: It took him five years to find a publisher for Every Dead Thing , and in the interim his hero grew.

The author told interviewer Judith Spelman, for Writing Magazine, When I began writing it I was only about 22 going on 23, but by the time it was published I was nearly He had all that time to gestate and I had found the things that were wrong so I think he was a fuller character. After earning a B. Then he became a journalist and author.

Thus, when he looked for an alternative to newspaper writing, he decided to put together his own crime novel. And he set it in the United States. Parker is a haunted hero, guilty that he was in a bar, drinking, the night his wife and child died. Typically, in The Lovers , the hero is now a private investigator. He decides to take on his own case—to find out why his father, who had been a New York City police officer, had killed two young people and then killed himself.

Criminals are unusually despicable. They serve a secondary purpose as role models for Parker, sources of wisdom when it comes to making compromises, according to the author. Take it to the finish, then go back. John Connolly interview, Bestsellers World, Aug.

John Connolly website, http: Little, Brown, , http: Cook works within the genre but also elbows its boundaries. I think it can be snooty to define yourself as something other than a crime writer. But essentially I write about people in crisis, and crime is usually what propels that crisis. He and his wife, Susan Terner, have one son. He was educated at Georgia State College, from which he received a B.

He received a Ph. Before he became a full-time fiction writer in , Cook was an advertising executive with U. He was a contributing editor and book review editor with Atlanta magazine from to Cook wrote his first novel, Blood Innocents , while still in graduate school. He circulated it without an agent and it quickly found a publisher.

It is a police procedural and, setting a tone for his later works, was as much about the moral challenges to his main character as the pursuit of the criminal. His next book, The Orchids , was commended for its more literary qualities. Cook wrote more procedurals and books featuring an ex-cop turned private detective, Frank Clemons.

He was sad and boring and I hated spending time with him. Cook Cook favors atmosphere over plot haste. He falls through the cracks of puzzle crafters and thriller writers. He often incorporates elements of classic mythology in his works. It can interest readers of general fiction as well as those who like to read mysteries. Dahlin, Robert, Thomas H. Cook profile, Publishers Weekly, Oct. Cook interview, Kacey Kowars Show, Jan. Technical aspects of her novels oblige the author to keep up with the latest in crimesolving methods. In The Scarpetta Factor , she said on her website, she rode with the pros.

I spent a lot of time visiting various facilities and having their equipment and procedures explained in detail. Her parents divorced when she was seven, and Patricia and two siblings moved with their mother to North Carolina. In , she received a B. She married Charles Cornwell in A decade later they divorced. Patricia was a crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina from to She wrote a biography of Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of the Rev.

Billy Graham, in From to , Cornwell worked as a computer analyst in the office of the chief medical examiner of Richmond, Virginia. She went to medical school lectures, attended trials, and did library medical research. She witnessed autopsies but found them difficult to bear. Chief Medical Examiner Scarpetta and Detective Sergeant Pete Marino, in their debut appearance, pursue a serial killer who has brutalized and strangled three women in their own bedrooms. Fierro of Virginia, and forensic anthropologist William Bass, but Scarpetta herself is all fabrication. Or perhaps she is Cornwell herself.

Discussing The Last Precinct in an iVillage interview, the author said the story reveals a lot about the heroine. I feel that I fight injustice in my writing. I try to be a scribe to the real people out there who are trying to keep us safe. In Cornwell herself faced unwanted publicity when an FBI agent attempted to kill his wife after coming to suspect that she had had a brief lesbian affair with Cornwell.

Jack the Ripper—Case Closed Many researchers on Jack the Ripper mocked her methods and her findings. For Further Information Beahm, George. The Unofficial Patricia Cornwell Companion: The Complete Patricia Cornwell Companion. Muller, Adrian, Patricia Cornwell entry, St. The licensed private investigator had served in the army, studied law, and honed his skills as an insurance investigator. In his novel The Dying Trade , Peter Corris borrowed generously from the Hammett—Chandler—Macdonald school of private-eye fiction when he brought Hardy to life to find the missing twin sister of a real estate heiress.

• El país de uno (Spanish Edition).
• The Bhagavad Gita;
• South American Cinema: A Critical Filmography, l915-l994 (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)!
• Florida Serial Killers?
• www.newyorkethnicfood.com: Kindle Store.
• Spectral Feature Selection for Data Mining (Chapman & Hall/CRC Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Series).
• !

In a Crime Down Under conversation, the author said I wrote The Dying Trade just to see if I could write the kind of recreational fiction I most enjoyed reading at that time. I enjoyed the actual writing so much that I wrote the second book that became White Meat and made a start on the third. Corris quickly mastered the heartbeat of the private detective with a conscience. He captured the appropriate setting as well. According to Maxim Jakubowski of St. He subsequently completed requirements for a Ph. He and his wife, Jean Bedford, live near Sydney and have three daughters.

Corris worked as an instructor at several universities and also as a researcher and writer. He was literary editor of the National Times in and Trained as a historian, he wrote several nonfiction books, beginning with Aborigines and Europeans in Western Victoria It took Corris five years to write the first Hardy manuscript and find a publisher. Hardy was initially a harder drinker and a rude character. Although the author denies that he is depicting himself in the Hardy books, the two evolved along similar lines. I started jogging and trying to take better care of myself five or six books in.

I try to keep alcohol consumption down. Likewise, Cliff cuts down his drinking. The stories are uniformly strong, proving that Corris is as proficient with the short form as he is with the full-length novel. However, he sees it all as part of his obligation, now a very comfortable obligation. Various personal concerns, such as a dislike of religion and conservative politics and an interest in sports and literature, surface in my books, but I try to amuse, not instruct.

Coupe, Stuart, Peter Corris: Jakubowski, Maxim, Peter Corris profile, St. Peter Corris interview, Crime Down Under, http: Peter Corris profile, Contemporary Authors, http: Peter Corris web page, http: That he handily achieved. Crider was born in Mexia, Texas, in In he married Judy Stutts. They have two children and live in Alvin, Texas.

Crider taught high school English in Corsicana, Texas, for two years before he joined the English faculty at Howard Payne University for a dozen years. He then joined Alvin Community College and, during the 19 years before he retired in , served as department chairman. Crider wrote his dissertation on the hard-boiled crime novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet.

He enjoys reading horror and gritty crime novels by John D. The sheriff—hero solves crimes in rural Clearview, Texas. The small town and its denizens are as much a feature of the books as the crimes. Murder Among the O.

Search results

He sees the humor as well as the pain in the lives we lead—a combination that makes for an entertaining entry in a very likable series. They produced a Nick Carter, Killmaster paperback that came out in Crider then wrote stand-alone westerns and a handful of horror novels under the pen name Jack MacLane. And he wrote dozens of short stories, some featuring his series characters, such as Rhodes or college professor Carl Burns or Sally Good. In a Mystery One Bookstore conversation, the author said, Both Carl and Sally are English department chairs, and both of them remind me a little of me.

Some of the experiences they have, and some of the student papers they grade, are awfully close to reality. The murders, of course, are all made up. Crider partnered with television weatherman Willard Scott to craft two crime novels featuring Stanley Waters, a TV weatherman naturally. He has written three Mike Gonzo tales for young adult readers and one juvenile novel based on the popular Public Television character Wishbone. I became an English teacher because I love stories, and to me, that meant tales with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Mysteries never let me down in that regard. Bill Crider interview, Mystery One Bookstore, http: Bill Crider profile, Contemporary Authors Online, http: Hockensmith, Steve, Bill Crider interview, Writerinterviews, http: Born in Dallas in , the author grew up in suburban Richardson. She learned to read at an early age, thanks to the attention of her maternal grandmother, a retired teacher. In she graduated from Austin College with a B. Deborah had been an anglophile from an early age and, as a teen, had devoured British mysteries.

Living in Britain was a dream come true. She took delight in exploring the city and countryside. And in she wrote her first book, while raising her daughter. In their first outing, A Share in Death , Kincaid, a bachelor, is attempting to vacation in Yorkshire when he nearly witnesses a murder an electrocution in a Jacuzzi and intrudes upon the local investigation. James, meanwhile, a single mom, is still on the job in London and provides remote backup as needed for Kincaid to narrow in on the killer. And I insisted on fair play—the reader should have every clue the detective has.

That, plus all the reading I do, I hear the speech patterns in my head. What the reader gets is usually only the tip of the iceberg. With her series well established, Crombie said on her web page that she now has a good idea where her characters are headed over the next couple of books. And some of my minor characters have been known to run away with things, which is always great fun. Deborah Crombie website, http: Daheim, a native of Seattle, Washington, was born in She took to storytelling early on—by making crude pictures—as a tot.

An only child with chronic physical ailments, she was often obliged to entertain herself, she has said. She devoured books as a teen, particularly Cherry Ames juveniles. So Daheim earned a B. She married David C. Daheim, a college professor, and they raised three daughters, who are now grown. She worked as a communications expert with Northwest Bell, other telecommunications companies, and banks. Daheim thrives on research. I like research and do a lot of it. I consider myself a storyteller, not a novelist. The titles often employ puns.

The guests have a rollicking first night, until their hired fortune teller, Madame Gushenka, turns up dead. Her tea was laced with insecticide. She recruits friend Joe Flynn, a policeman, to lure the killer into the open. For her curious offering of characters, Daheim looked no further than her own family. As she said in an About. She went home to live with her mother, who is the basis for Gertrude. Those things have actually happened. The titles are alphabetical. Lord has been publisher—editor of a weekly newspaper, the Alpine Advocate, for a year, and she is yet to land a really big story.

But be careful what you wish for. Mark Doukas is murdered. With the 16th book in the series, The Alpine Pursuit , the books began to appear in hardcover. Alpine was once a real town. Once a Snoop, Always A. Mary Daheim webpage, http: Hard Road , the private detective and her nephew, Jeremy, attend the Chicago Oz Fest and witness two murders—and go on the run to elude the killers.

She attended Cornell University. She graduated from Northwestern University in with a B. She has worked at a range of jobs, from assistant surgical orderly to carpenter for a stage magic show to researcher for a law office. She has taught mystery writing and been president of Mystery Writers of America — and Sisters in Crime International.

Her first experience writing was a cooperative venture with her husband, crafting two-act musical comedies The Magic Man, , among them performed in Chicago. Her research into the Dr. Beyond that, she has written crime fiction in the Gerritt De Graaf beginning in , Cat Marsala beginning in , and Suze Figueroa and Norm Bennis beginning in series.

You can also blend in. Chicago has every ethnic neighborhood known to man. She does considerable research for each new book. In the case of Hard Luck , in which she wanted one of the characters to be pushed off the roof of City Hall, she looked further—and that turned out to be a good thing.

A roof barrier would have prevented precisely the crime she was going to present. The ninth floor worked. Tree plantations figured in her novel Hard Christmas She found a handy murder weapon: As she said in an interview on the Come Unity website, One of my big hopes with [White Male Infant] is that people who read it would take a good look at the possibility of unethical adoption agencies.

Of course my main hope is that people would realize how many babies around the world will have no family and in many cases no life unless we do something. Once she gets her teeth into a case, Schulz is a tenacious, adept crime solver, the author said. The author was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in She grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and married James Davidson, an electrical engineer, in They have three children. She attended Wellesley College and received a double B. She received an M. She has been a teacher in public school and Episcopal Sunday school. Davidson has also volunteered as a rape counselor and a tutor at a juvenile correctional facility.

She has been a political activist and is a licensed lay preacher in the Episcopal Church. As of this writing, Davidson lives in Evergreen, Colorado. The determined Davidson wrote three manuscripts before one sold. She initially wanted to be a literary writer and wrote several short stories and a couple of novels. An editor at St. With her youngest son in preschool, Davidson joined a writers group. She made daily visits to a local eatery and wrote. But she took nothing for granted. She volunteered with the caterer and learned what it was like to serve a hundred people at a wedding or fundraiser or political gathering.

The bonus recipes in her books come from her own kitchen experiences. She is divorced from Dr. John Korman, whom she refers to as The Jerk, and has a new romantic interest and eventual husband , police detective Tom Shulz. And sometimes they are edgy mysteries as well.

But only for a brief time. Someone kills him, and Goldy is the prime suspect. Davidson touches on the subject of spousal abuse and might have gone further in expressing her outrage had her editor allowed. Then another opportunity arose for her to discuss the topic. To celebrate the th anniversary of Denver, the Rocky Mountain News commissioned fiction writers to use the city as a setting for new stories.

The author told reporter Patti Thorn of Rocky Mountain News, I absolutely wanted to convey a sense of hope in this story, because so many movies and novels just end with this terribly downbeat denouement. The author had a conversation with a Denver police officer about what it was like to think of oneself as a failure.

Cereal Murders review, Publishers Weekly, Sept. Diane Mott Davidson web page, Random House, http: The real Edward II escaped imprisonment and lived his last years in exile in Italy, or so Doherty claims. Whether that aspiration comes to fruition, Doherty put his theory to paper for his first novel, The Death of a King , and was pleased with the result.

Latest #bookswithdogs Posts

Doherty told interviewer Michael Shankland, I tend to regard historical fiction as speculative history. In other words, it allows you to experience, to theorize as well as to create an imaginative environment for the theorizing to take place. As Doherty well knew, there is no shortage of historical crimes, murders, and puzzles to be brushed off and rerendered as mystery novels.

He came upon many of his ideas while writing his thesis for Oxford University. Born in in Middlesborough, England, he attended Liverpool University from to and received a first class honors degree. At Exeter College, Oxford, he earned B. He studied for the Catholic priesthood at Durham for three years but left to become a teacher and, since , has been school administrator at Trinity Catholic School. He met his future wife, Carla Lynn Corbitt, at Exeter.

They have six children and live near Epping Forest, between London and Essex.