Death on the Menu

Stanton's career as a fiction writer began with the publication of her first novel, THE HEAVENLY HORSE FROM THE OUTERMOST WEST in 1984. A beast fable similar in tone and theme to WATERSHIP DOWN, it was published in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. The sequel to that novel, PIPER AT THE GATES, appeared in 1989. She sold her first mystery to The Berkley Publishing Group in 1994. In the past eight years, Stanton has written twelve mystery novels, eleven novels for middle-grade readers, including the successful series THE UNICORNS OF BALINOR, three scripts for a television cartoon series, Princess Gweinvere (sic)and the Jewel Riders. and edited two short story anthologies. Her nonfiction articles on horse care and veterinary medicine have appeared in national and regional magazines.

Stanton's interests outside writing have remained consistent over the years. She is a horsewoman, an enthusiastic (if inept) gardener, and a fan of gourmet food, but not an expert. (Her youngest sister Whit, a dressage trainer, is a professional quality cook. The character of Meg Quilliam, the short, hot-tempered chef in the Hemlock Falls series, owes much to Stanton's sister as well as her good friend Nancy Kress.) She has developed a writing program for teens and middle grade readers that has had considerable success in schools.

The Detectives:
Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah Quilliam, with her talent for business, runs the Inn at Hemlock Falls. Her sister, Meg, keeps the guests happy with her culinary abilities. But when it comes to murder, the Quilliam sisters have to rely on other skills--spotting clues, solving crimes, catching culprits...

Diane Mott Davidson lives in Evergreen, Colorado with her husband and three sons and is the author of nine bestselling culinary mysteries including PRIME CUT, THE GRILLING SEASON and DYING FOR CHOCOLATE. She is currently at work on her eleventh novel.

The Detective:
Gertrude "Goldy" Bear is divorced from her abusive husband and has an eleven year-old son named Arch. She manages her own catering business called Goldilocks Catering, and is frequently embroiled in murder. The books include recipes that Goldy uses in her catering business.

Nancy Fairbanks Herndon was born and brought up in the St. Louis area, took bachelors degrees in English and Journalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, an event almost as exciting and astonishing as the news, delivered by phone early one morning when she had been fast asleep, that her first book had been accepted for publication. She followed those two degrees with a Masters from Rice University, plus some doctoral work in English at New York University.

She held low-paying and not terribly interesting jobs as a typist, sales clerk, proofreader, and advertising copywriter, and then almost as low-paying but much more interesting jobs as a lecturer in English at Rice, NYU, University of Mississippi, Florida Atlantic University and University of Texas at El Paso. In 1989 her first historical romance, Wanton Angel, was published by Dorchester Publishing Co. in NYC under the pseudonym Elizabeth Chadwick. Six more historical romances and seven short stories in various anthologies followed before she published her first mystery, Acid Bath, with Berkley Prime Crime under her married name, Nancy Herndon.

After six additional comic police procedurals in the Elena Jarvis series, she began the Carolyn Blue culinary mystery series, written under her maiden name, Nancy Fairbanks. Crime Brulee, Truffled Feathers, Death a l’Orange, Chocolate Quake, and The Perils of Paella are in print with Unholy Guacamole to follow in November, 2004. Nancy has a new contract for three more Carolyn Blue novels with Berkley and is at work on a mystery that takes place in Sorrento, Italy. Each of these mysteries is situated in a different city (in some of which English is a second language, if spoken at all, including her hometown, El Paso, Texas, site of Unholy Guacamole). The series includes cultural history and recipes from the relevant areas, not to mention bizarre characters and adventures. Who, after all, expects to find a real corpse as part of an art exhibit?

The Detective:
Carolyn Blue is a forty-something homemaker who is through with cooking and cleaning. She's finally decided to throw in the dishtowel—and take on a dream job as a food writer and traveler to exotic places, dishing up murder and mayhem around the world.

Like Hannah Swensen, Joanne Fluke grew up in a small town in rural Minnesota where her neighbors were friendly, the winters were fierce, and the biggest scandal was the spotting of unidentified male undergarments on a young widow's clothesline. She insists that there really are 10,000 lakes and the mosquito is NOT the state bird.

While pursuing her writing career, Joanne has worked as: a public school teacher, a psychologist, a musician, a private detective's assistant, a corporate, legal, and pharmaceutical secretary, a short order cook, a florist's assistant, a caterer and party planner, a computer consultant on a now-defunct operating system, a production assistant on a TV quiz show, half of a screenwriting team with her husband, and a mother, wife, and homemaker.

She now lives in Southern California with her husband, her kids, his kids, their three dogs, one elderly tabby, and several noisy rats in the attic.

The Detective:
Hannah Swenson, owner of the popular Minnesota bakery, The Cookie Jar. The flame haired, cookie-baking heroine is known to have a tongue almost as biting as her gingersnaps!

Ellen Hart is a two-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Mystery/Detective Fiction, Ms. Hart is like her fictional heroine Sophie Greenway in two respects: both have had food-related careers (the author was a chef for twelve years) and both have college degrees in fundamentalist Christian theology. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner of 19 years.

The Detectives:
Jane Lawless is a restauranteur by profession and a detective by accident. W with the aid of her best friend and trusty sidekick Cordelia Thorn, she solves mysteries in the state of Minnesota.

Tamar Myers was born and raised in the Belgian Congo (now just the Congo). Her parents were missionaries to a tribe which, at that time, were known as headhunters and used human skulls for drinking cups. Hers was the first white family ever to peacefully coexist with the tribe, and Tamar grew up fluent in the local trade language. Because of her pale blue eyes, Tamar’s nickname was Ugly Eyes.

Tamar grew up eating elephant, hippopotamus and even monkey. She attended a boarding school that was two days away by truck, and sometimes it was necessary to wade through crocodile infested waters to reach it. Other dangers she encountered as a child were cobras, deadly green mambas, and the voracious armies of driver ants that ate every animal (and human) that didn’t get out of their way.

In 1960 the Congo, which had been a Belgian colony, became an independent nation. There followed a period of retribution (for heinous crimes committed against the Congolese by the Belgians) in which many Whites were killed. Tamar and her family fled the Congo, but returned a year later. By then a number of civil wars were raging, and the family’s residence was often in the line of fire. In 1964, after living through three years of war, the family returned to the United States permanently.
Tamar was sixteen when her family settled in America, and she immediately underwent severe culture shock. She didn’t know how to dial a telephone, cross a street at a stoplight, or use a vending machine. She lucked out, however, by meeting her husband, Jeffrey, on her first day in an American high school. They literally bumped heads while he was leaving, and she entering, the Civics classroom.

In college Tamar began to submit novels for publication, but it took twenty-three years for her to get published. Persistence paid off, however, because Tamar is now the author of two ongoing mystery series. One is set in Pennsylvania and features Magdalena Yoder, an Amish-Mennonite sleuth who runs a bed and breakfast in the mythical town of Hernia. The other is set in the Carolinas and centers around the adventures of Abigail Timberlake, the proud owner of a Charlotte (and later Charleston) antique store, the Den of Antiquity.

Tamar is proud to call South Carolina home. She now lives in Mt. Pleasant, where she is owned by a Basenj dog named Pagan.
In February 2003 Tamar Myers received the Order of the Palmetto, the highest honor the State of South Carolina bestows on civilians. She is a member of Pennwriters, Sisters in Crime, Novelists Inc., Mystery Writers of America, and is on the Advisory Council of the South Carolina Writer’s Workshop. She is also chairperson for the Edgars committee that will select Best First Novel of 2002.

The Detective:
Miss Magdalena Yoder is the owner of the PennDutch Inn. Her brother-in-law, Melvin Stolfus, is the local sheriff. Magdalena is frequently called upon to help Melvin solve his more difficult cases.

San Francisco native Joanne Pence grew up amidst the rich cultural diversity and culinary excellence of that city. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a master's degree in journalism and a Phi Beta Kappa key, Joanne has taught school in Japan, written for magazines and worked as an operations analysis manager. Fiction writing, however, always has been her first love. Her background, as well as her Italian and Spanish heritage, are reflected in her critically-acclaimed, award-winning mystery series. The series combines mystery with humor, romance and food culinary crime and murder keep getting in the way.

The Detectives:
Angie Amalfi, a wire-whisk wielding, restaurant-reviewing, boyfriend-baffling, wedding cake-wanting, family-flabbergasting, chocolate-consuming, job-jinxing, criminal-catching, super sleuth and San Francisco homicide inspector Paavo Smith
Angie wants two things in life--a good job, and Paavo—but culinary crime and murder keep getting in the way.

Lou Jane Temple is an adventurer. She has taken on the food world, cooking and catering, being a restaurateur, writing about food and wine, and authoring culinary mysteries featuring Heaven Lee. She has also been a guest chef at the Culinary Institute of American and at the famed James Beard Foundation. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Detective:
Heaven Lee one of Kansas City's premier caterers. With a string of failed careers behind her, Heaven's finally found her true love--Cafe Heaven.

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