This Job is Killing Me

The Sleuth
Pauline Sokol is an ex-RN, who becomes a medical insurance fraud investigator. Pauline is an engaging heroine with her chutzpah and charisma. She is able to laugh at herself and roll with the punches. She is also a passionate woman who has not married, but is torn between two sexy and charming men: Nick, her co-worker and Jagger, a detective.

The Sleuth
Lacey Smithsonian is a fashion reporter, whose running commentary on social mores in Washington D.C. is hilarious and her pithy observations about fashion and its relationship with scandal, the law and murder will have readers in tears of laughter (don't wear fashionable mascara).

Byerrum says, “Lacey was a character in my imagination long before she appeared in the Crime of Fashion mystery series. For years I carried around in my head the first few lines of Killer Hair and the image of Lacey Smithsonian looking down at a beautiful young woman in a coffin with the worst haircut she'd ever seen. Lacey was amusing and persistent, and luckily she and I got along, because now she’s striding stylishly through her first mysteries in her high heels and her knockout vintage suits, and more of her adventures are on the horizon. Besides, she had a car and she had a camera, so of course I said, "You're hired!"

Baxter describes her big break into the mystery genre as “coming up with an idea that really excited me: building a mystery series around a female veterinarian with a clinic on wheels. As a lifelong animal lover, I thought it would be fun to write about a vet and the animals in her life, both her patients and her own pets—and that the mobility her job provided would give her plenty of opportunities to investigate murders. I was also enthusiastic about setting the series on Long Island, since I knew its varied aspects would provide some great backdrops for murder mysteries—the Hamptons' celebrities, the polo culture, and the vineyards on the North Fork, to name a few.”

The Sleuth
Veterinarian Jessica Popper runs her own vet service on wheels, stumbles on corpses and chases killers. Sometimes she enlists the aid of her on-again, off-again lover, PI Nick Burby. Jess displays the stubbornness of a bloodhound and the agile moves of a cat as she solves crimes.

She has worked as an academic librarian in Walla Walla, a speechwriter in Seattle, and even a nanny in Singapore. As a writer, she's written both in the science fiction and mystery genres. Her mystery series features Carnegie Kincaid, a bridal consultant. She writes with a bubbly blend of humour, romance and intrigue.

Deborah now lives in Idaho with her husband (also a writer) and two Welsh Corgis.

The Sleuth
Carnegie Kincaid is a wedding planner - always a bridal consultant, but seemingly doomed to never be a bride. Working out of her Seattle houseboat, she is the kind of woman anyone would want for a best friend.

When not writing, she collects a variety of items, including s buttons, Bakelite, pottery, vintage potholders, keys, and locks. She has three children, and lives in the Chicago area with her husband.

The Sleuth
Jane Wheel, recently laid off from her PR job and separated from her professor husband, is making ends meet as an antiques picker, by foraging through garage and estate sales, flea markets and the odd auction in search of "killer stuff". She also has a knack for finding clues and solving crimes.

The Sleuth
Molly Doyle was a hotshot dealer in New York until her dramatic public downfall and arrest, caused by her husband's scamming and philandering. She is exiled to the Left Coast and a friend sets her up in a ramshackle antiques shop on the Monterey Peninsula. Doyle, antique dealer, is an appealing protagonist, a mixture of anger, savvy and vulnerability. She also seems authentic, the kind of character you could actually know and like. She is a strong woman who can handle herself but never seems like a feminine man, which unfortunately happens with too many female mystery characters.

The Sleuth
Persia Rose Vanderbilt, 31 years old and in the wake of a failed marriage, returns home to scenic Gull Harbor, Wasington, where she helps out, as “scent mixer” at her independent aunt Florence's bath and beauty shop, Venus Envy. Persia blends her own intoxicating fragrances, and and now she can do it for customers. She has a nose for mixing scents, and a mind for solving murder.

Her first published piece of fiction consisted of some short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Her first novel (a romance called A Glimpse of Forever) was published in 1995. Linda gave up her full-time law job to concentrate on writing.

She's a member of the Orange County, Los Angeles and RWA Mystery-Suspense chapters of the Romance Writers of America, as well as The Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She taught romance writing at California State University Northridge College of Extended Learning.

On the personal front, she has two grown sons. She makes her home in Los Angeles with her husband and 2 Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

The Sleuth
“I’m Kendra Ballantyne, age thirty-five, a lawyer. Happily single, since my taste in men sucks, at least until lately. I followed my childhood dream and became a lawyer and I’ve been practicing law for nearly ten years. I am, was, a civil litigator with one of the most prestigious firms in Los Angeles, Marden, Sergement & Yurick.. Only those childhood dreams of mine never suggested I’d get my license to practice law suspended, especially not for ethics violations

Not long ago, I bought an absolutely gorgeous showpiece of a big home, on the San Fernando Valley side of the Santa Monica Mountains. And did I ever have a view from there, lights at night, greenery, buildings and smog during the day, perfecto! Of course it came with a mortgage and, fortunately, it also came with an apartment over the detached garage. That’s where I live now with Lexie, since I can no longer afford the life of luxury I led when my law license remained intact. I’ve had to rent out the main house just to support the mortgage.

Without living the life of a super litigator with its commensurate more than comfortable remuneration I needed an income. That’s when I turned to my good friend and owner of the Doggy Indulgence Day Resort Darryl Nestler for advice and then turned myself into a pet-sitter.

And damned if I didn’t love it as much as I’d adored being an attorney.
So that’s it, at least until my pet-sitting clients started dropping dead just before I was scheduled to drop in and take care of their animals. Dropping dead? Hell, they were murdered.

Did I turn to my favorite pet-sitting client, and more, Jeff Hubbard, a security consultant and private investigator, for help? Kinda, but, you know what, I’ve said enough. Why don’t you just read Sit, Stay, Slay if you’re really interested in what happened? It’s a bit of an invasion of my privacy, but this Linda O. Johnston’s damned good at that. In fact, she’s writing more books about me”.

The Sleuth
Andrea "Andy" Blevins Kendricks is a 30-year-old Dallas web designer, reluctant heiress and deb ball refugee--and something of a black sheep to her her dyed-in-the-wool Chanel-wearing socialite mother Cissy. Andy dropped out of her deb ball and defied her socialite mother by going to art school and ultimately working as a web designer.

Morgan's fifth book in her antique-lover's mystery series featuring antiques picker (and former FBI agent) Jeff Talbot was published in April 2006. This crossover mystery series is published by Berkley Prime Crime. Others in the series are Death is a Cabaret, The Weedless Widow, The Marriage Casket, Four on the Floor.

The Sleuth
Jeffrey (Jeff) Talbot is the main character in a mystery series featuring the antiques world. He drives a '48 Chevy woodie, collects a variety of antiques, and is a former FBI agent. Now, he's making a living as an antiques picker, someone who hunts down and purchases antiques at a bargain, then resells them for profit. The Chevy woodie is perfect for hauling loot!

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. Tamar is busy writing her twenty-fourth mystery.

The Sleuth
Abigail Timberlake, owner of the Den of Antiquity, recently divorced (but never bitter!) is accustomed to delving into the past, searching for lost treasures, and navigating the cutthroat world of rival dealers at flea markets and auctions. Still, she never thought she'd be putting her expertise in mayhem and detection to other use--until she starts to encounter murders in the antique world.

After a formal foray into films with film criticism, writing reviews for three major newspapers in Pune, she plunged into film making with a children’s film called “The Ranpar Mystery” which was screened in the Children’s Film Festival in Delhi and then went to Toronto, Canada.

Recently she wrote the story, script and dialogues for a Hindi feature film, directed by her sister Purnima. “Kuchh Dil Ne Kaha”, a psychological mystery thriller produced by NFDC. The production designing of the film was also handled by Dr Prabhu and her mother.

“My Ph. D. was about the image of the Indian woman in Hindi films and the study included six directors and their films along with an audience poll,” she says. “I later converted this thesis into a book called “Roles: Reel and Real”.

A children’s television producer for the last 18 years, her program has a daily telecast in the state-run Doordarshan. Dr Prabhu is married to Bipinchandra Chaugule, also a television producer.

And although, all she wanted to do as a child is write, Dr Prabhu went on to obtain a Master’s degree in French from the University of Pune. Simultaneously, she did her Post Graduate Diploma in Mass Communication from Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai and finally her Ph.D. in Communication Science from the University of Pune.

Is she a television producer and a writer, or a writer and a television producer? “A writer first,” exclaims Dr Prabhu. “But at this point, it is difficult for me to separate the two. Even when I write, I visualize every scene in terms of a film and not simply as a book.”

The Sleuth
Sonia Samarth, private investigator, operates Stellar Investigations in Pune, India. Stellar is a private detective agency based on the principles of Vedic Hindu astrology, a not so outlandish idea in a place where just about everyone keeps a horoscope handy. Sonia is quick to point out that she uses astrology, which she considers a true science, as a map to help guide her investigations; otherwise she employs all the standard detective tools, including interviews, surveillance and lots of legwork. But if a horoscope tells her that the accused is not capable of committing a crime, Sonia knows she has to look elsewhere.

She graduated from The University of Southern California with a degree in communications, where she studied journalism and hoped to be a reporter. But deep down inside, she’d never given up on being a fiction author. Fate intervened and during Michele’s senior year at college she became pregnant with her first son who was born six weeks prematurely. She had to stay home with her newborn, who needed constant care and it was at that time she decided to write her first book.

She contacted Writer’s Digest and ordered their correspondence course on writing a novel. For ten years Michele kept writing, submitting, attending conferences and workshops and receiving rejections but never giving up.

Finally in March 2004, Jessica Faust at Bookends signed her as a client. One month later Michele received THE CALL from Jessica telling her that she had a publisher—Berkley Prime Crime, and that they wanted to sign her for three books in The Wine Lover’s Mystery Series. “It was surreal, wonderful and a “dream come true” when my agent called and told me. That night my husband and I got a really nice bottle of Champagne and celebrated." Then in December that second call came in about The Equine Mystery Series.

Michele writes full time now and lives in San Diego with her very supportive husband, two sons and daughter.

The Sleuth
Nikki Sands was like every other aspiring actress—waiting tables between jobs. But Nikki had taken serving wines to heart. She knew enough to impress Napa Valley’s golden boy, Derek Maleveaux, who offered her a job, as vineyard manager, at his vineyard. And though Nikki may have left her dreams of stardom behind, the work of wine is ripe with intrigue - and the seeds of sleuthing are planted.

The Sleuth
Skibbins says of his protagonist, Warren Ritter, “he’s a manic-depressive, ex-60's-bomb-throwing radical, living underground as a Tarot card reader on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. How's that for different?”

The Sleuth
Molly Appleby, raised by her antiques-loving mother, is carrying on the tradition as a writer for an antiques magazine. She has a keen knowledge of antiques, and a special fondness for collectibles, as well as being an amateur sleuth.

The Sleuth
Sweeney St. George is a history professor and a specialist in gravestones and funerary art. Taylor says of her main character, “Sweeney is, above all else, an art historian, and she's in love with her specialty -- funerary art. She is never happier than when she's tracking down the history of a gravestone or piece of mourning jewelry, trying to figure out who created it and why. She's fascinated by the ways in which human beings have responded and respond to death, and when she becomes curious about something, it's impossible for her to let go until she's achieved understanding. She has experienced a lot of death in her young life, and that gives her first-hand knowledge of the things she studies and it gives her a melancholy, troubled nature that she is only starting to understand. She is adventuresome, stubborn, and sometimes prickly, but she's funny and fun, and she loves and lives intensely. She has a hard time letting people in.”

She is the author of thirteen published novels in which a great many people die, often unpleasantly. Her work includes both series and standalone mysteries, an Academy-Award nominated short film, and Convictions: A Novel of the Sixties. Her books have been finalists for Best Novel in the Agatha, Macavity, Left Coast Crime Western Regional, and San Diego Book Awards.

Her Booked for Travel mystery series, written under the pseudonym Emily Toll, has visited Sonoma Wine Country, California Gold Rush country, Autumn in New England, and the Florida Keys. She completed The Tumbleweed Murders, a Claire Sharples Botanical Mystery begun by her friend and colleague, Rebecca Rothenberg, who died in 1998.

She has worked a multitude of odd jobs from carnival barker to professional feminist, but intends her epitaph to read: "She Never Waitressed." She once correctly wagered everything on a Women Writers Daily Double as a Jeopardy contestant.

She lives in Southern California, where she runs a Friends of the Library Bookstore and was recently honored with a President's Volunteer Service Lifetime Achievement Award for giving over 4000 hours of community service to the library.

The Sleuth
Lynne Montgomery is a travel agent, and one of the most realistic fictional fiftyish women you’ll read of. Lynne rediscovers her first love after she is widowed - travel. With the money from her husband’s insurance policy, she’s able to buy the travel agency she worked for. As a tour group leader for well-heeled vacationers, she has more than an educational experience, when murder adds itself to the itinerary.

Living in South Florida has not improved her character. But it has given her the bestselling Dead-End Job series. Like her amateur detective, Helen Hawthorne, Elaine actually works those rotten jobs. Perhaps her early training has given her a lifelong fascination with jobs. She and Helen both know working for a living can be murder.

To research her novels, Elaine has been everything from a salesclerk to a survey taker. Her first book in the series is Shop Till You Drop, a novel of sex, murder and plastic surgery. It's set at a fashionable dress shop that caters to kept women. Book two, Murder Between the Covers, takes place at a bookstore. Elaine worked at a Barnes & Noble in Hollywood, Florida, for a year.

For the third, Dying To Call You, Helen works as a telemarketer. Elaine sold septic tank cleaner and did telephone surveys. She actually asked women if they shaved their armpits. In the fourth Dead-End Job mystery, Just Murdered, Elaine and Helen explore big-money matrimony for better or worse. Elaine did her research in Zola Keller’s posh bridal salon in Fort Lauderdale.

For the fifth novel, Elaine and Helen go to the dogs Murder Unleashed is set at a high-end dog boutique, where people spend two hundred dollars for canine cuisine, women sneak illegal pets into condos using high-priced designer purses, and the dogs at the store have bigger wardrobes than the salesclerks. MURDER UNLEASHED is Elaine's first hardcover mystery. Publishers Weekly calls it “wry social commentary.”

Elaine’s second series takes her back to work in St. Louis. It features Josie Marcus, a mystery shopper and single mom. The debut novel, Dying In Style, tied with Stephen King on the bestseller list for the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

Elaine lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with her husband, actor Don Crinklaw, where they collect speeding tickets.

The Sleuths
Helen Hawthorne used to make six figures at her job in St. Louis, until she came home from work early one day. Her husband, Rob, was supposed to be working on the back deck. Instead, he was nailing their neighbor, Sandy. Helen picked up a crowbar and, well . . . Now Helen is on the run in South Florida, working dead-end jobs to stay out of the computers and away from her ex-husband and the court, both want her, but not for anything good.

Josie Marcus is a St. Louis single mom and a mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers, or secret shoppers, evaluate store service, cleanliness, etc. Josie considers herself a one-woman consumer protection agency, making sure the consumer she calls Mrs. Minivan, is treated properly. She lives in suburban Maplewood with her shopaholic mother and her nine-year-old daughter, Amelia.

Many women would kill for her job. It doesn’t pay much, but it gives Josie what she really wants – freedom.

The Sleuth
Garth Carson is a taxidermy restorer and collector. Leaping fishes, prowling bobcats, frosty penguins and mute moose heads fill the Garth’s life as he buys, sells and rents exotic taxidermy from his funky New York storefront. His live-in girlfriend, Angie, is a jewelry designer.

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