1–What is the title of your latest release?
THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE AND HER JUST OKAY ASSISTANT
2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A brilliant Boomer detective and her spunky Gen Z assistant struggle to get along in this delightful, feel-good murder mystery.
3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Answer: Years ago, I spent a few days at a beautiful resort on Vermont’s Lake Champlain. It was definitely the lap of luxury. All you had to do was eat, sleep, and enjoy as many activities as you wanted from all the ones available. Though the place was wonderful in many respects, life there was so perfectly curated that it brought out my suspicious side. I kept wondering what, if any, disreputable things might be going on behind the scenes. When I was looking for a place to stage my murder mystery, that resort immediately popped into my mind. It was perfect. I didn’t even consider anything else.
4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
I have it on good authority that neither Aubrey Merritt nor Olivia Blunt want to hang out with me. They’re really sick of the way I’m always lurking in the background, observing them so minutely and scribbling notes. “Hey, we’re the detectives here, not you!” they’d probably say if I gave them the chance. So I stay quietly in the background and try not to bother them too much.
5–What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Aubrey Merritt is brilliant, hardworking, and uncompromising. Olivia Blunt is delightful.
6–What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That sometimes people love each other more than they let on.
7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit constantly. If I read a page of my published book right now, I’d probably want to make a bunch of changes. When I’m composing a draft, I push the story forward slowly, one earned step after another. But I might at the same time be sketching out new scenes in a notebook in a random, almost thoughtless way.
8–What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Maine oysters with horseradish.
9–Describe your writing space/office!
My office is colorful and comfortable. I have a huge painting that’s just a big orange swirl and another that’s some kind of green projectile moving through a dark blue background that might be the ocean or space. The chair my dog, Fred, sleeps on is dark green, pillows on the couch are yellow, and I have a red bulletin board featuring wonderful photos of people I love. The whole thing gives off a kind of kindergarten vibe.
10–Who is an author you admire?
My most admired author is Anthony Horowitz. His Hawthorne/Horowitz series and his Susan Ryland books inspire me. His writing style is simple and clear, but everything his characters say is smart and true, and he describes settings better than anyone I know. The Susan Ryeland books are feats of imagination and careful planning that push the boundaries of what can be done. And don’t get me started on Foyle’s War, which is the only TV series my husband has watched in its entirety, without voicing a single complaint. And while I have never read his wildly popular Alex Rider series, I applaud any writer who uses his gifts to entertain and inspire young adults. In 2022 Horowitz was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) Award, which apparently entitles him to use a special chapel in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Those Brits really know how to honor a guy!
11–Is there a book that changed your life?
There are many. But the book that comes to mind right now is Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, which charts the downfall of unmarried Lily Bart in Gilded Age New York. Wharton is a relentless truth teller, every detail speaks, every character is complex and layered, and there was not one moment when I didn’t believe that Lily was real. The book stays with you because there’s no single problem you can put your finger on, just the confluence of many forces that no one can control.
12–Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
When I got “the call” the first time, when my first novel was accepted for publication, I didn’t really know what to think. I had no idea how my agent had found the editor, or why the editor had chosen my book, or what would happen next. I felt like I was stepping into an alien world and, while I was happy, I was also a little scared. I didn’t know what “being an author” would require.
13–What’s your favorite genre to read?
Lately I’ve really been enjoying memoirs. Patric Gagne’s Sociopath is a fascinating account of the author’s struggle to understand herself, to help other people with the same neurodivergent condition, and to reframe a personality type that has been locked in the shadows, misunderstood, and feared (in many cases, rightly).
Also, Patrick Bringley’s All the Beauty in the World is a beautifully written account of the decade the author spent as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after his older brother’s death from cancer.
These are two very different books, but both are brave and insightful. When you close the covers, you feel like the authors have given you a sacred piece of themselves.
14–What’s your favorite movie?
Dr. Zhivago
15–What is your favorite season?
I enjoy all the months of the year except the cold, muddy period from mid-February to mid-April. (T.S. Eliot said April was the cruelest month, but it’s really March.) During the other months, there’s always something to love, especially here in New England where the seasons change.
16–How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
A quiet dinner with friends.
17–What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Recently I’ve been listening to “The Huberman Lab Podcast” which discusses neuroscience and science-based tools, including how our brains and other organs are wired together to control our perceptions, behaviors, and health. We’re definitely a weird and complicated species.
18–What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
This might sound like a dodge, but I really do like everything. A well-cooked meal with fresh ingredients is a gift in any language.
19–What do you do when you have free time?
Read! And talk to people on the phone or go out to dinner with friends.
20–What can readers expect from you next?
Aubrey Merritt and Olivia Blunt are off to a ranch in the New Mexico desert to celebrate the 40th reunion of the Sarah Lawrence Chapter of the Sigma Delta Tau sorority. There’s a great cast of characters, including a retired US Army Brigadier General, a therapist from Santa Cruz, a famous fantasy writer, a middle school science teacher, and a biochemist from MIT. Oh, and there’s a death threat. Pandemonium ensues.
THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE AND HER JUST OKAY ASSISTANT by Liza Tully
A great detective’s young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.
Olivia Blunt doesn’t want to be an assistant detective for the rest of her life. She’s determined to learn everything she can from her mentor and renowned investigator, Aubrey Merritt, but the latter is no easy grader.
After weeks of fielding phone calls from parties desperate for the world-renowned detective’s help, a case comes across Olivia’s desk that just might be worthy of Merritt’s skills. On the evening of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman—rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police have ruled it a suicide, but her daughter Haley thinks it was murder.
Merritt is ever the skeptic, but Olivia believes Haley. Plus, she’s desperate to prove her investigative skills to her aloof boss. But the Summersworth family drama is a complicated web.
Olivia realizes she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing… or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one she’d started with.
Mystery Private Eye [Berkley, On Sale: July 8, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9780593816776 / eISBN: 9780593816783]
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About Liza Tully
Liza Tully is a pseudonym for Elisabeth Brink, who writes dark thrillers under the name Elisabeth Elo, as well as literary fiction under the name Elisabeth Panttaja Brink. To learn more about her suspense novels visit elisabethelo.com.
Before turning to fiction writing, she worked as an editor at a children’s magazine, a project manager at a tech company, and a counselor at a halfway house. A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University, she earned a PhD in American Literature from Brandeis University, and is the author of scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as Cinderella and Walt Whitman. She lives in Boston, MA.
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